Poetry by Alessandra Novelli
I have been to the market of dreams
I have been to the market of dreams
and I saw little fat man play dice
with the lives of others
I saw them make bets greedily, without ever stopping
and for every soul won, hundred others would fall in
a hole.
I have been to the market of dreams
and I saw the sellers of images and words
they called them artists, poets and writers
they were raping the young minds
and traded with the old ones
and for every image sold
another little piece of heart would turn to dog food.
I have been to the market of dreams, and there were also
women
enormous women with fat hips and swollen breasts
I saw them walk along the streets to sell their bodies
and offer their milk to whoever, from time immemorial,
was thirsty.
I have been to the market of dreams
and I saw the dealers in “nostalgia”
they were selling bits of sky in a box
and tears of plastic
and the newest, excellent strawberry glue
for anyone with a broken heart.
I have been to the market of dreams
and I saw the blind lovers grope through the crowd
and gasp for breath in the darkness
I saw them touch with anger those anonymous bodies
in search of the lips of a lost love.
I have been to the market of dreams
and, of course, they were also there, “the merchants
of life
and death”
the biggest business at the market
they restored the “capacity” to create, to love and
to be happy
to anyone who had lost it, or never had
it was simple: in exchange for some money and
your life’s burdens
you could choose among yellow, red, green, and blue pills.
At the Market of Dreams
where this whole humanity is bought, sold, and becomes
exchanged
merchandise
only the little thieves are free creatures
I saw them too, they were slipping through the legs of
the
merchants and stole kisses from young women
they had clean eyes and fast hands
the law for them was a joke
and the market, a playground
I saw them, these nimble, light souls
playing ball with their own mind during the sunny morning.
The Market of Dreams, I was there when I saw you arrive,
woman of depth and silent like the moon,
you had in your hands a little object which you dropped
on the ground
maybe a bomb, maybe a heart never exploded, maybe the
sum of
all that has never been said and done
and that was waiting in the silence
I don’t know, but after that simple gesture
there was an explosion of fire and millions of fragments
of
love were thrust like little chips of diamond into the
hearts
and into the minds
of the people of the market. Someone died, someone
fled in
madness, someone else was born to a new life.
Only the little thieves smiled.
Summer, 1990
--translated by Alexander Shaumyan
Copyright © 2006 by Alessandra Novelli
Note: Alessandra Novelli is from Naples, Italy. I only met her briefly during her short stay in the United States.
Although she spoke little English, she understood exactly what I was trying to say through my poems and my paintings.
Before she left, she gave me two poems, which I kept and translated into English. I include these in their original
Italian and in my English translation. She told me that she never wrote any poetry before she met me.