Journal of Italian Translation

Michael Palma/Giovanni Raboni
He’s at his best inside
the bottoms of cupboards, in boxes...
He quivers, green eyes marking
the to and fro of pigeons.
He licks his whiskers stalking
the fly that’ll fly away.
The Farewells
Every once in a while
I try to recall them all, the vegetable thief,
the madman, and la servante au grand coeur,
the physican, etc. A curious game,
I’m afraid, and one with little enough reward.
How much time has gone by! and I
who scratch my head and go on sitting here
at the stone table of the mill
waiting for the sky to clear,
all that I still hear now of those dead joys
is the noise of a degraded, shrill meow.
*
The aging body wants a different soul
but what can be done for it? It hardly serves
to swallow sedatives, to numb the nerves
and brain, the problem really is the soul,
the soul that wants no peace, the stubborn soul
insatiable in its burning swoops and swerves
through ever more laughably difficult drops and curves
in chasms or labyrinths, and we know the soul
is not just immortal but immortally
immature. I’m afraid it isn’t going to quit
simply because you’re ready to submit,
till the stream of breath dries up it’ll never be
any different, for as long as this flame’s still lit
it doesn’t die out like others bit by bit.
*
To go away, to come back home again,
two thoughts that will be sweet till death in three
distinct words, RAILWAYS NORTH MILAN, back then
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