l: photographer unknown, 0172 (unidentified prisoner; 1975-9)
r: photographer unknown, 0144 (unidentified prisoner; 1975-9)
“thus, when traveling in Ersilia,
you come upon the ruins of the abandoned cities, without the walls that do not last,
without the bones of the dead which the wind rolls away:
spiderwebs of intricate relationships seeking a form”
-- Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
Gli Scheletri
C’è una guerra accesa
sulla pagina bianca.
Le parole muoiono.
Le parole si ammazzano
nel campo.
un soffio, un colpo—
e la sangue delle parole accende.
Le parole bruciano
Come la croce
Come la pelle
completamente commestibile al foco.
Che resti?
Della cenere e dell’osso
Che resta?
Si fa un resoconto,
si presta la vigilia della lingua
avvolgendo gli scheletri in un lenzuolo del bimbo.
Si recita la scena delicata dalla Pietà
Con un sacco delle parole morte.
Si fa,
Un poeta.
The Skeletons
on the white page.
The words die
They kill each other
On the field.
one blow, one blow,
And the blood of the words
Ignites
Like the cross
Like the skin
Completely consumed by flame.
What remains?
Bone and ash
What remains?
One makes a report.
Lends the vigil of the tongue.
Folds the skeletons in swaddling cloth.
Recites the tender Pietà scene
With a sack of dead words.
One makes,
will serve as a forum for discussions
centered around art and cruelty,
i.e. memory sites and their accompanying issues:
their use and abuse, design, meaning, function, destruction and damage.
What they impart to the living,
what secrets they harbor of the dead.
photograph of Choeung Ek Center of Genocide Crimes, by Louis Bickford
Read More
