What remains

A winter’s evening, city deserted,
long after dusk,
I happened to meet a glance
which some seconds before
I had perceived as the one.
What made me lift my head with such certainty
was not the nearing of the scuffling
but the quiver which struck me,
startled in joy and terror to be at last
next to living the arcane –
aware that I might at the same time lose it –
and this is why I remember it.
When she emerged from the dim light
I gazed more than a moment, as did she,
and in going beyond the understanding,
heads bowed, we lowered our eyes,
then, with a slackening of the pace, each made
a quarter turn of the head not to miss the
fleeting moment,
and what we said was profound,
and only now do I understand
why I will have her by my side for ever.
Everywhere, every moment,
someone is responsive to you, or something,
and around this everything revolves,
the rest is merely waiting and regret.

© Copyright 2023 Mauro Giovanelli “Seventy-nine writings or thereabouts”, life, love, death and the usual, second edition – Translation Italian-English: Philip Mc Court. – “Settantanove scritti o giù di lì”, vita, amore, morte, i soliti discorsi”, second edition, publications GEDI Gruppo editoriale SpA sito ilmiolibro

I am (already Sum)

Alive, I’m dreaming,
I think, I write,
I perceive the moment,
I exist.
I see, I also listen to the silence,
I am.
I feel your body,
I caress the immense,
I calm down,
I want to kiss you,
caress you with my chin.

I lift my eyes to the Sky,
I question myself,
I define the horizon,
the song of the undertow
throws every certainty into disarray,
I lower my eyes,
the shadow of a seagull
it cuts me in two
and moving away quickly on the sand
conveys the sensation of rocks trembling
and vanishes in the wind,
I followed it in vain
to gain time.

© Copyright 2023 Mauro Giovanelli “Seventy-nine writings or thereabouts”, life, love, death and the usual, second edition – Translation Italian-English: Philip Mc Court. – “Settantanove scritti o giù di lì”, vita, amore, morte, i soliti discorsi”, second edition, publications GEDI Gruppo editoriale SpA – sito ilmiolibro

Without return
(previously Volver)

God does not exist,
hence,
the Devil does not either.
Demons do –
like lightning
they enter your very persona,
without knocking,
you do not hear them
but they take possession
of the mind,
they bear memories
both yours and hers,
nothing eludes them,
they taste of life,
death, pain, joy,
and more besides – everything.
After all,
they are your offspring,
generated by you –
such is the outcome
when you are thoughtless
and you leave something
too important.

© Copyright 2023 Mauro Giovanelli “Seventy-nine writings or thereabouts”, life, love, death and the usual, second edition – Translation Italian-English: Philip Mc Court. – “Settantanove scritti o giù di lì”, vita, amore, morte, i soliti discorsi”, second edition, publications GEDI Gruppo editoriale S.p.A. sito ilmiolibro

Annihilated

As if you had been conceived
by the universe,
not this one, a different one,
much further remote,
prior to the perpetual cycle
which from the first immobile motor
will lead to everything ever yearned for.
I know nothing about you, distant is your light,
as it arrives, narrates the past,
but of your radiance I absorb every drop,
it quenches my thirst and strengthens me,
life’s source show me which turning
to take in order to nullify space between us,
so as to annihilate us towards infinity
making us one sole substance
each time lighter in releasing energy.
Thanks to an unknown principle
you are destined to me,
everything else is emptiness.

© Copyright 2023 Mauro Giovanelli “Seventy-nine writings or thereabouts”, life, love, death and the usual, second edition – Translation Italian-English: Philip Mc Court. – “Settantanove scritti
o giù di lì”, vita, amore, morte, i soliti discorsi”, second edition, publications GEDI Gruppo editoriale SpA sito ilmiolibro

The next journey

The next journey
will be more or less as follows,
first of all see you,
a caress on the face,
of the type you never forget,
you will raise your chin,
short of breath, intense,
like the she-wolf sniffing at the wind,
powerful embrace,
I will squeeze your waist,
my hand will slip down,
determined, warm,
all this to take away something of you
besides the kiss,
and the tension of your nape.

© Copyright 2023 Mauro Giovanelli “Seventy-nine writings or thereabouts”, life, love, death and the usual, second edition – Translation Italian-English: Philip Mc Court. – “Settantanove scritti
o giù di lì”, vita, amore, morte, i soliti discorsi”, second edition, publications GEDI Gruppo editoriale S.p.A. sito ilmiolibro

Without return
(previously Volver)

God does not exist,
hence,
the Devil does not either.
Demons do –
like lightning
they enter your very persona,
without knocking,
you do not hear them
but they take possession
of the mind,
they bear memories
both yours and hers,
nothing eludes them,
they taste of life,
death, pain, joy,
and more besides – everything.
After all,
they are your offspring,
generated by you –
such is the outcome
when you are thoughtless
and you leave something
too important.

© Copyright 2023 Mauro Giovanelli “Seventy-nine writings or thereabouts”, life, love, death and the usual, second edition – Translation Italian-English: Philip Mc Court. – “Settantanove scritti o giù di lì”, vita, amore, morte, i soliti discorsi”, second edition, publications GEDI Gruppo editoriale S.p.A. sito ilmiolibro

Future

How much future I have seen
in the little girl’s expression,
the instant it suddenly
changed from smile
to observing astonished, attentive,
how heavily the buzzing
hornet rests on the slim
stem of the swaying lavender.

© Copyright 2023 Mauro Giovanelli “Seventy-nine writings or thereabouts”, life, love, death and the usual, second edition – Translation Italian-English: Philip Mc Court. – “Settantanove scritti o giù di lì”, vita, amore, morte, i soliti discorsi”, second edition, publications GEDI Gruppo editoriale S.p.A. sito ilmiolibro

Beyond

When all the nouns
are finished,
combinations of notes
have run out,
every possible chord
terminated, harmony,
when we accept
the glitch
of finding one sole
unprecedented rhyme, line, assonance,
and when primary colours
have been eclipsed by the mixture
of limitless nuances,
even the most audacious
of the spectre of light,
when creativity
results saturated
with countless diversities
still concealed in the imagination
of Nature, or of a God
crazy, restless, desperate,
and when entropy
touches the highest high
in thermal death
which will undo the cosmos,
do not forget
to seize my hand –
with the other one I will free you from the chaos
to take you even further.

© Copyright 2023 Mauro Giovanelli “Seventy-nine writings or thereabouts”, life, love, death and the usual, second edition – Translation Italian-English: Philip Mc Court. – “Settantanove scritti o giù di lì”, vita, amore, morte, i soliti discorsi”, 2a edizione