Figlia mia/ Daughter by Bruno Lugano

FIGLIA MIA

18/03/2011 10.45

Bruno Lugano

Ho pescato figlia mia nei polmoni di luce marina dell’infanzia
Ho aggirato le ignoranze fastidiose che tendevano agguati
all’ entusiasmo
Mi sono districato nel viavai rognoso delle coscienze e delle incoscienze
Nelle debolezza che mi stava sul collo con tutti i suoi strazi

Insomma figlia mia
mi tiravano da ogni parte ribollimenti di immaginazioni volenterose e un eredità di vagabondaggi spontanei sui litorali di ogni parte del giorno ma insomma
mi sono tenuto fedele a una personalità imprecisa che rideva e non rideva
a tutto quello che cresceva bene o male in rapporto con il giorno vivo o morto
La passione mi gettava nell’intelligenza e l’intelligenza abusava spesso della passione
e potrei dirti ancora cose che in questo momento non mi vengono
ma che non sono dimenticate perché la mente niente dimentica dell’utilità minima
Le cose che non ricordo insistono a frullare finché non servono alla mente
perche anche l’anima tende agguati a tutte le sostanze che servono
perché la speranza vera può decomporsi ma non scomporsi in negazioni di sé
Solo la morte mi farà completo di tutte le scuse perfette che non trovo

Perché la morte è la speranza più divina per tutte le speranze che soffrono
perché anche se fa paura quasi sempre la morte
è l’unica possibilità di successo per le speranza che illanguidiscono nell’ impotenza
Anche la luce di ogni giorno esce dalla morte e da ogni genere di morte

Per cui figlia mia
anche la parola e la coscienza tendono a prendere fiducia dalla morte
perché anche la più piccola fede tende a non essere violentata dalla morte
e credere nella morte per credere in se stessa
perché poco rimane nelle nostre mani che non sia speranza
perché nella morte la speranza cerca quello spazio che pochi gli concedono
non mi spaventano più gli stati in cui sono più morto che vivo
il loro disgusto ammazza-cervello, ammazza-identità-sopportabile
Non più doveri di seduzione naturale a scompaginarmi la mente
L’orso che cammina nelle sue stanchezze sosta anche nelle sue stanchezze
e i tempi non sono più tempi calcolati fino al minimo spazio da dignità pensate
mi lascio andare senza colpa ai piaceri più umani che mi sostengono
e dietro ogni angolo fa capolino un intelligenza sempre più semplice
che mi porge porzioni sempre più saporite di me:
Vedere sciogliersi le oscurità che si aggregavano per i miei eccessi di passione,
avevo bisogno di distrazioni qualsiasi continuamente
che poi finivano per inquisire malamente la mia coscienza più baldanzosa.

DAUGHTER

18/03/2011 10:45

Bruno Lugano

I fished daughter in the lungs of the maritime light of my childhood
I evaded the fastidious ignorance that was lying in wait
for my enthusiasm
I disentangled myself in the foul rushes of awareness and unawareness
In the weakness that hung round my neck with all its torments

You see daughter
I was tugged here and there by bursts of keen imaginings and an inheritance of
spontaneous wanderings along littorals of every part of the day and yet
I remained faithful to an imprecise personality that laughed and did not laugh
about everything that grew good or bad in relation to the day alive or dead
Passion propelled me into my intelligence and my intelligence often abused that passion
and I could tell you other things which at the moment don’t come to mind
but which are not forgotten for not in the least does the mind forget what was useful
The things I don’t remember continue to stir for as long as the mind may need them
because the soul too lies in wait for all the stuffs that are needed
because real hope can decompose but not deconstruct in the negations of oneself
Death alone will complete me with all the perfect excuses I do not find

Because death is the most divine hope for all the hopes that suffer
because even if death is almost always frightening
it is the only chance of success for the hopes that are languishing in impotence
Even the light of every day derives from death and every kind of death

So my daughter
even the word and awareness manage to gain confidence from death
because even the least bit of trust manages not to be raped by death
and to believe in death in order to believe in itself
because very little remains in our hands which is not hope
because it is in death that hope searches for the space that very few give it
I am no longer afraid of those layers in which I am more dead than alive
their brain-killing disgust, sufferable-identity-killing
No longer the burdens of natural seduction unsettling my brain
The bear that walks in its weariness also rests in its weariness
and times are no longer times calculated to the minimum span by imagined dignity
I let myself go without guilt to the more human pleasures that sustain me
and from around every bend comes an intelligence that is more and more simple
which presents more and more palatable portions of myself:
Seeing the darkness that accumulated for my excessive passion dissolve,
I was continuously in need of all kinds of distractions
which in the end would gravely probe my most buoyant awareness.

Translation ©Matilda Colarossi 2018

Bruno Lugano was born in Viareggio in 1941. Protagonist in the making of In.Arti.Poesia., he collaborated with numerous poems. In 2016 he published the collection of poems “Nel rovescio del perdono” (Edizioni Sottotraccia)

In the beautiful description of himself found in the introduction of his book of poems Bruno Lugano states:

“My name is Bruno Lugano and I was born in Viareggio on February 20, 1941. My mother went there from Lucca, because my father threw her out of the house because of me. I was entrusted to the family of a Sicilian garbage collector, and lived two or three years of my life sharing a bed with their seven daughters. I don’t remember anything but it must have been the best time of my life. I know they loved me. I was the boy they had always wished for: I called that papa “pappà”. I took part in WWII at the age of two: one day in Lido di Camaiore, German troops stopped us because we had salt in our cart. This is a memory that my pappà shared with me only many years later. At the age of three, my mother placed me in the orphanage in Viareggio thanks to a marble altar that was paid for by the woman for whom she sometimes worked as a maid. At the age of eleven, I was sent to the Mutignano farm colony. I left it at the age of nineteen. At twenty-two I went to Australia where I did every kind of job. I am now seventy-four years old. Like so many others, I have been through a lot, but it seems to me that I have lived very little. When I start talking I can’t stop; and even though I usually talk about myself, I don’t have much to say about myself. I’ve tried to avoid responsibilities, but not enthusiasms, because I had fragile spirits and divine presumption. I have two children. I have only been living for the past ten years. I’m retired, and live as a sort of Elder, as I expected I would. I go for walks, cook, suffer more or less stupid depressions, and do only those things that bare a bit of my soul. I don’t ask for anyone, not even the doctor. When I feel like it, I pray. When a bit of strength comes over me, I write poetry. I go to bed early, and if I am up to it, I pray and try to fall asleep. I am not all here. Even though I wish I were all here.”

I would like to thank his daughter, Marta Lugano, for permission to translate and publish the text Figlia mia.

For more information about Bruno Lugano: http://www.marcosayaedizioni.net/nel-rovescio-del-perdono?fbclid=IwAR1AUJc5ohbWzxk8HR704fd0O4YW6TVsOJqniEabgHzonRhSathN1mWImJU

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