Journal of Italian Translation - Brooklyn College - Academic Home ...

D’agostino/Buzzati 185
of God, for here you’ll be unhappy, but there was haste
to close himself within some walls
if only to not remain one more minute
at the mercy of the whirlpool, damn the pigeons
that are too many and exaggerate,
calculated to be about a hundred thousand.
The whirlpool ! and yet how ironic
compared to San Francisco Hamburg Tokyo,
as such he signed in the agency’s office
as the typist sitting in front of
the desk with the Olivetti
crossed her legs up and down
making him think of his distant hometown as he signed
Roma Pescara Cecina Battipaglia Viggiù
not this depressing uninhabitable Milano,
in fact the secretary of the U.I.L.
forwarded a petition to the prefect
to find out what measures
had been taken
the bring back serenity and trust in the workers’ families
and make them a tiny bit happy.
It’s Not True That
Even between these desolate walls
my life has taken place.
Ugly smoke-filled supercilious scumbucket
marvelous,how to deny it?
Smog smog smog, however
life, with all its fetid detritus, however life
yearning compulsion bitter fanfare
that every morning roars right
through the metal-mechanical blinds,
on Garofolo Street a “ Pantera”
smashed up in a wreck with a bus.
In the sordid lynch-ridden lairs
on the banks of the Gambaloita
swarm throngs of mad vagabonds
but how have you not understood
that this is exactly why kids in Milan
if they play better, if the kites
rise up they rise up better, if in the evening you’re tired
you’re tired better. Yet never,
probably for weakness perhaps,