Five poems by Franca Mancinelli / Plume Poetry 7

• Post By: johntaylor
• Date: 27 février 2019
• Category: News

Five poems by Franca Mancinelli have been published bilingually in the anthology Plume Poetry 7 (edited by Daniel Lawless, Canisy Press, 2019). The poems were selected from her first book, Mala kruna (2007), now included in her book A un’ora di sonno da qui (Italic Pequod, 2018). Here are the English versions:

suddenly the constructions were collapsing,

the wave was sweeping inside

the green swimming suit. When I stood up

I knew what happens to a woman

 

after the sun has sunk into the spirals

now become solidified salt

and other dead shells.

*

you’ve kissed my protruding bone

the hip’s incurved branch:

the string of stones on my back vanishes

and I sit in front of you

with open roots.

 

It’s a clear-cut image, long

I leaf through until it matches

but now I remember it’s me:

the shining lobes just pierced,

a makeshift smile,

a flower coming closer from his hand.

I open my eyes to the flash, and the slicing

of the light is mine.

*

here every word is a broken branch

a tree of music by the seashore

 

what torment to be together

yet distant

 

only parched saliva, crushed chest,

but if my eyes rested on your eyes

every knot in my blood would be a bow.

*

the bony heart licked, I let myself go,

roll all the way to the sea.

 

My breast a tulip upturned

to the railroad’s teeth,

my back a bridge to your watery footprints

 

push the swing for me:

a full turn up and around the bar

and through the wind.

*

if we were feverish together

we’d be like two spoons

put back dry in the drawer.

Our feet to and fro like rags

to caress the floors

 

or we’d stay naked like nails

forgotten in the middle of the wall.

© translation John Taylor