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Giancarlo Cavallo, Italy

Giancarlo Cavallo, ITALY

As…

Since you

The Poems

 

Since you
are no longer there
I walk with only one leg
I breathe with only one lung
I see with only one eye
but the beats of my heart
are inexplicably
doubled.

*

Da quando tu
non ci sei più
cammino con una gamba sola
respiro con un solo polmone
vedo con un occhio solo
ma i battiti del mio cuore
sono inspiegabilmente
raddoppiati.

20 settembre 2018

* * *

As…

As a breath of suspended rain
as an endless agony
as a long-held cry
as a boulder weighing on the chest
when the day dies and never
never it gets dark
as a broken promise
as a breathless scream on the infinite
nightmare threshold
as the awareness of a mistake
that you can no longer prevent
as the irreparable forgetfulness
as Medea, as Cassandra,
as Antigone
as yesterday as today as tomorrow
as always as ever
as in a story by Kafka
or by Edgar Allan Poe
as that time as this time
as playing dice with death
as in a horror movie
as you were in the middle of a fire
as everyone knew it
as if no one recognizes you anymore
as gray on gray
as pain against pain
as if war had broken out
as if war had broken out
as if war had broken out

*

Come…


Come un respiro di pioggia sospesa
come un’interminabile agonia
come un pianto trattenuto a lungo
come un macigno che pesa sul petto
quando il giorno muore e mai
mai non fa notte
come una promessa infranta
come un urlo senza fiato sull’infinita
soglia dell’incubo
come la consapevolezza di un errore
che non puoi più evitare
come l’irreparabile dimenticanza
come Medea, come Cassandra,
come Antigone
come ieri come oggi come domani
come sempre come mai
come in un racconto di Kafka
o di Edgar Allan Poe
come quella volta come questa volta
come giocando a dadi con la morte
come in un film dell’orrore
come se fossi nel mezzo di un incendio
come se tutti lo sapessero
come se nessuno più ti riconoscesse
come grigio su grigio
come dolore contro dolore
come se fosse scoppiata la guerra
come se fosse scoppiata la guerra
come se fosse scoppiata la guerra

22-26 aprile / 4-13 maggio 2019

The Poet

Giancarlo Cavallo was born in 1955 in Salerno.His most recent books are: “Quadreria dell’Accademia” (Multimedia 2008), “Spiralothèque/Spiraloteca” (L’Harmattan, Paris 2015 – bilingual Italian-French edition), “La biblioteca in riva al mare” (2017), “26. Tribute to the twenty-six dead women” (2020). Some of his poems have been translated into French, Spanish, English, Greek, Serbian-Croatian and Turkish; he has participated in many international poetry festivals in Italy and abroad. He founded with Sergio Iagulli and Raffaella Marzano the House of Poetry of Baronissi/Salerno. He edits the column “Verso Casa. Poeti lontani visti da vicino” on the multimedia magazine Potlatch, with which it invites to the reading of the great contemporary international poetry.