I
We've been together for too long, Serenissima
During the years and the uneven accelerations
Of our ruins, you queen of the sea:
The spirit above waters is tired, and why shouldn't He be
This eye, hardened from remembering from the inside
(That's how the fruit remembers), where images of you swarm
Like worms. You've gilded my retina with the sanctity of your waters over the Lagoon,
You've filled my nostrils with sickening smells
of tunnels inside which crumble the facades
of unventilated palaces, you've trapped the air
Breathed in by my memories, in the small bubbles
Of your glass jewels. It was love
And hatred at first sight: I, almost still a boy,
Hit in the plexus by the finally real picture
Of the most beautiful square among them all - and you simply
Behave according to your nature
And experience, and you lay the green I
Into your insatiable herbarium, next to so many
Acquaintances from the sleeping hours. Your wonder
Reminds me that one should question the meaning of fairytales
In the light of your truth, sensed
In chroniclers' nightmares, you foam
Blurry and golden on a wave's crest
Which rumbles trying to catch up with the beginning
And to be night and to be morning: day two.
II
Byzantium (and I am but a varlet of her spat-on shadow)
Had no clue she was suffering from Lagoon cancer, up until metastases
Ate out her liver, lungs, heart and future
In her raped womb. You're smiling, Serenissima,
among toothless winged lions, as
Mother Mary is among irises, in sacrilege.
Black are these words, like black polish on the gondola
Which slides among shells of oranges and other trash
Of your canals. And golden, like the fuscous gold of the basilica, whose fruits burst
At the invisible seams, by the cut of the years.
But still, you'll say, didn't I want
Longhena to knit a temple into my heart,
Maybe only for the love of a Schiavon poet's love
Who knew some usually sealed
Secrets of love.
But
Your dome aligns with thee,
Santa Maria Della Salute.
Wrathful is the tired spirit above waters
And His wrath rumbles in the rumble of arhythmical breathing
Of nonbelieving water. You're smiling, Serenissima
And you ask: Have you ever thought about death
in Venice? There's an island and a graveyard over there
Where lay another poet, who said:
Things you truly love, last
Everything else is slag.
See me as slag, but remember me
As a flame, only as a flame.
III
Step by step, to the square -
(That's how ambassadors of empires walked in)
Filthy water. The one from loose bedrocks
Of stone trees (Forgive me, holy mother...)
The one chased by the wind off of Adriatic's shallow sea
To the three confused entrances into the Lagoon, poisoned
In Marghera. That's how a sick century does justice
And punishes beauty's arrogance, addressed in
The nothingness, between two mirrors.
I see you, eaten out by feces of pigeons, you queen
And by the darkness which rises from the veins of your waters.
PAX TIBI MARCE EVANGELISTA MEVS*
If only your bones could swing on the high tide,
And the gold above them shivers, and the gems
Shiver in the cold. And four horses from Constantinople
Widen their nostrils, irritated by the smell,
Four horsemen from Patmos.
Acqua alta.**
I'll be the first to leave. Your ruin
Accelerates slower, Serenissima.
There, my black dog licks my hand;
It's a weird blessing, in the twilight
Of an April day. We've been together for too long,
in love and hatred two diverse transiences.
And may the spirit above waters have mercy on us,
In all His absence, may he have mercy on us.
*-Peace be with you Mark, my evangelist
** - High water
Behind the poem
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