Chidago Canyon Petroglyph, Detail of Previous Two
ADOLESCENZA
Questo ricordo di fiamme nel sangue,
quando l’alchimia del verbo evaporava
rugiada su uno stelo di preghiera,
e la mente era un alterco
fra la mia caricatura sediziosa
e il fantasma di me stesso,
tacendo il limite di morte
spesse volte in estasi truccate.
Vidi natività di serpe nel fogliame
farsi auspicio di sapienza,
nei bassifondi stregata
dell’eterno mutamento;
e una candela rischiarava
fogli pieni di illeggibile
scrittura in cerca di visione.
E poi ricordo che c’era una ragazza,
che chiamava il mare goccia
d’infinito, e poi rideva.
ADOLESCENCE
translated by Massimo Fantuzzi
This remembrance – blood ablaze,
a time when the alchemy of the verb
used to vaporize dew on a praying stalk
and mind was an altercation
between the seditious caricature
and the ghost of myself,
silent about the edge of death
often found in altered ecstasies.
I once saw a nativity of snakes in the foliage
becoming an omen of wisdom,
bewitched in the shantytowns
of endless change;
and a candle, accustomed to lit
full sheets of illegible
writings pursuing a vision.
Then, I remember, there was this girl
who used to call the sea drop
of infinity and giggle.
___________
Ettore Fobo
Review by Dave Mehler
In this poem I get a romantic tortured writer and activist—rebel—who is disillusioned and disaffected writing as an old man looking back in nostalgia at his ingenue younger self—the turn from abstract difficulty and opacity to the colloquial accessible last stanza is striking. The sentiment behind blood ablaze and a verb that vaporizes the thought of a praying mind (devout and intellectual) as a young rebellious naive idealist at war with the spirit within himself—altered ecstasies suggesting using substances is really striking but it took me forever to parse and consider this, and then the pagan search for wisdom in omens in the second stanza and desire for revelation, voice, meaning, desperate for something to say and have an impact, finished off by that third stanza? It’s striking to say the least.