The Italian Riveter: TWO POEMS by Dome Bulfaro, translated by Cristina Viti

Fleshing.
Contact no.

N
ever imagined never I’d never the nose
would one day offend the eye, the eye
paralyze its own tics in the void
never imagined I’d never those teeth

could snarl at their own hand, the right hand
one day take a knife to its own left
never imagined I’d never my own soul would end

up slip-shelling its own head, the head
one day crash into the knees

never & yet it’s happened everyone’s body would

hoist itself onto the cross with its own veins, the blue
veins of each man vote their own collapse!

the blue veins of each man vote their own

collapse! the blue of each man vote: collapse!

Spinning Head Heel.
Contact no. 25 (part right)

How to swallow the sea whole make of it the heap
that I am? How to cram each voice into the tip
of the pencil? How to clot carousels

hospital wards & into the same heel

accommodate you & the father of your surname? To sing
that’s the only blood the poet can give
consonant after vowel bleeding oneself into a napkin

in a bar writing – poems belong to those who drink them up—
poems push you to face the precipice of pulse

for this I sing that no one in the choir
ever be extinguished in the throat for when I sing I dream I’m fleshing
the one language I sing so as not to dance with dying
thunder, I sing for when I sing I’m nothing but singing

By Dome Bulfaro

Translated by Cristina Viti

From Ossa Carne

Published by Le Voci della Luna (2011)


Read The Italian Riveter here or order your paper copy from here.

Buy books from The Italian Riveter through the European Literature Network’s The Italian Riveter.


Dome Bulfaro is an award-winning poet, teacher, publisher and performer from Monza. He is founder and director of the Poesia Presente Festival, a school of poetry and performance, co-founder of LIPS (Lega Italiana Poetry Slam) and wrote about Italian slam in Guida liquida al poetry slam.


Cristina Viti is a translator and poet working with Italian, English and French. Her most recent publication was a co-translation of poems by Anna Gréki (The Streets of Algiers and Other Poems, Smokestack Books, 2020). Her translation of Elsa Morante’s The World Saved by Kids and Other Epics (Seagull Books, 2016) was shortlisted for the John Florio Prize.

Category: The Italian RiveterTranslations

Tags:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *