Barger has published translations of contemporary Italian poets Orazio Labbate (in Literary Matters) and Marina Pizzi (in Beltway Poetry Quarterly). His two full book translations — of Labbate’s Underwater Crossed, and Marina Pizzi’s Intimate Distances — are both currently under review for publication.
Mania for Solitude, Cesare Pavese
I eat a little meal by a clear window.
The room already dark, sky looming.
Outside, silent roads lead to open fields eventually.
I nibble, gazing at the sky. How many women
are eating right now? My body calm.
Labor dulls my bones, as it does to women.
Outside, after my meal, stars will come
to touch the wide plain. Stars are alive
but not worth these cherries, which I eat alone.
I watch the sky. Among the rusted rooftops
some lamps are lit, glowing, faint sounds from below.
I sip and my body relishes the surging plants and rivers,
but separate from them. Silence is enough:
everything in its right place, even my body.
Each thing an island before my senses,
open to me. Quiet hum.
In the dark I know each thing
as I know blood in my veins.
The plain a great water flowing grass to grass,
a feast for all that lives. Each plant, each stone
lives, motionless. I listen to the food
nourishing my veins
with all that lives on the plain.
Night doesn’t matter. The square of sky
whispers a distant roar. A faint star
struggles in the void, far from foods,
from homes, alien. It can’t be alone,
it needs others. But my body, here in the dark, alone,
feels calm, god-like.
Pont du Carrousel, Rilke
The blind man on the bridge,
gray monument to a fallen world,
—he could be it, the thing we need,
the one silent man, the hub,
as the stars in their hours turn around him,
as the city twirls and flaunts and struts around him.
He’s the just man, imperturbable
in the terrible city;
dark aperture to the underworld
in a superficial age.
— translated from German (included in The Elephant of Silence, “Club Silencio” chapter)
Oblivion, Orazio Labbate
Can we forget the shadow will flee our spine?
On the motel lawn, an elderly churchgoer dances, limp-armed. The hospital-lighthouse smothers her spinal column with pillows of sea-light.
Escape leads to double-darkness.
Eat the shadows! Your grapes smack of meager immortality.
*
Dimenticare
È possibile dimenticare prima che l’ombra decida di fuggire dalla nostra colonna vertebrale?
Davanti al motel un’anziana frequentatrice di chiese danza con le braccia arrese, il faro-ospedale soffoca con cuscini marini di luce la colonna vertebrale. Chi tenta di evadere è doppiamente annerito. Mangiate le ombre! Chicchi d’uva di scadente immortalità.
— translated from Italian (three poems published in Literary Matters)
The People’s Heart Served Hot, Marina Pizzi
The people’s heart served hot
On the rich man’s plate.
That toomuch toomuchness.
Starvers, button-snatchers,
Centuries of devils
Their devil’s broth of timeless myths
Designed to keep us steady.
Dawn, not fading, sleeps:
A streetwalker who knows
How to bring you joy
In fits of delirium. Grimly, patiently
We endure.
Under nostalgia’s weight
Ledges collapse,
Courtyards spin
Crazier than a carnival ride
Where you pay to laugh in a demon’s face.
Look, the road sprouts pagans.
*
Il cuore del popolo è dentro il piatto
Il cuore del popolo è dentro il piatto
Del ricco strapotere ricco.
Affamatori strappa bottoni
Secoli di diavoli
Dentro la zuppa che promette
Miti saldi le redini del buon correre.
Invece di morire ad ore l’aurora
Resta qui come le puttane
Tanto provette da rendere felici
Solo le fallaci demenze del mentre
Si sta a vivere pazienze tetre.
Cimase e cornicioni crollano
Per troppa nostalgia e i cortili girano
Dementi più cattivi delle giostre
Dove si ride a pagamento il dèmone.
Germogliano pagani i rantoli stradali
— translated from Italian, published in Beltway (from her book, Intimità delle lontananze)
John Wall Barger 