Alessio Brandolini, Italy, 1958
Por: Alessio Brandolini
Arctic Lakes
Towers of Babel
we could have pulled them down
the cruel incomprehension, the dialogue:
squeezing of words thrown there
like a sack of flour
deformed by kicks and punches
but the guards were well placed
armed with guns, bombs and knives.
Too risky
to go near the electrified zone
to lean out of the window
or stand on the threshold of the bakery.
We wanted purer relationships
reduced to their core, dried
on the contrary we were swept away
by the drought
by a flooded existence
and we forced ourselves
to resemble the inside
of a skull
fractured in many places.
Lying in the boat painted white
exhausted, with arms hanging
with red noses
swollen by the cold.
The indifference among us had grown
to high fences of terror: impassable dams
blocked the impetuous torrent
of our truncated love; it flowed down the valley
that´s why to become liberated
was the main reason
of our frozen journey.
Translated by B. Magarian and Martha Canfield.
