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BIO Maurizio Brancaleoni. Writer and translator, Maurizio Brancaleoni has had over twenty poems and short stories published in anthologies released by LimanaUmanita, Edizioni XII, Freaks Edizioni, Delos Books, Lettere Animate, Wild Boar Edizioni, Historica Edizioni as well as in magazines such as the poetry periodical Pigreco and the surrealist journal Peculiar Mormyrid. In 2015 he received his BA in Languages and Translation from Sapienza University of Rome. In the same year he was a finalist of a poetry competition on non-places with his poem uno o l'altro verso tante direzioni comunque (toverse here or there a lot of directions anyway). In 2016 he was one of the three winners of the literary contest In poche parole with his short story "Termini, solita meta" ("Termini, same old destination"). Interviews with artists, book reviews and translations are (ir)regularly posted on his bilingual blog “Leisure Spot”: <http://leisurespotblog.blogspot.it>. He also contributes as a translator to Rivista!unaspecie and Fischi di carta. |
MEDEA:
I can hear their bones break,
I can see your eyes snuff out.
This,
and all the rest, too,
is nothing but the human sign,
the jammed wheel that always was.
I won't explain myself,
I don't want to justify you.
We are the many sides of a seesaw that won't stop,
errors of unintended pregnancies.
Towards me is turned the billow of blood,
on me spills
the curse of the seed.
Go away,
don't look at me any longer.
MERMEROS:
I'm the spoiled child,
pimply devourer
of chocolate and pornography;
with my arm
I used to imitate my father
and with my ears
I would honour the profile of the mother.
I was there at any party
and every sacrificial lamb
was meant for my fat tongue.
Still here I wake up
to the morning light.
The days have remained gentle,
the dark won't harm me.
You make me come back to you, mother.
You give me birth again.
PHERES:
I am
the other son instead, the one who died for real.
With occluded veins
blue eyebags
an anticipation of a heart attack.
Too old to be son
too smashed to look noble.
I've always won
all the more while falling.
Now I burst
because my blood
no longer belongs to my mother
now my genes
see their doom
and I laugh.
JASON:
What should I think,
who used to joust weapons
and possessed every woman?
When I wandered I would find,
for every deceit
I immolated the indispensable heart.
Indifferent to me
are Medea, the fleece
my already rottening sons.
Every sword-stroke
in the attempt to uproot my disease
for a cancer has been gnawing into me
since the day I was born;
and nothing, nothing at all
could ever save me.
I can hear their bones break,
I can see your eyes snuff out.
This,
and all the rest, too,
is nothing but the human sign,
the jammed wheel that always was.
I won't explain myself,
I don't want to justify you.
We are the many sides of a seesaw that won't stop,
errors of unintended pregnancies.
Towards me is turned the billow of blood,
on me spills
the curse of the seed.
Go away,
don't look at me any longer.
MERMEROS:
I'm the spoiled child,
pimply devourer
of chocolate and pornography;
with my arm
I used to imitate my father
and with my ears
I would honour the profile of the mother.
I was there at any party
and every sacrificial lamb
was meant for my fat tongue.
Still here I wake up
to the morning light.
The days have remained gentle,
the dark won't harm me.
You make me come back to you, mother.
You give me birth again.
PHERES:
I am
the other son instead, the one who died for real.
With occluded veins
blue eyebags
an anticipation of a heart attack.
Too old to be son
too smashed to look noble.
I've always won
all the more while falling.
Now I burst
because my blood
no longer belongs to my mother
now my genes
see their doom
and I laugh.
JASON:
What should I think,
who used to joust weapons
and possessed every woman?
When I wandered I would find,
for every deceit
I immolated the indispensable heart.
Indifferent to me
are Medea, the fleece
my already rottening sons.
Every sword-stroke
in the attempt to uproot my disease
for a cancer has been gnawing into me
since the day I was born;
and nothing, nothing at all
could ever save me.
