The Composition of the Text

  by Adriano Spatola

translated by Paul Vangelisti

1
an adjective breathing the window open
the insertion's exact dimension in the rustling of pages
or see maybe how the text uses the body
see how the work is cosmic and biological and logical
in nocturnal voices in auroral explosions
in the croaking scratching scraping setting fire
here under the soft sky sticking all over the fingers
words that speak

2
he turns to the night cries out to it from the window
to slow down or existence is the circle is the space
is rhythmic swinging harpoon that brushes the lips
bronze gestures darkroom a stain left by the water
framed frozen hypocritical face dust hypnosis
see but how negation modifies the text
with possible words with impossible words

3
but the text is a living object furnished with keys
the crude resection its effect the incredible osmosis
this is the moment you wait for start cutting
see how it stretches and swells it's ready to burst
it's the young anaconda biting its own tail dragging 
odor of marshes odor coined from the breath of swamps
a book a notebook a pen a painless desire
without words

4
tired now he becomes aware of his own purposes
it's not difficult to try various tests various experiments
improbable preparations for a voyage by now certain
you too let yourself become sterile don't throw open the door
untreatable eczema the stamped meat the ruins the slaughterhouse
in the text everything accumulates everything melts into vapor
remember it's late remember it's time to go to say goodbye
with a few careful innocuous words

5
after the first beats the material becomes insensible
or sensible uncertain private risky privileged declension
in terms of organic functions or malfunctions
or in terms of chipped awkward monodical alternatives
see at this point how the text begins to miss the beat
the refusal is to b lame you begin with the same refusal as before
but you will accept whatever other duty entrusted to you
that has no need of words

6
it's incoherent it's undetermined his sickness has no purpose
now that we are in the text the fixtures appear to subside
a noun is an excess of coughing the beginning of hysteria
the vulgar embellishment the shears dripping with blood
without falcons without promises without hunting horns without catharsis
the woods are full of fragile docile stupid victims
the woods are full of love and how it hates love 
this word

7
before long in the text the final part will have begun
catalog of mannerisms and of rapes song and narcoses
marking on the calendar with a pencil the delivery date
a verb is the parasite the narcissus the rage beneath the skin
but see how the machine masticates and bubbles and heats up
the music rises the hand corrects the lights go down low
the head even lower open your arms wide don't shut your eyes
cancel that word

from: The Position of Things: Collected Poems 1961-1992. Copyright 2008.