Sandro Gardi

Dedicated to my friend
Rudolf Nureyev

An introduction by Mario Stefani

Ledizioni

© Ledizioni LediPublishing

Via Antonio Boselli 10, Milano

http://www.ledizioni.it

e-mail: info@ledizioni.it

Prima edizione: febbraio 2021

Sandro Gardi, Dedicated to my friend Rudolf Nureyev

ISBN cartaceo 9788855264266

ISBN eBook 9788855264273

Le riproduzioni a uso differente da quello personale potranno avvenire, per un numero di pagine non superiore al 15% del presente volume, solo a seguito di specifica autorizzazione rilasciata da Ledizioni, Via Antonio Boselli 10 – 20137 Milano, e-mail: info@ledizioni.it

DEDICATED TO MY FRIEND
RUDOLF NUREYEV

This is a two-part book where a single male narrative “voice” is present, the one you can find in the soul of a man who didn’t “become” a poet, but was born as one. These two dimensions overlap, vibrating with the same poetic heart. You don’t read a book like this in flashes, to savour a game of sorrow, a precise image, a flash of conscience, but from the beginning to the end, in one sitting. Then, maybe, you can read it again, to better enjoy its inner love. Gardi is a clever poet, and poetry is above all an art of language. Thanks to Gardi’s sensitivity, these pages urge us to take part in these lines, feeling both joy and sorrow as if this work were part of us.

Indice

Introduction

Part One
Dedicated To My Friend Rudolf Nureyev

The Artist

The True Friend

A Thought

Different

Sadness

Your Golden Hair

The Dancer

The End

Passion

Misunderstood

Bitterness

My Friend

The Past Is a Traitor

Me?

Living Or Dying

Love Yourself

Evil

Temptation

Happiness

Distressed

Different

Everything Is a Gift

One Day

Hope

Contempt for Life

My Friend Solitude

Beginning and End of a Life

He

Solitude

Eternity

Tears

Death

Useful Once Dead

Afterwards

Man’s Life Is Like a Breath

Part Two
Love, Sorrow, And I

The Unripe Fruit

Only Beautiful

Afraid of Losing You

Loving You Is Impossible

Believing

A Love of the Past

Spring

The Bathrobe

Love

That Day

True Love

Love Letter Number 1

She

Love Is Priceless

Abandoned

Woman

Is a Woman Springtime?

Tomorrow Forever

Sad Disappointment

I Remember

A Part Of Me

I Alone

Will Tomorrow Be There?

Portrait

The Woman Who Didn’t Know Any Mercy

Sabrina

The Grandmother

My Works

Wonders

Roses

Albino Luciani

You

The Queens of the Mountains

A Dream

Finding Yourself

Once Again

Fear

My Mother

Exasperated

The Wind

Venice

My Justice

Contempt For Life

It Isn’t Too Late

Winter

The Leaf

I Didn’t Want To

My Father

Everything Is, Nothing Has Ever Been

Life Has an Age

Who I Am

My Classroom

I Am a Poet

A Family’s Love

Sandro Gardi

Dedicated to my friend Rudolf Nureyev

Introduction

Language needs to be something equivalent to a stone. It needs to have specific weight, that is to say it needs to weigh. Language as an equivalent to a testimony or a fantasy, so that the emphasized element is exactly that – just to make things clear –, the world of Lautréamont or Alain-Fourrier, or the realistic world of Gide. In these poems we don’t find the dreams dear to Thomas De Quincey, but sediments, which are happy moments looking ahead toward the future: “Losing oneself in the past / Is acting like a coward”.

Reality fascinates Gardi, unsettles and conquers him.

In Gardi’s poetry, the encounter with a famous friend like Rudolf Nureyev. After this experience, he dedicated a lot of poems to Rudolf, and he wrote some more after his death.

Thanks to his sensitivity, he notices every moment, talks about this hesitating truth – poetry, a spontaneous spring that flows every day, perpetually. So in Useful Once Dead, we find the composure of life, its acceptance, with an unconscious cadence, of course, similar to that of Villon or Cecco Angiolieri. Gardi is able to “narrate” without deceiving himself or us. In his poetry there is no effect of “trompe l’oeil”, but just the humble desire to sing about the good and evil of everything, of every sensation, without building false dreamlike castles in the air.

For this reason, his poetry has a hidden meaning, but not a solitary one, because his necessity of expression turns into sweet and sorrowful notes so as to imagine a different and better world, almost a strained hope, a wage. The poet is always himself, both in good times and bad. Listen to him, but without excessive devotion, because Gardi himself would be the first to get annoyed and irritated. When he is there, the poet never makes mistakes, never fails, and is always able to smile.

Therefore we need to symbolically give maximum respect, accepting every uncertain human life condition.

MARIO STEFANI

(art critic)

My Encounter with Rudolf Nureyev

On a summer day, accompanied by my friend solitude, I was walking through Venice, oblivious to the problems haunting my heart, when a man approached me. A burst of melancholy overwhelmed me when I saw the sadness radiating from his face, which seemed to express a silent understanding. “Are you a gondolier?”. Hearing that question, I smiled, and he did as well.

Thus our friendship began…

Part one

Dedicated to my friend
Rudolf Nureyev

THE ARTIST

Behind the circus tent

An artist’s dressing room,

With walls adorned with old

Photos and sparkling dresses

Wanting to stop time.

A dressing table with powder and lipstick,

The last brave touch-up

Enters the scene.

From above, glass eyes

Emanating coloured lights,

Seize the living

Performance, hiding the sad

Aura of that masked

Face.

Thunderous applause accompanies

The end of the performance.

The audience left.

On the stage, a human figure,

Painted with solitude, his heart

heavy with bitterness.

Once again, the artist goes gloomily back

To his dressing room, while

A tear runs along

Another wound on his face.

THE TRUE FRIEND

As elusive as the wind,

As cold as hatred,

In an instant

He runs far away from

Whoever was looking for

An honest friend.

A THOUGHT

Happiness is like life,

It slips through your fingers at any moment,

Like the light of your existence.

DIFFERENT

I’d like to flee,

To reach a place I don’t know,

To get to and lose myself in a different world.

To stare into the eyes of other people

Who don’t know evil.

To find myself surrounded by different flowers

And by wise animals and to vent

My anger on those who don’t understand me.

I’d like a different sky,

A white sea,

A square planet.

I’d like…

Perhaps I’d like nothing at all:

I’d like to be different so as to be

Accepted in this world.

SADNESS

How many times I lived

Moments of anguish,

While I embraced

An almost lifeless human figure.

I walked and walked,

Suddenly the strength

Of desperation managed

To defeat the lady

Dressed in lust:

Sadness.

YOUR GOLDEN HAIR

The sunrise can’t help making me think

Of you;

The blue sky can’t help making me think

Of you.

The snowflake:

As silent as your steps;

The cold winter nights:

The look in your eyes.

Once you said goodbye to the people you loved so much,

Goodbye to the golden wheat of your land;

For that freedom you paid for with your life.

THE DANCER

Yesterday like a feather in the wind

You swayed on life’s stage.

Your cold look

Staring the audience, whom tomorrow

You would see no more.

Your silent steps already

Belonged to the past.

Now the fatal embrace gives you the illusion

That you can make only memories your own.

You leafed through old photos that one by one

Brought down life’s curtain.

Now you bravely face the final

Round of applause, forever losing yourself

In a silence without return.

THE END

We are silently waiting the end

That surrounds everybody,

Dressed in a dark cloak,

With blond hair,

And fiery eyes,

which with a direct look melts

In the realm of poor fools.

PASSION

Passion,

An instant of madness that

Takes man’s mind off the reality

Of life.

MISUNDERSTOOD

I know you flew away,

taken by the illness of slavery;

How many friends don’t know you today,

Whereas they lived your glories

Together with you yesterday.

Now it seems strange to you, Rudolf,

You can see everything from up there;

Am I the only one who still is your friend?

Perhaps because friendship existed between you and me;

Unconditioned by what you were;

But crowned with life’s simplicity.

Do you remember that sweater you gave me?

I threw it away when you were gone forever,

So that you would be the only thing left

In my memories.

BITTERNESS

Memories of yesterday,

Of sorrow,

Of life’s bitterness,

Which stole from me a friend who counted.

I can do nothing but leaf through some photos,

And lose myself in the past.

Nothing but live moments of friendship over again and

Once again listen in my mind

To his words urging me to live.

Now you are no more,

But there’s no bitterness in my heart,

Perhaps it is envy overwhelming me,

While I think that in the endless sky

Angels are playing the harp in your honour.

MY FRIEND

Who are you who are hiding yourself

Behind an appearance

That is not yours?

What do you expect from those who didn’t understand you,

And who

Hurt your love

So many times?

You still have a long way

Ahead of you,

And somebody invoking

Your love. It is not the concrete

that can save you, that makes you rejoice.

One morning I received a gift:

I found a friend.

THE PAST IS A TRAITOR

The past is a traitor,

It puts you under the illusion that it gives everything,

Actually it just offers the image

Of a creation you never owned.

The past is betrayed,

It carries weak men

To a remote paradise;

Accompanied by the feeble rays

Of a sun at its last

Sunset.

Losing oneself in the past

Is acting like a coward.

ME?

I don’t know who you are,

But please, put an end

To my end.

The time has come, and apathy

Follows me triumphantly.

I see my destination

On the horizon, too sad

And unjust a

Barrier beyond.

Take me

I will follow you fearlessly.

Losing oneself in the past

Is acting like a coward.

LIVING OR DYING

Embittered by a life

I see sinking

ever more,

because of the moments when

I am myself.

Wrapped in the feeling

Of love,

I live a drop of

Happiness.

Disappointing moment:

Living or dying?

LOVE YOURSELF

He who doesn’t love himself

Will never understand the people

Loving him.

EVIL

Evil is in the nectar of flowers;

It plays hard to get by its preys,

Then it puts an end

To the illusion.

TEMPTATION

In a dark night,

A freezing wind

Lords violently.

Like thousands blades,

Complaints of faraway voices

Pierce through faithless men.

Blood will not flow

From icy hearts.

They will not hear jolts of pain

From those marble statues,

Only death without awakening

Will embrace them.

It is that wind always brushing

The love that wins…

The Evil one disappears.

Silence has come back.

HAPPINESS

I think happiness

Is a form

Of madness.

Madness?

A form of happiness.

Accepting the present fearlessly

Is heroic.

Thinking of the future

Is madness.

DISTRESSED

Distressed by convoluted problems

tormenting my life.

Meditating, I am consciously waiting

For the mysterious lady who will lead me

Towards the threshold of a different

Life, that up to now

Has made me apathetic.

How much I wish I were in the Heaven

Where I dreamt in the green age,

And let me fall down

From the wish that has been my master

For a long time.

Living: why?

Destroying the hope

Of a new appearance?

Let me fall

In the abyss that will lead me

To happiness.

I live because I exist.

I’d like to leave and go back

Where I started that day,

And see one last time

The pure Image

ruling infinity.

DIFFERENT

I often feel

Surrounded by a mad world,

And if to these people

I am mad,

I accept this happiness,

Because it makes me feel different

From all of them.

EVERYTHING IS A GIFT

I found myself in this world,

I opened my eyes,

I saw blackness:

Everything was a gift.

I walked in the rain,

Then the sun stroked me;

I fell asleep on a lawn,

Dreaming of angels

Singing for me.

I played with a puppy,

And I found a friend in a blind man.

I said to myself:

Everything is an addition,

Everything is a gift.

ONE DAY

I’d like to walk on

The endless lawns

Where understanding and

Eternal love

Rule.

HOPE

If sadness and luck

Make fun of me,

The lifeline is not far away.

If my steps have no

More destination, and my eyes

Are full of tears,

The lifeline is not far away.

From above the Divine look

Accompanies me.

In a starry night, the angels wrote

My name.

CONTEMPT FOR LIFE

There are moments

When the contempt for life

Causes my sensitivity,

Which led me to knowledge

Of man:

Selfish and hatred-thirsty.

I’d like to leave

These

Men without feelings,

And dressed in so much ignorance…

A quiet day,

Thinking of the others,

And neglecting, perhaps unfairly,

Myself.

MY FRIEND SOLITUDE

Once I embraced solitude

Using it.

It didn’t exist

Because I felt it.

How many sad moments in my life

I got over together with solitude.

I retraced my steps

Once again:

Am I dying out?

A dusty curtain

Separates me from my friend

Solitude.

BEGINNING AND END OF A LIFE

I open my eyes:

A veil of light pervades them

Giving me life.

I stand up:

An ivy wraps me, supporting me

Toward the streets of tomorrow.

The first one loses itself

In the dark evening;

The second one is mysterious,

But I already know its end.

The third one is crowned

With smiling trees and deceitful voices.

The fourth one is the most beautiful:

Embroidered with a lot of mirrors,

Hiding the truth in each of them.

The fifth one, seen from the sky

Above, is the shortest one.

Life is a way that always

Leads you to your return.

HE

Moon rays

Penetrating life source.

Once he was happy!

Incredulous

Of the reality that now appears to him.

Here he is, once again taking shelter

Behind cowardice.

Now he is lying on a lawn.

It is night, and the moon shines,

Wrapping him with its rays,

Making him oblivious

To his human structure.

SOLITUDE

Sometimes solitude

Can keep us company…

Company often

Rewards us

With so much solitude…

ETERNITY

There’s no death for me.

Only when I meet it

I will be able to say:

It exists.

TEARS

Drops of life

That from my face painfully

Fall and slowly

Vanish into thin air,

Talk to me and tell me

That you didn’t leave in vain.

Give me a small ray

Of that immense goodness,

And let me put an end

To this cruel suffering

At last.

Give me a little light

And peace.

DEATH

Death never looks

Anybody in their face.

Let’s always love one another:

There’s not much time

To repent.

Life is borrowed.

Everything can fall silent

At any moment.

USEFUL ONCE DEAD

If I think about it, I can’t believe

I will die as well,

And leave this earth, which made me

Love it so much.

The reality of this life

Makes me understand that my body

Will gradually be

Absorbed by the energy

That gave me light.

All of this makes me suffer:

But there is happiness in sorrow!

Because another flower

Will dress in me.

AFTERWARDS

Beneath the wet earth

The dead rest in peace,

Free from all the problems

Haunting the living.

Yesterday they were among us,

Today scattered in the boundless

Universe,

Seeking for a new

Appearance.

Cold the symbolic white

Marble cross

Covering the mortal remains

Of a silent and mysterious

Life,

Under a weeping sky.

I wish I had already arrived

Without waiting for tomorrow,

Because just the thought of it

Frightens me.

MAN’S LIFE IS LIKE A BREATH

I was born as a little insignificant thing,

Yet I was something wonderful

Before appearing on the earth.

Now I exist “because God

Supports me”,

But I had never existed before,

I was in a void before

God the Maker

Created me from nothing.

Now I seem to be

Like a shadow passing

Without a trace.

Man’s life is like a divine breath

Journeying toward eternity.

PART TWO

Love, sorrow, and I

THE UNRIPE FRUIT

There were so many fruit trees

Surrounding me,

With each of my breaths

They attracted attention;

Their fruits were so ripe

And sweet-smelling

That they seemed to talk to me

With their lush life and beauty.

All of this didn’t impress me;

My look,

As if on cue,

Rested on a branch

With a single fruit,

Still unripe.

I looked at that fruit,

And it seemed to me the most beautiful one;

I have never seen another one like it,

And my heart immediately filled with sorrow.

It was there:

And maybe it was waiting for me;

But who dared pick it from its branch?

If I had picked

All the other fruits,

I would have been violent,

A done-for man.

But I would not brush that fruit,

I would protect it from anyone trying to take it,

I love that fruit

Because I was unripe as well.

ONLY BEAUTIFUL

Today so beautiful,

Yet this is not you.

You look yourself in the mirror

Reflecting an image

Which does not belong to you.

Everything blends in your mind;

Your true figure wears

A different dress:

Hatred, cruelty,

And the void of your soul.

AFRAID OF LOSING YOU

After leaving the path of evil,

I take once again the path

Leading to you.

I am afraid of losing you.

I open the door and see

Your naked body

Lying on the bed.

I take off my clothes, I give myself up

In a loving embrace,

Which makes me forget

The sad dimension

That only a few minutes before

Was taking hold

Of me.

LOVING YOU IS IMPOSSIBLE

Your image brings me

Back to the past.

I’d never wish

To brush your clear

Angelic figure.

I’d never wish

To put sin into your safe

But frail woman’s body,

Radiating purity,

You mirror times of happiness,

Already lived and lost,

In a sunset without return.

Now you are here in front of me,

With two eyes painted with hope;

And images of innocence.

I hope that along your life path

I can meet you still

Free of the thoughts that today

Direct you.

BELIEVING

If you believe the man who loves you,

Everything in life will seem rosier to you.

If you listen to people

Who envy you,

You will lose self-confidence.

A LOVE OF THE PAST

A look,

An agreement,

A smile,

Is it love?

A handshake,

A yes in a love sentence.

I remember the first time,

That passionate embrace,

In that happy day,

Surrounded by so much happiness.

It is time to go back,

Our looks meet,

Is it the last time, maybe?

Goodbye…

Is it really a goodbye?

SPRING

Spring is the pleasant woman’s

Figure that cheers your heart.

Can love arise

In an accidental meeting?

Your name is enchanted and covers

Trees and bleak landscapes.

Spring, carrying

Happiness,

Give me an encounter

Which can mold

With a yes a man

Suffering for you.

THE BATHROBE

I remember a white

Bathrobe that she wore

With silvery tears,

As sparkling as dewdrops.

I remember the far-away woman and

The long embraces of true love.

Now the pleasant figure

Seems to look at her own reflection on the white

Bathroom tiles.

Even the wind seems

To carry the sweet sound

Of her voice…

The door opens and her lovely

Figure appears…

Or rather, everything became dark,

And I barely hang the bathrobe.

But soon enough a strong and tender embrace

Supports me:

Happiness has come.

LOVE

The living white flower

Is love.

Love it even when

Its whiteness

Darkens.

THAT DAY

Moon petals

On your starry face,

Drops of love and happiness.

Enchanted smiles and fiery

Lips.

The evening you left,

I talked to the wind

So that you would come back.

Where did you go?

Did you disappear?

Call my name,

And I will join you.

TRUE LOVE

I wonder whether the world

Will be able to understand me,

And whether it will ever know

What true love is.

To love means giving,

Loving and suffering,

Love is sacrifice.

Love is ageless.

Love is love.

LOVE LETTER NUMBER 1

With few sentences I address her,

Distraught

By the wonderful moments

I am living.

I still savour love.

I wanted to write to her,

Not knowing whether I would be rightly

Understood.

If this love I am living

Will not be the cause of a cruel

Mutual destiny,

May it not laugh at me,

But may what it read be just

A dream.

Her eyes so full of light,

Her sweet and honest eyes,

Her eyes talk to me about love.

SHE

The warm wind lightly

Stroked the lawn

Where her life came to an end.

Just white bones

Covered with flowers

Lie on the earth.

The scent of the lawn

Brings me back in time.

Her skin like rose petals.

Her sun hair.

Her sea eyes.

Love existed between us.

I came back too late,

And I only found

A lifeless body in that lawn

Of our memories.

LOVE IS PRICELESS

Two wonderful eyes,

A face adorned

With fiery lips

And a wise expression.

Two sentences;

One refusal.

You can’t buy

Love.

ABANDONED

She left me…

Without saying a word.

Hope died out inside me.

Flowers don’t have their pleasant smell any more,

The sun hides itself,

And the wind doesn’t chase me any more.

It is the first time I have felt as if I were dying:

But why do you allow yourself to be dulled?

Perhaps because she doesn’t love you any more?

Don’t you realize it?

The flowers still have their pleasant smell,

The sun has come back,

The wind is calling you

And carrying you toward life.

WOMAN

Being understood,

Struggling to be understood

Is the goal of every one of us.

Having someone to vent

Our anger on,

And giving unconditional

Love.

Flashes of a happy time,

When I still had her,

Resurface in my mind.

One look was enough to understand each other,

One smile to forgive each other;

With her I had

A landing place in life:

Forgiveness and humility.

It had been a long time since I had left solitude,

I had her;

And everything had begun blossoming again

Around me.

Her pleasant woman’s figure

Accompanies my ecstasy

Every night;

Seeking for wonderful dreams,

With images of her,

And the sweet sounds of her voice.

IS A WOMAN SPRINGTIME?

Along the steel avenue

I saw your mathematical figure:

A dead dog on the asphalt,

Budding trees

Adorned the triumphant

Entry

Of our encounter.

A sun unknown to me,

With deranged rays,

Brushed our momentary figures.

Is a woman springtime?

Continuing your journey,

The monsters of a faraway age

Diverted my thought,

And like a furious drill

I sought for help in your mind.

A metal plate

Was waiting for the arrival.

Is woman springtime?

TOMORROW FOREVER

I look for you even if you are far away,

I come to you

Without changing my face,

Without planning any thought in advance,

And one day

I will tell you how much I love you.

I can’t enter your life,

You still have childlike visions;

I don’t want to seek for your love,

If it is not mutual.

Now you are a flower

And you cover innocence;

But look ahead

Without regretting the past.

Now I see you and squeeze your hand,

I look at my reflection in your eyes,

And in my thought I tell you:

I am your man.

My

Name has

Already been engraved

In your

Heart.

SAD DISAPPOINTMENT

It had been a long time since love united us,

Of course she loved me,

It seemed too beautiful.

One day disappointment

Appeared.

Empty inside myself, I was looking for the end.

Disappointed by the love

I believed in.

I suffered at the thought

Of giving up to disappointment.

I REMEMBER

I remember the taste of her kisses,

I remember her voice calling me.

I remember the rustle of her bare

Steps on the sand.

I remember the intoxicating woman’s perfume

Enveloping her body.

Flowers didn’t dare to be

More beautiful than her, and the sea

Waves accompanied her

In her wild run

Toward me.

A PART OF ME

How many poems

Did I recite to the women

I met along my

Life path!

I held them close,

And I gave honest

Moments of love

To them all.

They mirrored me

In their eyes,

Leaving there

Eternal photos.

I ALONE

The night is my friend,

The wind follows me, singing aloud,

I forget her.

I accompany the past

Alone, without tears.

She said goodbye to love.

Happy days spent together

Faded away.

I am alone in the dark to forget her.

I flee without a destination,

Hoping it is just a dream.

WILL TOMORROW BE THERE?

If I think of tomorrow,

I lose myself like a child

In deepest darkness.

If I think for just a moment

Of your eyes,

Painted with the sea,

I let myself sink

In the endless desired sky.

The most honest gift

I wish now

Is seeing you again,

Chasing away the tomorrow

I am so afraid of.

PORTRAIT

Your eyes are

As bright as the stars in the sky,

The smile on your face

Radiates ineffable sweetness.

Are the too many things you know

Depriving you of grace and refinement?

Like the strong wind

Seems to destroy everything and then

It fades into nothingness,

Any contrast inside you

Seems to increase your splendor

With an aura of wisdom.

THE WOMAN WHO DIDN’T KNOW ANY MERCY

I don’t know who the man

Valuing you so much is.

Yesterday, in front of me,

You were different;

Today your real appearance is visible.

You know I know you,

That’s why you avoid me.

Cold schemer inside yourself;

Merciless with the one you loved yesterday,

If today he asks for your love.

SABRINA

A good girl

Reached the sky.

She didn’t know evil.

God called her

To Himself to enrich

The boundless

Heavenly prairies

With another shining star.

THE GRANDMOTHER

Your image

Is painted behind me,

Once you were what now

I am fortunate enough to see,

And I already feel as if I were going

Back in time.

Oh, sublime and sweet

Look of a lofty mind,

Time has silvered your hair

And made your step heavier,

But you still have an aura

Of grace shining

Like a new gentle beauty.

MY WORKS

I can’t help thinking of death:

Everything comes around and in me.

How melancholy to see

The works I wrote

Now silent!

May they spread in music

And come alive.

WONDERS

Do you know what delights my heart?

The warmth of the sun in the spring.

Do you know what wonders me so much?

The lightning and roar of a storm.

Do you know which is the most beautiful picture

I have ever seen?

My image in a body of water.

Do you know which is the sweetest melody?

A child’s voice.

Do you know whom my greatest love goes

To? To “God”.

When death

Takes my flesh,

May cut flower suffer,

May the wheels of the hearse groan,

I will be happy

In my Creator’s bosom.

ROSES

Delicate and fragrant

Are the roses:

The scent they give off

Seems a call

For fairies.

Velvety petals

Crown them with beauty,

Thorns protect them

From every violence;

The morning dew

Awakens them silver-coloured,

Because they are

The fairies of the garden.

ALBINO LUCIANI

The kingdom of heaven

Lacked an angel.

And God wanted him at his side.

That 28th September,

When Albino flew to heaven,

Is engraved in our hearts.

You didn’t leave us:

One day we will meet up there.

YOU

There are no grudges:

We still understand one another.

There’s no personal gain.

There’s spontaneity.

When I meet your faces,

I lose myself like a child

Carried away by happiness.

The first one takes me back

To a past

I don’t miss.

And then there’s her: a fruit of innocence

Crowned with sweetness.

If I am still here,

It is not because of past guilt:

I looked for you to rejoice,

And to suffer with you in time.

THE QUEENS OF THE MOUNTAINS

Beneath the ceaseless hiss of a faraway wind,

The queens rise staring

the sky.

They reflect the velvety stars

In heaven.

Shining creatures, queens of the mountains.

You are those whom the “Divine” wanted to

Symbolize, his “Creation”.

You are edelweisses.

A DREAM

I am waiting for someone to call me

And take me away

From this murky place.

Going up the path

I dreamt of

In past days,

And striking a false

Friend’s hypocrisy.

I find myself in darkness.

A light leads me

Toward a future

That I can only

Dream of.

FINDING YOURSELF

Man, don’t lose yourself

On the horizon without awakening,

Don’t give treasures to the woman

You love, because they

Would drag along

The love you feel for her,

And the meaning of your existence.

Confidence,

Sincerity while talking to her about love,

And enough honesty not to cheat.

These sentences keep love

Alive.

ONCE AGAIN

I wish I could go back

Where once

I left,

And see the Lord of Infinity

Once again.

FEAR

Dark was the night,

And with every step I made,

I turned becoming suspicious

Because of the terror that

Had already overwhelmed me.

I was walking slowly, almost ethereal

In the increasingly

Enlarged forest.

I hurried

Until I desperately ran.

I was afraid of dying,

But I did nothing wrong,

It was the imaginary fear

That was vanquishing me.

I was running while, suddenly

Exhausted, I fell on the earth:

Fear had defeated me,

MY MOTHER

May you know, mother,

How important you are for me:

If I am here, it is because of you.

I remember how angry you were,

And it was my fault that you sometimes wept.

I know I was wrong,

But I am your son, mother,

And I’d like to be forgiven by you.

Sometimes I feel sad when I think of tomorrow,

Trembling with fear unless I don’t see you again.

May you know, mother,

That if one day you leave me,

You will always be

In my heart.

EXASPERATED

Exasperated by the usual life,

All days the same,

With the same faces, the usual moments,

Just a faraway friend’s echo.

I feel as if I were going mad while waiting

For my transformation.

I take refuge in the same life,

And in the same places I have been wishing for

Since childhood,

So as to lose myself for a moment.

Ice blades

Pierce through my heart

When reality appears to me.

The usual life,

All days the same.

THE WIND

Wind, when you blow through

The trees,

You make them dance as if they were

Dancers.

The rain flanks you,

Furious musician,

Hurling itself upon

Almost dead leaves.

Nobody rules you, you blow

Wherever you want, and in the hearts of those you know.

When you pass by, sometimes you carry joy,

Sorrow and destruction

When man changes

Your path.

How many faraway sounds

You carried to me in winter

Nights, I was always waiting for you,

And if sometimes you didn’t come,

I understood:

I wasn’t the only one.

VENICE

How many times the moon

was reflected

In your lagoon.

How many stars separated themselves

From up there to light you up

In the dark winter night.

Venice rocking

In a lace cradle.

MY JUSTICE

I light up with a far,

far away light,

and human evil

can’t quench

my thirst for justice.

CONTEMPT FOR LIFE

Two skinny,

Cold hands

Violently lay

On my face.

A fatal embrace

Holds me tight:

It’s death.

IT ISN’T TOO LATE

Stop, mankind:

You are blackening the sky.

Stop, mankind:

You are poisoning the sea.

Stop:

Otherwise we will not see

The lawns bloom ever again.

Let’s stop, mankind,

And squeeze the hand of the one who suffers,

Otherwise we will lose ourselves forever.

It isn’t too late.

WINTER

The air is cold,

And the trees are bare.

The grey sky heralds the snow

Which wants to paint

lawns and houses in white.

The streets are almost empty,

Someone hurries,

Because a warm hearth

Is waiting for them at home.

THE LEAF

The leaf fell lightly

From the big poplar,

It rests freely on the earth.

It was tired.

It had whirled for months

With every puff of wind,

Dancing full of life and joy.

As soon as it brushed the wet clods,

The morning fog

Stroked it tenderly,

Inviting it to blend

With mother earth…

The sad winter days passed;

The leaf had blended

With the earth’s fruitful human beings.

The sweet springtime sun arose,

The light and happy leaf

Sprouted once again

To cover the poplar

With a tender green hue.

I DIDN’T WANT TO

How much willpower I had to build

The desired fruit of life.

One morning it bloomed as if by magic,

And today it is still tied to me.

He was born and didn’t ask to live.

Why don’t you give the love that

Needs you so much?

MY FATHER

I remember you, father…

Years ago.

From a window of our home

I was waiting for your return,

Hoping that your sad face

Smiled.

Father, I know how much

You suffered;

Years of war,

Years of imprisonment,

Sad moments, which led

Your youth to

An early decline.

May I see you happy,

At least now that I am a grown-up man.

There’s no peace in your eyes,

You are just waiting for the divine reward.

EVERYTHING IS, NOTHING HAS EVER BEEN

There is no worse,

Unless there is something worse;

There is no beauty,

Unless there is something

Less beautiful.

There is no love

Unless there is hatred,

There is no forgiveness

For those who don’t know

Love.

LIFE HAS AN AGE

First

I opened my eyes,

Then I learnt how to walk,

Then I discovered life.

I got old in a moment.

You are born and you die.

It’s our love for life

That is endless.

WHO I AM

Lost in the moment I thought

I had discovered myself.

How many human figures inside me?

I know mine,

It makes me suffer continuously;

The other one, judging from the outside,

Is reflected in the former.

The true one consciously

Rules over all of them.

Hatred still overwhelms me,

Carrying me far away from reality

Without a trace of mercy.

Journeying in my brain,

I see an ill part,

Picturing a cold face,

With two almost dull eyes,

Trying to find again

Images of yesterday,

Enhancing the strange figures

That today I would recognize no more.

MY CLASSROOM

You could hear from my home the bell

Calling the pupils

Of the elementary school.

A kiss to my mother,

And I ran through the gate

That was about to close.

My classroom,

My teacher,

My schoolmates:

How I loved each of them.

At home I still have

My nice ironed smock and my blue ribbon.

It feels like yesterday,

But how long it’s been.

The windows of my classroom:

How many wonderful photos they gave me,

The rainy days, when the drops joyously

Chased one another on the panes,

The sunny days, when the rays filtered through

To paint my classroom with wheat.

The bell rings for the last time:

School is over.

I will go back no more.

The only thing left will be

A child’s love in that fifth-grade classroom.

I AM A POET

I didn’t become a poet,

I was born as one.

I can’t plan poetry in advance

Nor write with fantasy.

If I put down a line,

It’s the voice of my soul.

The poet’s inspiration

Comes from afar,

And takes him by the hand

Through good times and bad.

A FAMILY’S LOVE

Soft was the snow cover

Enveloping the house

Of my childhood.

Around a hearth

We waited in the evenings;

Then everybody

Toward the huge table,

To adorn it once again.

A cup of milk, a little bread,

And lots of love.

A woman’s figure

Proudly admired

Her fruits.