To the moon

----------------------------------

Graceful moon, I remember

That – it’s been almost a year now – I would come,

Filled with anguish, to this hill to gaze at you:

And you were leaning over that forest

As you are doing now, lighting up all of it.

Yet your face appeared nebulous and trembling

To my lights, due to the tears wetting

My eyelashes, for troubled

Was my life: as it still is, nor will it change,

My dear moon. Yet that time’s memory

Helps me, and so does the recalling

Of my pain. Oh! How grateful does

The remembrance of past things occur

In the years of youth, when the course of

Hope is still long, whereas short is the course of memory,

Although the things remembered are painful, and the trouble continues!


A translation of Giacomo Leopardi’s Alla luna
(by Bruno Gullì)

U blues da giuvana

Vaiu o' campusantu
Arretu da signora Rosalía.
Vaiu o' campusantu
Arretu d'amica mia bella Rosalía
Ca quandu ieu su morta u vogghiu
A 'ncarcunu arretu i mia.

Vaiu all'ospiziu
Mu viiu a chidru vecchiu du zi' Brunu.
Vaiu all'ospiziu
Mu viiu a chidru vecchiu du zi' Brunu.
Quandu ieu mi fazzu vecchia e brutta
Volarría puru u viiu a 'ncarcunu.

L'ospiziu è tristi
E u marmu è friddu.
Ahi, l'ospiziu è tristi,
U marmu è friddu o' campusantu.
Pe 'mmia mu moru
Ca vecchia e brutta mu campu.

Chi po' fari na giuvana
Si no 'ndavi cchiù amuri?
Ahi, chi po' fari na giuvana
Si no 'ndavi cchiù amuri?
Vommi beni, papà, ca non bogghiu
U su nira i duluri.

traduzione di Young Gal's Blues, di Langston Hughes
-Bruno Gullí

U blues du menzu du 'mbernu

'Nto menzu du 'mbernu
Tutta a nivi 'nta terra.
'Nto menzu du 'mbernu
Tutta a nivi 'nta terra.
A viggilia i Notali
Mi faci sta guerra.

Non sacciu si rociu pecchì si 'ndi iiu
Ma mi dassau senza carvuna.
Non sacciu si rociu pecchì si 'ndi iiu
Ma mi dassau senza carvuna.
Mo, si 'nn'omu a 'na fimmana 'nci voli beni addaveru
N'a dassa i sti tempi, n'a faci u 'mpuzzuna.

Icía ca m'amava
Ma quant'è trapularu.
Icía ca m'amava
Ma quant'è trapularu.
Ma ieu vogghiu a idru
o pemmu mi sparu.

Vaiu u m'accattu nu bocciolu i rosa
E u chiantu arretu a porta,
Accattatimi nu bocciolu i rosa
Chiantatimmillu arretu a porta,
Nommu 'ndannu u vannu pe' hiuri
a putiha quandu su morta.


traduzione di Midwinter Blues, Langston Hughes
- Bruno Gullì

(mediterranea)

Dissolta la notte che grave
l'aveva nel grembo
trasale, sorpreso in un intimo sogno,
il chiaro paese appuntato
tra ulivi sul mare

E pare dirupi

San Francisco, circa 1987

Resurrection

Now I understand
When I left for Paris
With sadness in my heart
And pain all over my body,
With dead eyes
And pain in my soul,
Got there in the rain
And sun of September
Solitary and lonely
Got to rue Cels
And walked at night
To Montparnasse or Saint-Germain
And sometimes to the Seine.
I now understand
You had spoken to people,
Told everybody
To be gentle and brave
At the same time,
To let me feel
That it was still possible
The dream and the impossible
That life and love
And passion are stronger
Than the immense stupidity
Which kills us at times.
Then came the winter,
December and January,
As cold at rue Cels
As I had never felt before,
Yet I read, thought and dreamed
In the warmth of something
Only now I understand.
The red leaf that came through my window
In the middle of October.
Was it coming from you or was it you yourself
Coming in October and bringing into Paris
The benchless quiet of the Nevsky Prospect?
For it was then that I thought of Leningrad
As I now do of our child, still not around,
Yet already present, stretching her hands
Toward yours that hold the sun.
Child of war and light,
Of truth and darkness,
And of rebellion.
And you, streets of Paris,
You helped me too
As the voice that persuaded people
Also spoke to the walls
The gardens and sidewalks.
With the coming of Spring
We took walks from Porte de Vincennes
To the Bastille and sat in the sun
And looked at the water
Trying to open our souls.
I prepared myself
For the work in the fields,
Where I felt the infinite
Under my feet and the truth
Of thinking that
Cuts furrows into the soil of Being.
The ontological and cosmic change
We are conceiving,
Her hands, her being, her eyes
In the chiasm of our bodies,
The joy and the dance
Of its autonomous movement.
As I tell you of him
Who died early,
In your beautiful mountains,
Of his painful death,
I descend, fearless,
In the depths of your waters.
In your hands I become a rose,
And you, another rose
That I feel everywhere,
The finite and the infinite,
Our potentia and,
Of course, love.
I'm inside you
And he, whom you'd have loved,
Is inside me, and you are
Inside both of us.
For he came back,
His ashes have risen from the ocean,
Made a body of light
We've felt in our bed,
We've felt inside
As ground for her coming
Into the world.
When out of the ruins,
Out of the black soil,
He gave you his love,
He made possible
Your resurrection
And mine.

New York, February/March 2000
from Figures of a Foreign Land
San Francisco: Deep Forest, 2001

Preparazione e nascita

___________________

death is not this master.
-Emmanuel Levinas

Ho imparato che spesso
È doloroso il ritorno
E deve esserlo
Di noi stessi a noi stessi
Del lavoro al lavoro
Della vita e del tempo
All’assente presenza
Dell’atomico moto
Di tumulto e di caos
Del tempo che siamo:
nunc stans.

Ora assorto sedendo
Dentro i monti nei boschi
Di faggi e di pini
Che hanno visto i briganti
Contro stati nascenti
E signori oppressivi
Fra due mari chiarissimi
Spazio certo del nascere
Di violenza e tragedie
Ancora eterno
E sempre nuovo
Copre i tempi negati
Veloci e insieme lenti
Fra l’inizio e la fine.

Dirompente fiato
Immenso fuoco –
E noi? Poter restare
Abbandonati e nudi
Su questa terra cruda
A sognare una vita diversa?
Tempo diverso del nascere
Pluriverso del fare comune
Nell’insolitudine vera
Di terrene plenitudini
Dentro l’essere che è
E non può non essere
(mentre il nulla non è
Ed è necessario che non sia) –
Sognare una vita diversa?
Costruirla ogni volta
Fuori da questo immenso
Silenzio, nel giusto mezzogiorno
Di apparente stasi
Nelle notti stellate
Del probabile ritorno.


bruno gullì
new york, 2003-2006

Hölderlin’s Window

____________________________

“…and the philosophical light around my window is now my joy;
may I be able to keep on as I have thus far!”
-Friedrich Hölderlin
(letter to Boehlendorf, December 2, 1802)


Nothing but being remains
When
In the strong silence that doesn’t go
Unheard
The planes of time shift
And thought appears
In all its brightness:
The plane of memory
And the absent other, of the future.
But moments and modes
Of consolation are rare.
We anxiously seek
Thought on one side
The word on the other
In the void of time.
Quiet was earlier
Later there will be quiet.
Behind the window this new light
Exuberant with nature
In the warm evening
Finds us empty and cold
In the time of indifference
And revives us.
Perhaps a new thought
From the forest and mountains,
Perhaps in the crowded stations
Of forlorn cities
A young eternal face,
Ancient in its gaze,
Renews our passions, the fire
That lights the evening sky.
Yet simple are clothing and manners.
Here on the train going downtown
And losing itself into the woods
Set on fire by the new sun,
In the remote corners of the earth,
Talks are simple,
But high and real,
Conversations between pariahs and gods,
As to how war and blood and death
Reign allover.
The world sees no light.
Neither in the sweatshops in Pakistan
Or Thailand, nor those in New York
Or California does the void of time bring
New being. Laughter in Washington, London,
And the other capitals. Neither on the streets of La Paz,
Nor among the rubble in Baghdad is being nothing.
The laughter that calls itself democratic
Doesn’t see
The new coming freedom
That flows like lava down the mountains,
A river that breaks its banks.
The absolute and free being which is coming,
With a wide brow, comes from the future.
It carries with it immense spaces.
Like a new god, it crushes
Under its bare strong feet
Temples of a fake intelligence.
New cities arise everywhere in the world,
New centers of life. To the crescendo of festivity,
To the free coming and going of people
The unexpected gift of a genuine word
Adds itself, the presage, which is memory,
Of enlightenment.
To the usual window, tired, I return
Like he who due to a long absence
Through an exhausting journey
And a laborious search
Has lost his mental strength,
His bodily sense, to whom even rest
Appears to be action and effort.
Nor do you, thought, hide your presence.
Sleep is good in these circumstances.
It envelopes in the twilight the trembling walls
Of houses, the sound of our steps,
Solitude.
In this vortex
Of memory and of that which to equal status
Aspires, labor finds its elements.
Upon waking, the light of thought,
A new sun, floods eternal spaces.

Bruno Gullì (New York, June 2003)
Translated with Rosemary Manno
San Francisco and New York, June 2005

La finestra di Hölderlin

___________________________

Non c’è altro che l’essere
Quando
Nel silenzio che non passa inascoltato,
Tanto è forte,
Si spostano I piani del tempo
E il pensiero appare
In tutta la sua lucentezza.
Il piano della memoria
E l’altro assente del futuro.
Ma rari sono momenti e modi
Della consolazione.
Noi da un lato il pensiero
Dall’altro la parola
Nel vuoto del tempo
Con affanno cerchiamo.
La quiete era prima
Dopo sarà la quiete.
Dietro la finestra questa luce nuova
Esuberante della natura
Calda della sera
Vuoti e freddi ci trova
Nel tempo dell’indifferenza
E ci ravviva.

Forse un pensiero nuovo
Dalle foreste e dai monti,
Forse dalle affollate stazioni
Delle grandi metropoli
Un viso eterno e giovane,
Ma nello sguardo antico,
Rinnova le passioni, il fuoco
Che il cielo della sera accende.
Eppure semplici sono abiti e modi.
Qui sul treno che va downtown
E si perde nei boschi infuocati
Dal nuovo sole,
Negli angoli remoti della terra,
Semplici sono i discorsi,
Ma alti e veri,
Discorsi tra paria e dei,
Di come guerra ovunque
E sangue e morte regni.
Luce non vede il mondo.
Né negli sweatshop del Pakistan
O della Thailandia, né in quelli di New York
O della California porta il vuoto del tempo
Essere nuovo. Ridono a Washington, Londra,
E nelle altre capitali. Né per le strade di La Paz,
Né tra le macerie a Bagdad l’essere è nulla.
Non si accorge quel riso
Che si dice democratico
Della nuova libertà che viene,
Scende come lava dai monti,
Fiume che rompe gli argini.
Del futuro è l’essere che viene
Assoluto e libero, dalla fronte ampia.
Immensi spazi reca con sé.
Come un nuovo dio, schiaccia
Sotto i piedi nudi e forti
Tempie di falsa intelligenza.
Nuove città sorgono dappertutto nel mondo,
Nuovi centri di vita. Al crescente rumore
Di festa, al libero andirivieni di gente
Il dono della schietta parola inatteso
Si aggiunge, il presagio, che è memoria,
Dei lumi.
Alla solita finestra stanco ritorno
Come chi per lunga assenza
Per estenuante cammino
E laboriosa ricerca
Perduto della mente abbia la forza,
Del corpo il senso, a cui il riposo
Perfino sembri azione e sforzo.
Né celi tu la tua presenza, pensiero.
Il sonno è giusto in queste circostanze.
Avvolge nel crepuscolo i muri trepidanti
Delle case, il suono dei nostri passi,
La solitudine.
In questo vortice
Della memoria e di ciò che a eguale stato
Aspira trova i suoi elementi il lavoro.
Al risveglio, la luce del pensiero,
Un nuovo sole, inonda spazi eterni.


Bruno Gullì

New York, June 2003

Song of the Lost Self

___________

Attention!

This is not a poem, but a collage of advertisements. It means that I didn't work as a writer but as a jobless and almost desperate reader who, early in the morning, was looking at the Job Opportunity section of the Sunday Paper. It doesn't have anything to do with a piece of automatic writing, nor with the poem that André Breton once wrote using the page of the phone book in which his name and address were listed. This collage is but the satirical, repetitive monologue of the job-hunter who is forced to see reality in the terms publicity wants. But in each advertisement we read, there is, I believe, a precise political meaning. They (who?) tell us how to behave, to look, to think, in order to have a job and make a living. I know that the text is boring, but it was the only way to catch the immediate meaning of such a violent and coercive situation. Probably, I would have had a better inspiration if I had been reading Rimbaud.

O saisons, ô châteaux!

I'm bright, I'm efficient,
I have an energetic and friendly personality,
I'm a highly qualified individual,
I'm a highly motivated individual who is sincere & honest,
I have strong written and verbal communication skills,
I consider myself in the top 1% of my profession,
I'm aware of the power in building close relationships
with my associates,
I always see things through to perfection,
I do work at getting people to like me,
I possess the discipline necessary to be responsible
for the implementation of company policy and procedures.
I'm willing to learn and grow in a business environment
that promotes autonomous decision making,
I perform well without direct supervision,
I'm willing to work hard in friendly fast paced environments,
and I also enjoy being underpaid,
I'm willing to work flexible shifts,
I do need extra hours,
I have a degree w/3-5 yrs indus exp,
I do need extra money,
I will accept $4.25/hr, and/or $3.35/hr for P/T on call position,
I'm willing to work F/T, P/T,
I will call immediately to apply or discuss the possibility,
I'll come in or call for an interview now!
I will go w/my own bike,
I will go w/my own car,
I will go w/my own truck,
I will walk, if it's necessary,
I will send resume,
I will Apply in Person.
Yes, I want a success I can count on.
I'm creative about using time,
I have Gd knowledge of office support skills & general business
and I am a motivated self-starter.
I'm organized.

I have strong problem solving, communication and management
skills,
I have the ability to motivate others,
I have a direct, clear, pleasant voice.
I'll tell you when I want to work,
I'll tell you when I want to sing,
I'll tell you when I want to drink,
I'll tell you when I want to eat,
I'll tell you when I want to piss,
I'll tell you when I want to fuck.
I'm flexible.
And responsible.
I'm self-motivated, enthusiastic, aggressive,
I'm goal orientated, tenacious and dedicated,
I'm looking for a challenging and financially rewarding position,
I want $50,000, or more
I want $100,000, or more
I want $1,000,000, or more.
I do have a strong desire to succeed.
I want to enter the car wash field w/no exp,
I'm an energetic career-minded person,
I'm a top quality individual with the desire to succeed,
I'm aggressive, a self-motivated individual with the desire
and the experience to run a successful operation,
I thank you for encouraging minorities and Spanish-speaking to
apply,
I'm creative,
I'm mature,
I'm enthusiastic, articulate, aggressive,
I have a sales-orientated mind,
I have the ability to follow complex oral and written directions,
I'm capable of working independently,
I like heavy phones and word processing,
I love to wash dishes,
I have the ability to work with minimal supervision,
I have a strong phone manner, excellent skills,
I have the ability to interact successfully with people
and the desire to dig in and get things done,
I enjoy working under pressure,
and I also have a Gd sense of humor,
I'm circumspect in handling personnel-related matters,
I will respond in confidence,
I do have a strong work ethic...

WHAT ABOUT YOU, PIGS?




Bruno Gullì
San Francisco, 1987

It

_________

It's red

like blood

brown like

the twilight's woods

not merely blue

like the waters of any

writing

not merely green

like the hope of simple

hope.

It is black

like the night which is

ending

that is, strong

like the sun which is

rising.



Bruno Gullì

New York, 3/28/98