Italian poetry by Alberto Nessi and Giorgio Orelli. Peta italiano
Two poems for the cat by Alberto Nessi.
The Disappearance
Little is left from her life: the the wall boards
scratched by her claws, her ghost that visits us
every night when we think we spot her in the geraniums, the stories
of her adventures among the cacti
pirouetting, pouncing, dancing with the flies
the rivalry with the other cats we’d shoo away
as if she was of a higher feline race
and not a just a gentle moggie. Only traces and ghosts
of life remain
A cat like her
someone has poisoned her on purpose
or some peasant skinned and ate her —
but what if she ran away from home, a young girl looking for love
and what if we saw her again tomorrow, standing still
in the middle of the patio
protecting our equally precarious lives?
[…cat returns…]
“due poesie per la gatta La scomparsa della sua vita è rimasto poco: il pannello di pavatex graffiato dalle…”
In autumn by Giorgio Orelli.
Catlike in the salamander’s
slimy yellow
between the hedge and the tarmac: I didn’t even
see the face of the boy who
almost ran over me at the bend with his bike.
The rain was hosing down sideways
so much that it darkened the mood of the cows
near the high school:
in groups, dazed,
they forsook the grass,
and lowed miserably at the sky.
(Outlines, 1989)
D’autunno
Felinamente in giallo
viscido di salamandra
tra siepe e asfalto: neanche la faccia
gli ho visto al ragazzo che in bici
quasi m’investe allo svolto.
Tanto fitto pioveva e di traverso
che alle vacche vicino al liceo
l’anima s’annegrava:
in gruppo, stralunate,
disprezzavano l’erba,
mute muggivano al cielo.
(Spiracoli, 1989)
“Poetry Editor’s note: Contrappasso bids a sad farewell to Giorgio Orelli, who passed away […] at the age of 92. Below are the five poems of Orelli’s that appeared in Issue 3, translated by Marco Sonzogni.”
I miss my mother. And I wanted to distract a friend from someone’s ignorant and hurtful remark. I looked for poems for her. And then they made me feel lighter too. By Basho?
Butterfly perfumes
Her wings by floating
Over the orchid
Cold first winter rain
Poor monkey, you too could use
A little woven cape
This snowy morning
That black crow I hate so much
But she is beautiful
On a withered branch
A crow has alighted:
Nightfall in autumn
Clouds come from time to time –
and bring to men a chance to rest
from looking at the moon
Why so scrawny, cat?
starving for fat fish or mice . . .
Or backyard love?
Carven gods long gone . . .
dead leaves alone
foregather
Such utter silence!
even the crickets’ singing . . .
Muffled by hot rocks
“Mississippi Goddam”. Beautiful. Painful. Nina Simone’s blazing anger is something to behold.
“Don’t tell me, I tell YOU. Me and my people just about due…”
“Just give me my equality…”
Time for reparations for black people brought to the Americas as slaves. Redlined. Jim Crowed. Separated -but “equal”. Discriminatory public housing policy. School to jail pipe line. Hands up and shot.
“Mississippi Goddam”
The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddam
And I mean every word of it
Alabama’s gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi GoddamAlabama’s gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi GoddamCan’t you see it
Can’t you feel it
It’s all in the air
I can’t stand the pressure much longer
Somebody say a prayer
Alabama’s gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
This is a show tune
But the show hasn’t been written for it, yet
Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every day’s gonna be my last
Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don’t belong here
I don’t belong there
I’ve even stopped believing in prayer
Don’t tell me
I tell you
Me and my people just about due
I’ve been there so I know
They keep on saying “Go slow!”
But that’s just the trouble
“do it slow”
Washing the windows
“do it slow”
Picking the cotton
“do it slow”
You’re just plain rotten
“do it slow”
You’re too damn lazy
“do it slow”
The thinking’s crazy
“do it slow”
Where am I going
What am I doing
I don’t know
I don’t know
Just try to do your very best
Stand up be counted with all the rest
For everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
you thought I was kiddin’
Picket lines
School boy cots
They try to say it’s a communist plot
All I want is equality
for my sister my brother my people and meYes you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And you’d stop calling me Sister SadieOh but this whole country is full of lies
You’re all gonna die and die like flies
I don’t trust you any more
You keep on saying “Go slow!”
“Go slow!”But that’s just the trouble
“do it slow”
Desegregation
“do it slow”
Mass participation
“do it slow”
Reunification
“do it slow”
Do things gradually
“do it slow”
But bring more tragedy
“do it slow”
Why don’t you see it
Why don’t you feel it
I don’t know
I don’t know
You don’t have to live next to me
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about Mississippi
Everybody knows about Alabama
Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
That’s it!
This recording was made in 1965 in the Netherlands. Mississippi Goddam!
And so gorgeous (written by Emile Latime)r: “Black is The Color of My True Love’s Hair”
Track #5 on the album To Be Free. Written by Latimer, Emile.
Nina Simone didn’t write the song, but gave it voice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWmCbEbMmeU
Black is the color of my true love’s hair
His face so soft and wondrous fair
The purest eyes and the strongest hands
I love the ground on where he stands
Black is the color of my true love’s hair
Of my true love’s hair
Oh, I love my lover and well he knows
Yes, I love the ground on where he goes
And still I hope that the time will come
When he and I will be as one
Black is the color of my true love’s hair
the night I was going to die
I was sweating on the bed
and I could hear the crickets
and there was a cat fight outside
and I could feel my soul dropping down through the
mattress
and just before it hit the floor I jumped up
I was almost too weak to walk
but I walked around and turned on all the lights
and then I went back to bed
and dropped it down again and
I was up
turning on all the lights
I had a 7-year-old daughter
and I felt sure she wouldn't want me dead
otherwise it wouldn't have
mattered
but all that night
nobody phoned
nobody came by with a beer
my girlfriend didn't phone
all I could hear were the crickets and it was
hot
and I kept working at it
getting up and down
until the first of the sun came through the window
through the bushes
and then I got on the bed
and the soul stayed
inside at last and
I slept.
now people come by
beating on the doors and windows
the phone rings
the phone rings again and again
I get great letters in the mail
hate letters and love letters.
everything is the same again.
Like primitives we buried the cat
with his bowl. Bare-handed
we scraped sand and gravel
back into the hole.
They fell with a hiss
and thud on his side,
on his long red fur, the white feathers
between his toes, and his
long, not to say aquiline, nose.
We stood and brushed each other off.
There are sorrows keener than these.
Silent the rest of the day, we worked,
ate, stared, and slept. It stormed
all night; now it clears, and a robin
burbles from a dripping bush
like the neighbor who means well
but always says the wrong thing.
I am watching Cleo listening, our cat
listening to Mozart’s Magic Flute. What
can she be hearing? What
can the air carry into her ears like that,
her ears swivelling like radio dishes that
are tuned to all the noise of the world, flat
and sharp, high and low, a scramble of this and that
she can decode like nobody’s business, acrobat
of random airs as she is? Although of course a bat
is better at it, sifting out of its acoustic habitat
the sound of the very shape of things automat-
ically– and on the wing, at that. The Magic Flute! What
a joy it is, I feel, and wonder (to the end this little scat)
does , or can, the cat.
I particularly remember the rains of the depression era. there wasn’t any money but there was plenty of rain.
and the jobless men stood looking out the windows at the old machines dying like living things out there. the jobless men, failures in a failing time were imprisoned in their houses with their wives and children and their pets.
“I’ll kill you,” I screamed at him. “You hit her again and I’ll kill you!” “Get that son-of-a-bitching kid out of here!” “no, Henry, you stay with your mother!” all the households were under seige but I believe that ours held more terror than the average. and at night as we attempted to sleep the rains still came down and it was in bed in the dark watching the moon against the scarred window so bravely holding out most of the rain, I thought of Noah and the Ark and I thought, it has come again. we all thought that. and then, at once, it would stop. and it always seemed to stop around 5 or 6 a.m., peaceful then, but not an exact silence because things continued to drip drip drip
the the recess bells rang and we all waited for the fun. then Mrs. Sorenson told us: “now, what we are going to do is we are going to tell each other what we did during the rainstorm! we’ll begin in the front row and go right around! now, Michael, you’re first!. . .” well, we all began to tell our stories, Michael began and it went on and on, and soon we realized that we were all lying,
one boy said he stuck his fishing pole out the window and caught a little fish and fed it to his cat. almost everybody told a lie. the truth was just too awful and embarassing to tell. then the bell rang and recess was over.
Red is the color of a lot of lollipops,
Orange is any orange on a tree.
Yellow’s the color of a bag of lemon drops,
Green is a piece of seaweed in the sea.
Blue is the color of the sky in summertime
Indigo is a siamese cat’s eyes.
Violet’s the color of a flow’r in wintertime.
These are the colors of the rainbow skies.
There is a beautiful land
Where all your dreams come true;
It’s all tied up in a rainbow,
All shiny and new;
But it’s not easy to find
No matter what you do.
It’s not on top of a mountain
Or beneath the deep blue sea
Or in london zoo or in timbuktoo,
Or in timbuckthree.
And if you travelled the world
From china to peru,
There’s no beautiful land on the chart.
An explorer could not begin
To discover it’s origin
For the beautiful land is in your heart.
Beautiful land by Nina Simone
Written by Anthony Newley, Leslie Bricusse
