ROME
Why
did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell:
No god, no demon of severe response,
Deigns
to reply from heaven or from hell.
Then to my human heart I turn at once –
Heart!
thou and I are here sad and alone;
Say, wherefore did I laugh? O mortal pain!
O
darkness! darkness! ever must I moan,
To question heaven and hell and heart in
vain!
Why
did I laugh? I know this being’s lease –
My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads:
Yet
could I on this very midnight cease,
And the world’s gaudy ensigns see in
shreds.
Verse,
fame, and beauty are intense indeed,
But
death intenser-death is life’s high meed.
keats
85
I recognise Rome
immediately:
from its colour of old bismuth nitrate
that runs down all its walls of brick and stone.
And a distant bell begins
to ring in
Side me as a reminder that
I have lost
everything. For that which you love the most
you are bound to lose. For that reason I
Have come here in order to
celebrate
Death and love, which are
so inextrica
bly intertwined as are body and soul.
That is why I have come to
celebrate
John Keats and the butterflies’ great reflect
Ed fiery glow over the city
when
it perishes against the light’s drum-rolls.
86
Already on my first evening
here I
visit the ivory of the room where
he died, which is still surrounded by ge
Raniums: it is perverse:
plaster masks,
Farewell letters and a lock
of his hair
which must probably be called cendré. Here
is only the usual, and although the
Fountain has reflected his
face, there is
Nothing at all left now
except for the
sunken shipwreck of the fountain at the
Foot of The Spanish Staircase
and the e
normous scarlet velvet curtains that are
Being pulled back from the
sky in order
to reveal once more the Roman sunset.
87
Even in my dreams I can
hear the swal
lows. My magnificent favourite birds
that glitter like violet quartz against
The sun, or like whirling
razor blades up a
Bove the Via Degli Scipioni.
They cross my secret ex libris on their
way towards the Tiber river, where the
Mosquito swarms of evil now
gather.
I have now reached the
point in my life where
things are beginning to fall back, or more
Correctly they are being
called back to
their origins. That is why I’m sitting
Almost completely naked
between Ho
tel Gerber’s mirrors and pink wallpapers.
88
That is how I am also
slowly be
ing emptied of morals, shadow and
poetry from the inside, while the Rom
An dawn is consumed by its
own gilding.
But it is perhaps simply a
prepar
ation for the final, great biblical
Flood that I have always wanted. Oh, all
These columns, all this
marble – it starts to
Get on my nerves, all this
old age that is
starting to approach me at such great ve
Locity. When will humanity
raise
a larger monument than the one for
Victor Emanuel, whose rearing
hor
ses only pay tribute to matter?
89
Of course St. Peter’s
Square is lovely. A
vast syndrome of beauty, a host that col
lects all the clarity of the sky in
One point. Yet despite all
this I prefer
A different form of beauty
that is
closer to life. Despite all this I pre
fer a clarity which death has not pro
Vided with the signet seal
of God.
Thus for example this
beauty is un
able to explain away every sing
Le act of treachery on
which it builds.
And this clarity is unable to
Eclipse Keats’ sonnets
which are radiant
with laudanum and with deep-felt grief.
90
Who has said that the moon
was only to
shine out here at Ponte Margherita
through the branches of the acacias?
Now it is gleaming out
through your own eyes
Even purer than ever
before, like
the visions that intermingle with the
coal-smoke of reality. And who
Would ever have believed
that the evening
Would come to intermingle
with my own
desperation, my fruitful desper
Ation, Yes, who would ever
have believed
that the first large drops of the falling
Rain would leave such fresh
and green traces
down through the regions of my heart?
91
I turn off down the Via dei
Gracchi
that is blue beneath the plane trees. Here a
hairdresser lifts his scissors as a form
Of blessing. Here the sun drops
down its pro
Jection of shadow. I myself
lower
my gaze. ‘Morte al fascio’ – is what stands
written on the walls in red spray paint.
The wealthy and the
prosperous live here
Like a protection against
the people
round the amethyst of the Vatican.
I return home and read the
beginning
of Endymion – not out of a feel
Ing of revenge or of rage
but because
it heals the heart with periwinkle.
92
I sit for two and a half
hours in the
sunlight on the Risorgimento square.
Acacias and sapphires! – But in
Spiration refuses to manifest
it
Self with its elevated
suffering.
A nun hovers like a transfigur
ation of white glass above the trees.
Apart from that the Carabinieri
And the gendarmes command
most attent
ion. ‘La repressione non ferma
La Rivoluzione!’ I recoll
ect this sentence from the plastered walls
In practically every single
street.
I also wrote this when I got back home.
93
On the Via Flamina the
number
one bus route takes you between car painting
workshops and baker’s shops. Every morning
A black angel makes its
appearance to
Remind everyone of the traffic
deaths.
I also leap for dear life trying to find
a path between Fiats and Lancias. And
The Pope and the Vatican own
more than
Half of all the Alfa Romeo
fac
tories apart from the estate agent
Companies and the Banco di
Sancto Spirito. I close my eyes
And dare to make this
assertion: re
ligion has nothing to do with God.
94
On the Via Paolo Emilio you
can buy a bottle of white wine for
seven thousand lire. And the shop
Assistant crosses herself
at such a
Miracle. Outside the shop
there is
a sign with ‘Stella Rossa’ with black
and red letters in what is almost a
Cicerone script. Keats
would drink claret
In the evening, when he was
happy at
a successful sonnet. I recollect
This while I myself wander
over
the fleeting continents that the
Clouds are drawing on this
stone-hard
asphalt, clouds with golden edges.
95
I now reach the Via Pompeo
Mag
no close to the Tiber. There a drogher
ia stands out nicely among the
Other shops. It is full of
blue bottles
And loaves of bread which
float over the
counter like zeppelins midst all the
olive oil and tarragon. And the cus
Tomers resemble stigmatised
nuns
And are prepared to sell
themselves to the
Devil. (Oh these visions that now e
Rupt once again despite all
will-power
(if only they were naked)). From this
Street only a few steps
separate me from
the consecrated ones’ delirium.
96
The sun is mine. The sun is
mine today
above the blue fountains of the Villa
d’Este. Above the rich men’s monument:
This effervescent pure
champagne from
The people who themselves
have produced
it. The falsification has com
pleted this theft. Isn’t it a strange thing
That the Brigades are
taking the law
Into their own hands after
centuries
of oppression and humiliation?
The sun and the light
appear to me to be
more baroque than the laid-out gardens
And the villa. The air and
water seem
more classical to me than the statues.
97
In the Villa Borghese’s
yellow pal
ace among the marble statues: this
gleaming Pompeii-red bust of a
Senator staring out with
empty eyes.
And the angels rise up
towards the sky
in the fresco ceilings as if they wanted
to flee from all the boredom that reigns
In the halls of the
Renaissance and the
Baroque. I myself, tired
and exhausted,
go out to the poppies, which have taken
Over supreme authority out
here.
The Brigades are victorious! – This mess
Age has even reached the
foundations of
the medieval houses as graffiti.
98
At the grey pyramid stone
and shadow
of Caius Caestius I realised
the loss. Is it over? – the answer and
Dusk sink over the light of
the ceme
Tery. He too lost his
beloved.
Lost his in the meantime among
the stones. Keats’ grim death opposite
Fanny Brawne. Blue
electricity
Above the crosses’
twilight. And the
opposition of Uranus, gleaming
From the pyramid’s tip. I
now lose my
body, lose my soul, if I lose the one
Half, I gain my spirit. Is
that a
good exchange between a loving couple?
99
The crenelated crown of
Engelsborg.
And the Madonna’s head. Or harlot’s
diadem. I am really standing here
Among full-length angels.
Therefore I
Must be in Heaven in a
certain
sense. Among archangels and cherubs
I even believe. White and full of
Authority among the
metaphys
Ical clouds and azure. Beggars
and
street-vendors proffer me holy
Relics. Here all of us are
congre
gated in the name of God, but not
In the Spirit. God &
Son Ltd. This
glittering, white, mercantile syndicate.
Rome: gleamingly full of
cinnabar.
Red graffiti. And history. But
do not absolve Rome. Not the columns of
Innocence. Not its. Guilelessness
is
Over and done. Not pure
marble. Not here.
Painted foundations with red and
black insignias. The Brigate
Rosse. Stella Rossa. Trajan’s
column’s
Stupidities. The strong
were to defend
the weak against exploitation. Against
Suppression. Slavery. Ah,
Gajus
Gracchus. Only your. The name. That dissem
Inates its dandelion seeds
through the mil
lennia. It. It. Promises justice.
101
Life’s five-pointed star
above the Forum
Romanum. Splintered. Chases through me.
Transfixes me to the present. To.
N.A.P. will win. La Libertà.
This. Five. The
Five-pointed star in its
circle. Stella
Rossa. Libertà per camerata.
Is justice possible without wea
Pons. And revolution
possible
Without rebellion. Armed
rebellion?
Can power hand over power without vio
Lence. Pantero libero.
Between. Their.
Death to fascism. Morte al fas
cio. Wants the privileges.
From. Private
ownership: robbery on robbery.
102
La merda è marrone. È mar
rone. La merda. Marrone. E.
N.A.P. prati. Io. Per. Boia. Libertà
Per camerata paccari. Morte
Al manifesto. Stella Rossa.
E. Io. Rosso. Io. Per per.
Brigate Rosse. Io. Rosse. Li
Bertà per camerata paccari.
E. La Libertà. Camerati in
Libertà. In. In. Io. In. In.
La Repressione non ferma
la Rivoluzione. No al fas
cismo. Marrone. Marrone. E.
Io. Brigate Rosse. Stella Rossa.
103
And the skies open searingly
pure.
a luciferian mirror for
reason
which I will break through with a jet plane
On my way to Rome, the eternal
city.
For the one who lets down
his beloved
hands her over to the demons.
Therefore I am looking for the final
Key to the sunrises that
gleam pink
And golden in the frescoes
in the Sixtine Chapel. Therefore I
Find myself now as a matter
of course
at a height of about a thousand metres
Among castles in the air
and sky palaces
on the Second Sunday after Trinity.
104
Libertà per camerati arres
tati. N.A.P. vince. Vince. E. Io.
Per. Rivoluzione fino alla
Vittoria. E. Prati. Rosso.
Morte as fascio e at tutti
padroni. Padroni tutti. Uno.
Tutti. Vota al commune. N.A.P. 68.
Operai. Studenti. Soldati.
Uniti nella lotta. E.
Uniti.
Tutti. Operai. Nelle lotta.
Tutti. Lotta. Nel. Brigate
Rosse.
Camerati in Libertà. In Li
Bertà. E. La merda er marrone.
E. In. In. Libertà. Tutti. E. Rosso.
105
Colosseum. Cola-coloured
shad
ows. And my shadow. Which don’t. But
not due to the sun. My own
Dazzling darkness. And
poppies
Of light over my forehead.
This rich
ness. Enough. This. And butterfly’s make-up.
Stella Rossa. Red star. On the
Walls. And writing. And.
Written this:
L’amore è anche spirituale.
With. Its. Red. Red. And. Written. But.
Here. It. Revolution of the
blood. There
from sand. But call out. Through this sand.
And. But. Libertà per camerata.
Five. Write this in this. Also It.
106
Rome. A bowl with sodium
and water.
In the evening hours. Seething. Fit
tings of stars. Neon. Go towards.
I walk on seething streets.
Of
Neon. Away from history.
This.
I. Antiquity. This. I. Gone. The
story of the rich full of columns and
Fountains. Their gleaming
mansions.
The blood. The pain. The
cruelty.
Nothing is heard of this. Facts are
Falsified for beauty. Also
that.
Tiberius Gracchus murdered. His
Eyes are history. It. He.
Gone. Roman baths and triumphant arches.
107
Villa Medici, pure
mirroring of
the world of ideas. Forty busts
in a frightful round-dance around
The fountain of the spirit.
Forty princes in an
Occult rondeau around the
centre of
power and tyranny. I place
a small red star of enamel
That I have on my shirt on
the grass in
Honour of The Red Brigades.
And the
sunset gives off its green glint
As salt does, when thrown
onto the fire.
I sit down in the evening coolness’s
Vapours of carbon
tetrachloride in the middle
of Rome’s doomed civilisation.
108
St Peter’s Church’s grey cranium
against
the clouds which light up the sky
like smoke rising. This. At a papal
Election from The Sixtine
Chapel.
White smoke against the sky.
That’s that, I
say on the Square of Sacrilege, where
blasphemy burns its magnificent
Azur and gilt. Is what one
fears really
deep down taking place towards
the conclusion, because one. This. Thereby
Actually and over. Border
or trans
gresses its borders? – Is our fear
And anxiety the smoke in the
sky which
indicates our deeper fire?
109
Mausoleum of Hadrian, grey stump
of bone or
the funeral drum droning out its
beats. Droning its throughout day and night
And the human heart in the
Cath
olic empire, where God is
his own prisoner in Castel Sant’
Angelo’s white chambers of
flame.
I lower my gaze behind the
charred
eyelashes’, these. A hori
zon has burnt down. I can find no
Kingdom of Heaven turning
blue. No one
among the columns and corruption
Of the ruins. Among among.
Jesus’ white
figure and face have left this city.
110
Hailel’s violet jewels and
precious
stones command admiration among
the Vatican’s rich treasures. Here they
Gleam from the showcases of
beauty
Like burning-glass in the
light of the heavens.
Twelve stones in the Pope’s tiara and
mitre’s gold. Twelve stones of
Frigidity and infamy.
The worship of false idols
and blasphemous mockery
govern this state. Mockery of the people.
Mockery of women. Mockery of
Poverty. Blasphemous mockery
of
Jesus’ crown of thorns.
111
The thunder blesses the
Madonna on
Via Cola di Rienzo. This street gleams
almost completely green with
Moisture and
mother-of-pearl. Despite this
Bribery raises its statues
into the
sky and corruption hangs down from
the balconies and from the stucco of the
Window sills. For it runs
parallel
With the sloping
foundations of the Palace of
Justice. It borders on the legal system’s
Underground of dried-up
ochre.
‘Hospedale del Popolo’ is says on the
Fencing and on the
scaffolding
for the repairing of the splendid structure.
112
At Lungotevere Michelangelo
the bats trace their blood trails
across the orange-yellow fresco
Of the evening. Oh, these
small fortune-
Hunters, they are
unconcerned
about the suicide of the morrow
or the revelations that are going to
Take place in the St Paolo
Basilica in Thursday’s
shadows.
For it is the task of the poet to
Separate evil from good,
and the beauti
ful from the ugly in his crazed
Visions. Thereby he brings
out the
real from irreality.
113
The offices of the Motor
Organisation
lie on Via Tacito in a corner
property that has strange
canopies and vine leaves of
plaster.
Here you can receive
extreme unction
from the mechanic before he
ascends into the sky in a cloud of
Carbon monoxide and pink
roses.
Slowly I fly after this
saint
of a so-called proletarian
On the angel-wings of
fantasy (the
entire scene reminds one more of a
Painting by Chagall). And
there Rome then lies
beneath me like a vast blueprint.
114
What high mass is not
celebrated
in this eatery on the
Piazza Cavour. The waiter is dressed
In a snow-white chasuble
with black
Seams, and he brings with
him both the
bread and the wine. I have admittedly
been granted absolution by the Pope at twelve
’O clock on St Peter’s
Square. But I do
Not regard that as anything
compared
to this tabernacle. The holy
Salt cellar, the candelabrum
and the writing
that is written out there on the wall
In blood: Operai studenti
soldati
uniti nella lotta CMCM.
115
If you go down the Via del
Corso in
rush hour you will see a saint on
a column of neon. The priests will dart
Around your legs like
frightened chickens
And the large glass facades
will emit electric discharges
of numinous volts. You then descend
Along a side street with
claire obscure.
And there the house of
dreams will rise up
in the classical sunshine. For poets
Do not dream themselves
away from real
ity, on the contrary, they create
It out of a dream. Here one
such perished
whose name and poetry have lived ever since.
116
Is it the goddesses of
vengeance that send
these tall agaves up towards the sky
in the small atrium garden behind the
Hotel, or is it only my
imagina
Tion that is stunting the
roses along
the atropine-coloured wall? – I wanted
to write about Keats, who struck
My heart with his lark-like
wings in my
Own youth, and despite this
the poems
have more to do with myself and
The never-ending labyrinths
in the anatomy of melancholy. I there
Fore make once more for the
inns of the
Spanish Square, which smell of iodine.
117
It is not possible for me
to explain
why I suddenly felt nauseous
in Santa Maria Maggiore
Church this morning. For
there is
No particular rage that is
rising up in my brain like green foam
or any well-defined anxiety.
I just have to get outside
to speak to
The chauffeur, whose name
is Gabriel. We
drink a cup of cappuccino, while
I absent-mindedly consider
the day
moon. There it sits like a water
Mark that is impregnated on
the sky.
I will never enter a church again.
118
If you measure a poppy at a
certain
distance with your nail, it is just
as big as the library that lies
At Hadrian’s Villa. The
deception is
Easy enough to explain,
although it
surprises you just as much each time
as with placebo pills or the
Müller-Lyer vases. Oh, what
a shame
It is not to be living with
this
knowledge of treachery, the false
Hood of women, the entire marble
floor’s
optical illusion of circles that intersect
Each other. From now on I
put my trust
in the thunder and the black olive fruits.
119
It ends as it begins with daisies,
which
are flowering everywhere around
the grave. I have come all this way
In order to pay a debt to
the poet of
My youth, who now is
reading the green
pages of death. I leave my poetic
will behind here, full of arum
Lilies and dark dreams that
will
Unite with the shadow from
the
Caius Caestius pyramid every
Night in the moonlight. I
also leave
my grieving lyre behind, where time
Has come to a standstill. The
rest must be
played on other, lighter strings.
120
This is how May ends in
Italy: like
an olive lamp that is slowly
being screwed down behind the horizon.
And the birds know that
spring is
Over. They are now
illuminated from below
when they cross the vault of heaven like
flaming satellites. I myself become
Aware of it when the
rainbow of petrol
assumes a deeper ultraviolet
hue over the Tiber. I must therefore
Also return home to my own
summer, which will be more bitter
Than overheated magnesium,
more
acrid than the taste of the plane-tree seed.
121
I heard a bell that has
never rung.
I read a poem that has never been
written. But of all that existed
I saw either only the
beginning or the
End. And that which I loved
went inexorably to rack and ruin
among the ice-spinning of the stars
That paint the sky as in
Michel
Angelo’s Day of Judgment
fresco. I there
fore conceal my love for better
Times, the breakers of
which I await.
For the one who has been in both
Heaven and Hell, has
nothing else
remaining except the Earth.
