from Erotopaegnia (1959)

Edoardo Sanguineti

 

translated by Joel Calahan

 

1.

 

post tantum necking, post tantum petting (obscurum) putred’oh!

caput: complet’ah! (iterated, love, turgor) placenta: (body parts!)

relaxable! relaxables! you see the pallor; et nascitur! the celestial

labor room; (anim’eh! distillatio); ruination is (oh! ??????!) the day!

sortitur; is (carnis); et sexum; the black (oh defaecatio!) head emerges!;

the crown red! scream!; ex uno homine; breathe! oh ?????! tota haec

(the violacea!) animarum; (the head!) redudantia; redundans!

(…)

       the embracements, remember? that june twenty-first (fully erect!) at Piazza

Chenoux, in the evening; Sandeman SC; (our hair!); semen illud! (G 5 number 1)

number 769173 A, corporal!; that obscoenasque quasque; the saliva!;

that partes quasque! the saliva, the sweat; that suis nominibus

pronuntiantes! the cramps in our feet.

 

3.

 

seize the quicksilver, the cold gingiva, the honey, this sphere

of dry glass; measure the head of our child

careful now and do not twist his imperceptible

foot:

         in your nipple you must have converted

an extensive continent of lamps, the obsessive gust of critical

gardens, lazy belly whales, the nettles

and the vine, nausea and rust;

                                                because every street will

instantly want to run into him, an umbilical hernia cutting

his smoke profile, some hippopotamus giving him

its scurfy and black phosphorous teeth:

                                                          avoid the wind,

crowded places, jugglers, insects;

and at six months he could double his weight, see the goose,

grip his night gown, assist in the fall of solid bodies;

therefore tear him from a life of algae and globules, small nodes,

indecisive lobes:

                         his groan will conquer yr liquid wounds

and his oblique butter eyes correct the nameless centuries!

 

7.

 

the thing as it moves (ie the door); (the thigh); (the narrow window) the dagger!

(it moves!); and trembling! (terrible proportions!); enlarged! pressing (…);

and ie the bottle;

                                   in the lavatories; and in ie that

infected air; her the patient, so white; and this dagger as it moves! trembling!

 

8.

 

the students come; (and in that hollow, oh us, concluded! oh us, tangle!);

                                                                                    they screech:

yr name! (and I yell); yr name! (and he responds not: urinates):

                                                                                     their heads

emerge, puffy; their eyes, puffy, emerge, they rise,

purples; oscillating (prodigious) flash; (oh flashes! oh ashes!);

(their heads) swim (oh ashes!) in that air, burning, vibrating,

sterile;

               the students talk; yr name! (and they yell); yr name!

(we respond not: urinate):

                                           our heads suffer; and now they speak:

(our tongues); (and burning): oh testes! (they yell); oh testes! and finally

an ash tongue splits off (from that heart): semper curato!
(he yells this); semper! and flashing again, with robusto singultio,

in that sterile air (the student); ne sis! (yells); intestabilis!

 

9.

 

and past the glass door, the sudden pool; and her, and in the mist,

once more, lost!

                           I observed in fact (from one of those narrow windows)

the deserted plaza, the disfigured, collapsing palazzos: again I listened, again

that silence; and I smelled the air, no motion; and I too in fact,

lost, again; but past the panes you see greyish water; you see

tangles of vibratiles, of crisp nudes, and again:

                                                                       again the clean

breath of her desiring; and I too, then, and in that water, so miserable,

and lost; and her throat, and again, and the clean, then, throat, hers!

with water, and with a singultio, those irascible, immense, oscillating, nudes!

tepid, oh tepid chorus, oh soft, touching, chorus, which they named;

chorus, again: testibus (shouting explosives)! testibus (touching disfigured)!

testibus (disfigured testes!)! et praesentibus, oh!

                                                                         and it penetrated the fog;

and with utmost clarity; and vibrating, then, frenzied, water; and in warm cups,

copulating; in screeching tanks, you roll over; yelling, boiling:

in this belly (screaming then!) pushing! you push, then, moaning;

dripping, impress: oh, frangibles (you said);

                                                                   and I saw her, primed, sopping wet, oh!
(praesentibus testibus vidi); she vibrated I saw; vibrating; her herself;

                                                                                      push.

 

10.

 

and later, in that mist, and on foot, convulsive; and not convulsive, later,

again, and relaxed:

                          and the lights, in that mist! and they spilled, those lights,

above the grass; above the track, suffocated, oscillating; those lights! soft!

miserably I saw her, again, in that mist, and convoluted;

and resting, and in those lights, debasing herself! and the horses, breathing, circling,

bleached (the wooden rail, beating, aroused!); and those soft

lights! dispersing! in that mist!: oh lake (I said)! oh loss!

and on that track I touched! the horse! et:

                                                                oh equus (I said)!

oh corpus (above that grass, in that mist, I said!)! oh corpus!

(I said) oh!; (I said): ne tangito!; (oh that hoof lacerated me!);

(oh it twisted me!); (oh!); (oh that tongue!); and breathing, circling,

on that track; swimming! et:

                                                      nudus essem (I admitted);

nudus (clinging to me); (and clung again): corpus! ni!

(I breathed, I circled; swimming); me! (swimming; clinging);

texisses! (I breathed, finally); I rested; et:

                                                                        let’s search in the refrigerator

(I said); oh equus (I said swimming)! corpus meum! equus meus!

let’s search then in the refrigerator! (and we will find the fresh, the sweet grass);

(and I saw in that air, in that water, the clear, the soft lights);

oh I left, finally, circling, swimming; oh I went away! oh I breathed!

my hoof (I wanted to exclaim)! my body! (I screamed)! oh my tongue!