Penelope sul viale del tramonto

Giorgio Mobili

 

Si procedeva come ciuchi, tra gorghi

e malefatte, osservando frangenti di canto

e schiuma correre via, i fari puntati, il vento

in fitta entrata dai versanti: un mero spasmo,

niente più, ci separava, temerari,

dal mulinello cosmico.

 

Quello era il tempo (la riminiscenza è ingrata)

della immancabile Suzuki, icona prodigiosa

grande nutrice di una vita non d’attesa,

ma d’attore, se pur soggetta a turbini

arroganti, all’obbedienza, e marezzata

da aggravi e sentimenti.

 

Stasera ci sarò, come ho promesso,

benché il tessuto s’assottigli ora più rapido,

a puntar la decorrenza; ormai, è vero,

senza più eccessivo attrito, e neppure

senza più troppo bisogno, notte o giorno,

di fare e di disfare.

 


Penelope on Sunset Blvd.

Giorgio Mobili

 

Like mules we plodded onward, past whirlpools
and mischief, witnessing walls of song
and surf dispel, our headlights trained,
the north wind sweeping down the slopes,
as we made our way, undaunted, for the famous
cosmic loop, in one definitive convulsion.
 
Those were the times (one wistfully recalls)
of matronly Suzuki, priceless icon of Japan,
and dutiful wet nurse for our bold dreams—
a terpsichorean fantasy, as usual, ensnared
in sham obeisance and obtuse gyration,
moiré with sentiment and aggravation.

Tonight I will be there again, as promised,
although, I hear, the yarn is wearing thin,
and, glaringly, the terminus shines through
by now, ‘tis true, without as much attrition,
or even as much need (by night or day)
to orchestrate the weaving and the unweaving.  

                    

        


Born and raised in Milan, Italy, Giorgio Mobili came to the United States in 1999 as a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis, from which he graduated in 2005. Giorgio  currently lives in Fresno, California, where he teaches Humanities and Italian at California State University. His poems in Italian have appeared in the collective volume 1°  non singolo: Sette poeti italiani, Ore piccole and are forthcoming in Offerta speciale.

 

 

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