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D’agostino/Buzzati 183
First Panorama
Look at it if you have the courage
from up high from nearby or afar
but you cannot see it
covered by a shroud of smog
except on certain May afternoons
and in October also, the northern wind.
So the accountant Cleto Mariani
goes over to the window and sees
finally sees :
the roofs the terraces the domes the youth the chimneys
and, in disbelief, the mountains of glass.
At this point the engineer Mascione
for such a perturbance puts forth a petition.
Disinterest for Antiquities
Well now, I say, where do these streets lead?
from the gloomy presence, they hardly
presage anything good, right?
Well, here’s the answer :
from the other streets, ladies and gentlemen,
do not expect anything better,
the professors make quite a fuss
of inseminating guidebooks with asterics
of holding conferences, uselessly
museums duomos congresses palaces,
no one pays them any mind, and Leonardo
in the fog trips up on the curb
as the green light dislodges
the beastly jam—
and the sun is where? Ever? Never?
A Petition to the Prefect
Shunning and shutting off reason like so
in the furnished den of seventy Sarcoma Street
that doesn’t exist, it’s just to give the idea,
and an inner voice was telling him no don’t rent it, for
[the love