“Urban Rhythms”

by Antonio De Lisa

Urban Rhythms is a collection of poems by Antonio De Lisa (originally in Italian)- Translation by the Author

PRELUDE

Night

The water flows slowly
calling the measure
and dignity of silence,
in the slowed mediocrity
of the night.

I.REMINDERS AND SPELLS

Weak Plot

Like a whisper
through
a piece of paper,
a love poem
creeps
in the weak plot
of our indecision,
to give voice
to the words
we know
and silences
to what
do not know.

FAR

Siren

I know a Siren
who sings only in secret.
She is as an image
than in the water sister of the air
moves quickly and appears only
sometimes, like an optical illusion.
But I hear her call,
as a silence that speaks to me plain.
I wish I had her name
and the face of nobody
in the night that whispers slow.

Thousand  Waves

My roots are in the sea,
lulled and transported
by the current of the waves.

It is the wave that moves me
like a cork
in the vortex flow.

It is the wave that pushes me
away from this,
to another time.

It is the wave of the time
that makes me cherish
another sea breezes.

It is the wave that whispers to me
to go among the people,
away from the tomb

of false appearances.
It is the wave that whispers to me,
as in an echo of sirens,

the need to go,
even if the goal is less
important than the journey.

The wave sings
with sweet words
the path of pilgrimage.

The wave shows
perhaps the place
for reunification.

Maybe it’s just an illusion, the call
of another era, but it is the wave
that leads me to the shipwreck.

A YOUNG WOMAN BEYOND THE SEA

Game of chess with Imène

Imène and I now speak
the risky language of symbols,
which mingle with alternating doses
intelligence and poetry, reason and purity.
We are arranging the pieces
of a psycholinguistics grammar
on the board of our unique
human relationship.

The board is still the center of the square.
Imène is playing white, I with black.
Her white is like a white veil,
my black is deeper than the mystery.

My turn to open, the most difficult:
move pieces prefigures
the dynamics of being,
his incessant becoming.

One wrong move will force us
to strenuous pursuits,
and disastrous reconquests,
but we will probably sufficiently sensitive
to each other not to let us weigh.
None of us will rise from the table
by throwing game pieces.

Imène makes a move, smart,
I was enchanted to look at her,
how you look at the life and death
and she blasted the bishop.

The white symbolizes the faith of Imène,
my black the sense of unease
and mystery that always expresses
my troubled relationship with the world.
And faith in Arabic is called Imène.
Faith? But what is faith?
Faith against whom?
At twenty-three can be
so faithful to give up
their identity?

Now that of the Imène is a siege,
I am several times in check.
I can only parry the blows.
It is the movement of her hand that enchants me,
It has a secret geometry, fast and elegant.

The faith of Imène is the counterpoint
to my angry wandering,
the stability of Imène is the counterpoint
to my sense of risk and elsewhere.
I showed the photos:
Imène chose a red rose,
which in our symbolic vocabulary
is a symbol of fidelity, not of passion.

And now I see that she is winning
the game.
She gave me a check.

II.MARGARET. HOW A STORY

Urban Rhythms

I am dreaming on old brochures for trips to China
while Jane is reading Barbara Pym’s old novels
in the kitchen for rent of Winterwell Road.
She repents of having touched the key
to our usual quarrel earlier.
She leaves in a black car like a cockroach.
I am only now in the house sounding like a slap.
During the night the fog surrounding the garden
in a fairy tale bleary.

I am accumulating sheets, old Viennese lieder,
dramatic Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim’s dialogues,
smoking without desire.
My hand is tracking marks on paper,
it is rasping, snaging, scratching,
as the key in the lock.
Jane is back, but not alone.

Lying on the carpet of Nepal
We are sucking candy vanilla,
whispering distracted memories of love
articulated by hydraulic salon fashioned clock time as a lie.
It is sweet to put the bridle on vanity forget,
gasps of pride,
ambitions wasted.
Jane unfolds like a bored cat,
a little angry at times,
languorous feline lurking
and Margaret intimidated.

We are going up the reggae-button Brixton Hill …
to risk his life, a life to bear, it’s just nothing.
The city is a field of rubble,
buzzes with irregular breathing at night,
bright as a butcher,
in an hour and the other is always moving:
coffee cups, gossip and mental shampoes.
The city is a field of rubble.
It is dirty, but seems happy with its windows polished.
A drizzle vain
is dusting interminable
lies in short notes,
like a song annoying.

In the fog looming
humans attend to my fighting love in a dream.

Counting Steps

Counting the steps of this room
is like trying to enumerate the infinite,
it’s not enough -to make it commensurable –
a song of hate and love by Leonard Cohen.
My mistakes chime the hours and minutes
one by one, unaware of what awaits them,
as children unawares of tomorrow.

The night creeps on the day
to numb it with its edges,
until it is pale and striated,
while a swarm of memories thickens
and touches the wall to tell me
that nothing is ever finished,
that nothing is ever really began.

The wait evokes strange figures
saying to me with suffered but feigned indifference,
that the voice of that face will not come,
than on the love you once again
wrong.
Love never really lost,
never really recovered.

@ 2010 Antonio De Lisa

All rights reserved

—

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