ISSUE THREE
May 1998

Paolo Maurizio Bottigelli


THE CORTLAND REVIEW

INTERVIEWS
 
R.T. Smith

POETRY
 
R.T. Smith
  Muffy Bolding
  John Kinsella
  Richard Foerster
  A.F. Moritz
  Miriam Levine
  Louis Armand
  David Shevin
  Stellasue Lee
  Adrian C. Louis
  David Sutherland
  Gregory Djanikian
  Paolo M. Bottigelli

REVIEWS
 
J.M. Spalding
  R.T. Smith

ESSAY
 
William Heath

FICTION
 
Douglas Thornsjo

bit.gif (43 bytes) Paolo Maurizio Bottigelli is from Piacenza, Italy and was born on 21 September 1950. He has been writing poetry for 20 years and has published numerous chapbooks in Italy. He has recently appeared in a television show hosted by the writer Dacia Maraini.
"L.DAY.3"


DESCENDING ON FOOT IN A TRANQUIL
AFTERNOON

with that
fatuous visage
they invade without even
joyous liturgy
with the flesh

like a body of some sort, inadmissible and ruined....
a robin encircled
by golden rays
hidden in the heart
breaks voice from within the chorus
..................................
with closed eyes learn to
hear what the prophecies
are celebrating...


... SO MANY THINGS WERE CAUGHT UP WHILE
THE PAPER BURNED...

on white flame
her hand and lips
a breath in the day ( the fear )
land over which faces glide
always into that azure backdrop
... already another world
as if the ruins of "that" past
were brought forth written
on walls of water


AN EXILE FROM HIMSELF IN THE CZAR'S
CHAMBER

I remember the hand in the honey
and wood remnants
hidden behind the house
then the weapons - too raucous and swift
for the happiness of the senses
Ulysses naked and cunning
his prick filled with pus, is dead underground
and his notion of time dangles by his flank
stretching towards this epoch

Among sensual massacres, the laurels tremble
around Virgil
soul like a bird of the Indies
I will free the body without dying.....



MAKING SPACE, PREPARING PLACES OF
GATHERING

now the open eyes
which discover the clearing, abandon
the archaic, reflected darkness
that hidden darkness which sullies the eyes

on sharp stone, blood
like a crater of new wine, flies off
napalm more outdated that lipstick
running with the stream of stars
in that body which lengthens on the wall



THE PAINTER LINGERS IN HIS WORLD

Sandy, with tortoise-feet
fifteen years, winter beach
tongue in the creases of the lips
from the heart on my lips
white cream
crescent moon, do you hear this echo?
razor blade which runs from one sea to another..

sleep is now external to the skin


IN THE WORLD OF THINGS BEYOND THINGS

the flame leaps and licks the sky
heart is the most terrible poison of all
can the goldfishes love a ghost?
God at your throat
opens roads
in the spheres of madness
sickness, they say, is the beating of the aorta
glanders in nasal cavities
the speck of dust, a summer refuge


PURPLE-COLOURED BAR

that powdered rifle
pink-thread weft among episcopal gildings
the baroque glances pressed into time
discover indignant ghosts of maturity
London, there at the end of the trip
j lennon, arms bonded
tall and lean, adored to the teeth...


MAGELLAN HIS BODY LIKE A PLACE

his eyes spread out
when a mule loaded with gold,
Zeus' head wreathed in laurels,
recounted the uneven morning
with wrinkled hips
swaying in the wind


CHORUS

prophetic serpents
enter the emerald rainbow
bleeding from menstruations


SICKNESS TOWARDS THE ABYSS

pink flamengos
then a home left in a train
the world screamed
when a revolver went off
in the wound


CHOLERIC, THE SUMMER DESCENDS ON
LAND

and her cheeks
at times sunlight
oh, but at the moment, there is something to die for
and her cheeks
at times sunlight
let fall the mucous serpent
on scaled lime


FIRST PART OF THE RITUAL ENDS

the morning
with opaque silence
forms bile in the blood
swallows up workers
in a circle of fire
undulating at Christ's bedside


THERAPY, IN THIS DIABOLIC WORLD

Adam ate the fruit, standing
in front of the woman
afterwards he went to wait for the dog
with legs dangling in mid-air
the black dog
in search of dust and sand


THERAPY, IN THIS DIABOLIC WORLD 2

Offering a fiction
I watched the water
full of glass sheets
too many things with such toughness
and in the end the circle of my love enduring
with the same visage I have remained buried
who knows where


THIRD MILLENIUM

trains pass
in silence being unstrung
by the fog
with backs against the sky
they become gigantic,
attach themselves to the earth like magnet
and pass the horizon
now silent now clamourous
in search of white sails or
a dusk
or a violet eclipse
as if to continue telling an old story


SKIES WITHOUT BODIES

drag themselves backwards
within depthless time
a star falls
to compel the face to open itself
without the tree to hide
the forest in the forest....


THE SUN APPEARS COLD, THE FLOWERS
WILTED

a mere reflection of the blinds
is the same old stretch
at the bottom of an acquarium
at length, the sacred point had received his martyrdom
a bramblebush would have received his body
to mature in open air
in the whiteness of neon
here is the bomb
like a scarf of fog
on the breast of the earth


THE SUN APPEARS COLD, THE FLOWERS
WILTED, BUT FOR NO REASON AT ALL

in the end the sun bleeds whiteness
its eye
in the realms of sand
disintegrates faith
not being able to see itself a mere star
when it dies in memory
youth begins kneeling for want of eternity
whitened roots flash
in the dusk


IN THE ROOMS OF SLEEPLESS MEN AND
WOMEN

you will be shot!
I repeated to him, you will be shot
die tranquilly
showing your breast to the platoon
I say it is only the silence
which will ricochet from the stone
he screamed
as if he were a girl offering her virginity


NAKED ON THE HARD BED

the cluster rests on tawny leaves
and your rosy lips
forgotten on that ridge
along the sky
the old man too weary
to protect himself from lashes
realises that in his praying
he was turned to stone
you gather the fire
in the wound,
the night, among flowers of pearls
becomes even more attached to the skin
the sea is a maddened dick counting the vortices of your run
then the eye, vivid with hate
speaks to you under the clouds
of heroes
on their shitty frontiers
so faithful and sharp


WON'T IT BE A BATHTUB, BY CHANCE?

coarse and black
the hour of day
presses against the rain
time still
trapped in white stone
the sun will have aged
since we smiled
through our lashes
without noise
the wind breathes over my body
with coloured clouds
and charcoal-coloured sleep
hidden there in the dust of the desert


IN REALITY, BREAD IN ALL PROBABILITY, IS
BLACK

the sickle's edge
is right to say that
in the end it is not enough
a hero - dried, stoned with drugs
really comical on a pyre of matches


GO THROW THE REFUSE IN THE RUBBISH
DUMP

here is the cell which explodes
before the divine light
licks the naked brain...


KILLING A PIG IS, ABOVE ALL, A FEAST

hidden in the wormy labyrinth
dead without anyone by the bedside
dead during the apocalypse
searching for one thought through the ages
in the jug, the avid day's
burning
yes, she knocks; yes, she lies down
she screams, grazing the liquid
"you can get out of the boney box"
the body, if you wish,
is a wasteland
steal, steal the whales
time is evil
and man is a sickness

 

 

translation by Arlene Ang, with help from Vittorio Curtoni

 

 

Paolo Maurizio Bottigelli: Poetry
Copyright � 1999 The Cortland Review Issue ThreeThe Cortland Review