Antonino Caponnetto wasborn in 1950 in Catania (Italy). Since 1981 he lives in Mantua. Some of hispoetrycollections are: Forme del mutamento (1998), La colpa del re (2002), Miti per L’uomo solo (2009), Agonie della luce (2015), Il sogno necessario. ForPellicano cultural association, he directs the internationalseries:Poetry by the Planet, where heedited the first publication in Italianof the poems by the Romanianpoetess Elena Liliana Popescu and by the KosovarpoetFahredinShehu,aswellas he was the translator of ananthology of poems by the Colombianpoet Fernando Rendón.
THREE POEMS FROM “IL SOGNO NECESSARIO” / “THE NECESSARY DREAM”, PELLICANO 2017. TRANSLATIONS BY ALESSANDRA BAVA
First memory: the sky’s light blue.
Thenmanyfaces with a friendly look,
facestanned by the sun, smile at the child.
Childhood and youth, eternal time
ofmyancientland and of an enormous,
borderlessatthat time, summer.
In the orangegrove, I touchedlightly
theshimmering, green leaves.
I bear in me thatlockedaway
summer in my life.
Othersummers, otherplaces and battles
to be aware of myselfamongothers.
Butmystaying in the world
is in thateternalsummer.
In the colors of thesea, deepchasmswallowing
as a ravenousogre the bodies of the runaways,
in the colors of the skyliesthateternal
summer, onlyas the soul’speaceis
for thosewho die by water.
In the light thatblinds
the pupil of the alive.
Bedecked in merry masks
the Great Arrogantmovesforward. He takesseat
among the worseoperators. He comes to give
the long awaitedlectio magistralis.
His Machiavellanismis brute and shrewd.
Itsmells of blood, death, torment.
Of unfathomable, secret violence.
There’smaybewhobelievesthat, for thisreason,
midnight’sblackcloak
mayfinely-mesh up ouralive
by chance bodies?
“Darkerthanmidnightcan’t come!”
That’swhatwesaywhereday by day
mymothertongueisspoken.
Isit the youngpeople’s turn
to light a fireamidst the dark?
Yes! Butaseldersitisour
responsibility to teachthemhow to well.
To enlighten the unseen
To equip oneself with batteries, oillamps
ledlanternstorcheslights.
To make light in thismidnight,
sothat the new daydespite the blows,
thewounds, the dead, maynot come.
Later, onlylater
willwe be able to rest.
What freedom can be born
from the dream of the sleeper
that sunrise plunges into deep darkness?
The diver
descends
descends
descends
but the ropebroke
and the man in the abyss
with a last shiverchanges.
A dark and closed
lifeless body
lies in the fossil shadow
of the Australopithecus.
In broad daylight
thelunatic the wise man the miser the lost
dream with eyes wide open
Freedom
withoutflags and names
lives of their dream.
