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

Michael Palma / Maurizio Cucchi
Letters of Carlo Michelstaedter
You will have noticed, from the way I write,
that I am very sleepy...
Don’t leave me here, however, with no letters,
write to me, I beg you...
I will be calm and normal,
but separation is anguish, isn’t it?
And you, mama, you cannot but be pleased:
I’m cheerful with everyone, always,
I’ve been honest with you,
I’m always the same...
But the far ends of the avenues
seem to be like a gilded mist and my eyes
saw nothing but the dark on every side...
It’s a nightmare of wearying inertia,
inertia inimical to things...
The port is the fury of the sea.
I kiss you, my beloved little shits.
The Atlas of the Soul
It pullulates and regerminates without ceasing,
gushes and surfaces from the infinitesimal
porosities,
from the guts and from the bits,
from the ground meal to the corpuscles
to the villi and microvilli and most of all
it runs wild there, it intersects
it saturates and disseminates,
indecipherable substance,
from cavities and juices and generates
sentiments and visions,
inklings, panic, euphoria, overflows
and figures of the mind,
the prismatic protocol of the soul.
* * *
I never wanted to know about the design,
the works or the mechanics of a toy.
Even when I was a boy I didn’t care
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