Dear God, dear Intelligence
I’m not a bomb
I’m not a killed child,
I’m not Hamas and not Israel
I’m not even Sudan and Mali
Syria and Lebanon
not Hutu or Tutsi
not to speak of infibulation
I’m not even that
I’m not mutilated limbs or even diseases
and even the aspirin that would be enough to heal
much less I’m not the conception that prohibits it
or whoever authorizes hunger, flies and swollen bellies.
I’m not Islam or Christianity
I’m not the Crusades and am not Egyptians
I’m not a slave, neither a witch nor a sorcerer
I’m not a bunker
or a concentration camp
I’m not a prison or a mortar
I’m not a gun, a rifle or stone thrown
or even the acid on a face.
I’m not a missile in a head at a hospital
I’m not an ambulance
hurtling only when it departs and never when returning
I’m not a corrupt head of state
nor an extremist party on one side or the other
not even a citizen who fills his mouth with words
without knowing where they come from
I’m neither white nor black
not the Pope or Muhammad
I’m not Buddha and every name he’s ever had
this conception and its relative movement.
I’m not stupid and I’m not, however, very clever
but I know for certain that I’m not a weeping mother
because she’s no longer a mother
I’m not the madness of man
and, above all, I’m not all of his conceptions.
I know everything I’m not
but, excluding this, can’t be anything other
than what I am.
How do you put it all into practice
Dear God, dear Intelligence?
Long Shot
I’d like to set myself aside
And look at the world flowing
That it’s smashed against walls of ignorance
Only to be recomposed
To be brand-new again
Ready for more walls.
I’d like to set myself aside
and observe human foolishness
that infects alternating minds.
Sensibility minimized to the brainwave
dazzles like a lightning
leaving darkness before and after
I’d like to set myself aside
And follow logical threads
Politics, religion, a sense of life
Counting how many knots per every thread
to see where they start and when they end
to see if they intertwine, at least once
I’d like to set myself aside
And count the attendances
Observing audience, stage and backstage.
With a long shot
I’d like to find out if there are more knots
or heads, clever in making choices.
Instructions to remain foolish
A flower that leaves its petals
On the floor
Because the flow of life foresees it
A woman who leaves her pride
In ashes
Because someone foresees it
A child who leaves his life
In the dust
Because a system foresees it
All of humanity leaves its eyes
Inside Plato’s caverns
Where light’s the only key
thrown away.
Porthole
Who says
That fog ‘s not
the only truth of the universe
hurling the existing
into the surest doubt?
A porthole makes the earth round
Why in the world should an eye
make it real?
We’ve the responsibility,
the awareness
of having two eyes.
Ghost party
It seems indeed a simple concept
Politics for the common good
When the common belongs to all
And none is the owner
Degeneration of ideals
Unrecognizable even using mirrors
That truth at first defended with blood
Is now made invisible by walls of money
The pocket of any pants
Seems the pocket of the whole world
If it jingles, it’s gipsy’s violin
A ghost party for speculator owners
It seems indeed simple
Anyone’s car is able to plummet
Anyone’s health
When everyone’s absent
Would be able, this is certain
Other walls have fallen
This hard one yet without stones
Will be able to fall when
The concept will become simple.
Kilometers
Ghosts are not afraid
In front of kilometers
This I knew when I left.
My need of absence
was the absolute protagonist.
To find them after useless kilometers
No longer amazes me
When the surprise is gone
I remain to count the kilometers
Useless even to set distances
Kilometers like stones
That have fun throwing at you
The logical sense of life
Real Dream
In the exact instant
I feel
no love
I’m devastated.
the contract is withdrawn
and I even have
to pay the damages
to my incomplete soul.
I feel
unbalanced
when I think
that I live on earth
knowing that
the world
is defined.
Universes
A few words were enough
to fill this little shape
of sunflowers that do not follow the sun
you’ve realized
that the offerings at my table
aren’t to blame
but
the results don’t change
the heart dissolves within the thoughts
mirroring the world
and many of its fragilities
put in a corner
for a long time
but you
are a flower of this earth
I still have the clouds
suspended in mid-air
Poetry
Poetry for people who have something to say
and those who can’t
poetry for people who have a lot of answers
and few questions
poetry for those who haven’t learned anything
and for those who still don’t know
poetry for God, and for all the others
poetry for irrevocable convictions
poetry for stones thrown
poetry for blood shed
poetry for blood drunk and ignored
poetry for ideal and revolution
poetry for ignorance both white and black
where the white is ignorant
and the black is missing something
poetry for those who discover it
may have one more star
poetry for those who read it
can live stories and ancestors
poetry for who writes it
can instantly forget
what he writes.
Poems translated by Jack Hirschman
Battistella Stefania, born in 1989 in the province of Treviso (Italy). She has published “Briciole di pensiero e di velluto”, (2010), “L’amore m’ha fatto fragile”, (2012), “Primo giorno senza futuro” (2014). In 2011 she moved to Rome and in the same year partecipates to the International Festival City of Sassari along with Jack Hirschman, Paul Polansky, Beppe Costa and others, where she performs poetry readings; in following year she began working with the festival organization.
She is present (July 2012) in the journal Dedalus Networks.
In December 2012 she won the International Prize “City of Ostia” for poetry.
Present in several anthologies: Jackissimo, SignorNò, Acqua privata? No grazie, Hazara collaborative poems, in the catalog of the 2015 Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin.
In 2012, 2013 and 2014 she participated in the “Nisan Festival”, which takes place annually in Galilee, an event in which are invited numerous poets from around the world.
In several editions, the last in Venice (2014), she takes part in the international poetry festival “Palabra en el Mundo”. As President of the cultural association Pellicano, she creates together with Beppe Costa some poetry and narrative book series.
