Chiara Raucea

It was almost eleven o’ clock,

in the morning.

It was on Tuesday.

It was almost eleven o’ clock,
when
at the university campus
the fire alarm
screamed
loudly.

On the fifth floor
people were a kind of running
out of their office’s door
fast legs
but calm faces
(you know?)
again
you were at the campus (as me)
it was a fake–emergency

(even though you did not listen to the fire alarm).

But it was a fake –emergency
(you know?)
it was again
that kind of training useful to prepare you
in real life
- they say ‘in real life’
as if we were all sleeping dreamers
in our offices

before their stupid fire alarm,
at 11 o clock,
on Tuesday, rangto
prepare you (they say)
to a real fire
or to a real earthquake
or to every –kind- of- unsuspected- fucked- real- whatever- else.


But you…you have not to be worried about it!
it was only a fake emergency
-this timea
fake fire alarm!

Nothing
compared to 4.35 (a.m.)
at night
in your bed (empty)
with my insomnia (full
of fast running thoughts
that never find their exit door).


In some manuals
of creative writing
- as if you can learn how to write a well-done piece
by following step-by-step instructions
about baking cakes (that are impressive to offer)
or opening nuts (that are hard to crack)
or writing sentences
that are worth
of breaking silence.
I was saying
-some lines ago that
in some manuals
of creative writing they call
this kind of violent call
they call this urgency to
throw up words

against a paper
with a beautiful rhythm –if you are lucky enough to create itthey
call this:
'writing on a hunch'
and they add ...

magic hunch

inspired hunch

blessed hunch.

I call mine

RUSH:

Damn rush

Starving rush

Craving rush

Bloody rush

Pointless rush

And, often, I try to kill it:
by opening, with my sharpened pencil,
a deep wound on its rushing throat.
I try to kill it:
I write to my self
HUSH HUSH HUSH.


One day,
we will have a dog,
a wooden chair,
some children around.
We will name the dog
HUSH.
I will write fairy tales
that will not shout as fire alarms.
We will fall asleep
together
and in our legs, in our lips
in our arms
there will be
 

no rush.

Since we met,

we are good in what mums expect from good kids:

I eat more fish;

and now,

now, you eat the ones with fish-bones too.

 

I’m faster in cleaning squids

(Even though you would say that it’s not true).

And the octopus?

Now I learnt how it should be cooked

(I do not know if it is right or wrong, but when I touch you…

I feel hooked).

Since I’ve met you,

I’m more familiar with prawns and shrimps;

(but I keep away from daily salmon

since you said it stinks).

Since I’ve met you,

in the market, I study the weekly fish stall

(I want to learn swimming, and I don’ t want to crawl).

You look over the fished fishes

their shape

their scales

(you say everything is the same

if you are not able to attach names).

 

At the beginning it was difficult:

making a lovely dinner

with the victims of such a slaughter…

But then I remember what she says (the other)

then, I remember what Kurt sings

 

”it’s ok to eat fish ‘cause they don’t have any feelings”

 

At the end, I think

the reason is another

and luckily  I remember what she says (my mother)

 

‘‘funci pateddi e ranci, assai spienni e picca manci”

(Mushrooms and seafood are not such a great deal…

too much money for a tiny meal!)

‘‘funci pateddi e ranci, assai spienni e picca manci!”

‘cchi si fatta i acqua? ca sempri ti lavi e sempri cianci’

‘never dry,

wash and cry! Are you a jellyfish?

that more than 90% is made from water?

 

she said, (not my mother).

I replied with a silent thought and an awful sound:

 

‘God bless jellyfish

more than other fishes

since

even when it’s harmful,

she still distinguishes

what is her substance

from what is just around‘

 

I replied with a silent thought and an awful sound.

 

Since I’ve met you

I cook more fish.

 

I eat more fish.

 

And -I must confess-

 

you are the water

that melts

with my-jellyfish-self.

I was born in a cave,

numbly.

Carved

on the rocky walls:

bites of bitter care

flavoured

of almonds

and sweet shame.

I

 was born, I left, I came back (you are right) but I left,

again.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Here the weather is really good,

in winter too.

Here folks are jobless,

and smiling hopeless,

and tired,

and silently worried

but the weather is really good.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Children do not grow up,

They grow old.

But the weather is really good.

Here you can work without wage;

you can eat without hunger;

you can marry without love;

you can hate without rage.

But the weather is really good.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Here you can talk about nothing,

or about …

the weather: ‘cause the weather is really good!

You can even ask big questions

(about somebody else’s life)

and if you don’t have any answer on your own,

you can always enjoy …

the weather ‘cause, here, the weather is really good!

There is nothing new under the sun.

Since it may sound a bit impolite,

I would recommend you to not ask, in public,

how offices are distributed in the city hall!

There are other things that matter:

for example, to kill the time we can embroider private lives:

firstly, let’s add some spicy details to your neighbour’s bedroom

and, then, please, show off at the Sunday mass

the strange foreigner

with whom you share your most secret holes.

 

There is such a nice lovely weather…

You can stay with us …

If a sunny day is all you are looking for.

Here the weather is really good.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Do you want have children?

 

Sometimes, I love when, in Tilburg,

it rains

all day long.

Deliver me,

from wheezing.

From blue thoughts and

from brain-freezing.

 

Heal me

when I long for

a longer night.

 

Teach me to number my days aright.

 

Heal me

when a dark lust

pierces  me with its poisoned needle.

 

Rescue me

when I’m restless.

Rescue me

when I’m idle.

 

Deliver me

from gasping out of time;

Rescue me

when I can’t stand

the sublime,

 

Deliver me

from the passing bell

of every single hour.

Rescue me when I can’t stand the tasteless,

Rescue me when I can’t stand the sour.

 

Teach me to number my days aright.

Cuddle me during my fight!

Teach me to number my days aright.

Spit on my mud

and give me the gift of the sight.

    Teach me to number my days aright.

Sing to me a cradle song,

and turn off the light.

Teach me to number my days

aright.

 

Take care of me.

Put a weightless blanket on my begging eyes

Teach me to number my days

aright.

Do not say a word but speak to me…

teach me to number my days  aright,

especially,

when it's only

an endless

night.

Every man who meets me can say
how shining I look today
it does not matter if the sky is grey
since I found a trove on my way:
I wake up and there where I lay
there is X (a love-needle in my poor hay)!

Today
I’m turning into
an autumn leaf.

<>’
(Picture attached).

From my branches

I’m losing words
(dots dots dots).

I loose words
and I attach a file

(filters don’t lie)

I pick the nicest pics
I shot in the park

(too many I need a backup)

Here, for you, another file

(what happened in my memory will be saved in your mobile).

– Stop spamming!
–  Art is beyond spam!
-(He)art is beyond spam!

–

and I attach another naked tree

– Colors are nice.
And definitely they are more than adjectives!
– R U sure? (are you sure?) I’m not!

– Do you remember the forest of symbols

of the quote?

–

-n. (full stop)

I 8

I hate when you reply to me
with a letter, and that’s it
(just a single letter,

but not a long love handwritten one)

you type only a stupid                                                              

n. or y.
why?
did someone chopped off your fingers
before you can type a
monosyllabic masterpiece?
a ‘yes or not’ and then                                                    

R.(est) I.(n) P.(eace)?

But I know you better than your keyboard!
You only give half-answers:
in chat, in nods, in words.

Today
I’m turning into an autumn
leaf:

<>’

without your spoken-words around
my world is falling a part

without a sound.

 

And this time
I’ll not attach a file
or a smile
’cause a colon
has not the depths of your eyes.

What I really miss
are the words we never said
from A to zed
and
silence is what I can’t text.

---

In these days I’m turning into an autumn leaf:

< >
an empty message
you’ll receive every time you’ll leave.

 

Do you know:

‘who I am?’                       ‘I..

 

am a piece of paper            (I try and fail, I fail and try)

and sometimes I dare,         and sometimes I’m shy

and sometimes I ‘m frank,   and sometimes I lie

and sometimes I play,          and sometimes I cry.

 

‘ who I am?’                      ‘I..

am a piece of paper          ( I try and fail, I fail and try)

With tons of good reasons

that never explain ‘Why?’

With a very warm ‘welcome’

that never prevents goodbye.

But,

your passionate bending

makes me feeling all right:

you fold me and unfold me

till my origami can fly.

Please imagine reading on the first line of the report: TODAY, F.

Please imagine reading on the last page of the report: this a poem about freedom

 

Today F. woke up at half past six.

Her lover was still sleeping by her side.

She knows by heart his forehead.

Hanno fatto l’amore. They made love

and then it was already too late

and then she had to run:

she had to go to work.

 

Before going F. fed her fishes.

Ha buttato la spazzatura. F. followed the rule:

‘All garbage bags have to be put outside’.

She took her time to fill the orange mailbox

with funny postcards sent to her farthest friends.

 

On the road to the fields, she watered jasmine.

In the dry fields, F. worked hard for almost eight hours

con la schiena curva al sole

on her knees

praying:

she was collecting the small sweet tomatoes.

 

Then,

it was too dark,

and she had to go back home.

F. arrived tired at home.

F. put her new colourful dress on.

F. glanced at the mirror. F. smiled:

she looked gorgeous wearing black.

F. went to spend

all the money she had not gained

watching a movie

in un cinema all’aperto.

When she realised that she had only

a couple of hours left before midnight:

F. run around the small town

ringing the bells (suonando i campanelli)

of all the Few ones that she loves:

just to kiss them

once

before it was

too late.

 ‘Remember, what goes around comes around, kid‘

 

I am the Promised Land for the child that I was.

I am the most foreigner country where I will always try to abide.

I keep moving and wondering whether this is my time.

 

Here, I stand:

with questioning thoughts bordering to the north

(what is trivial? what is worth?);

with trembling steps eager for novelty bordering to the south

(and sometimes I can hear my windy voice coming out from your mouth);

with a smooth palm to the east, and a rough one to the west

(one to work hard with my hands, one to love you and … rest).

 

I have not forbidden seas when I sail.

But I sink in saying goodbyes.

From my eyes,

rainfalls occur, from time to time.

Winters are cold:

they bring unfamiliar whispers,

prejudices at first sight,

new places with no known faces at my side,

weekly weak days and no lust to fight.

Winter days last less than winter nights.

My dry-season is never predicted by forecast

(but, luckily, it’s not made to last).

---

I work every day in drawing the moving line

between what-I-am and what-is-mine.

---

I walk on the threshold

---

between you and me

---

because you are the Promised Land

where I want to become a ‘we’.

It was in April. Maybe, in August.

Maybe, in May.

We were walking in our summer clothes,

somewhere, around Europe.

 

We were stepping on fresh grass,

trying to save the red poppies

in bloom.

We were left

breathless

by virgin magnolia

and by an unspeakable past.

 

Forests were silent:

beautiful and cruel.

(They can – or maybe they cannot –

remember

their past of

graves;

their past of

dead-end for death trains).

Rivers were silent:

beautiful and cruel

(they can – or maybe they cannot – remember

their past of

bloody streams;

their past

of drowned innocence);

and we were

n a ï v e

as little lambs before Easter.

 

We had no fresh memories of our flesh

as something in between

dead men and rats.

 

But we were naked,

now as then,

in our summer clothes.

 

Our freedom was marked with an unbearable question.

 

The pine-trees were beautiful.

Their needle-shaped leaves

were silent and cruel

but replied:

---

‘We don’t know. Are we your brothers’ keepers?’

---

It was in April. It was in August. It was in May.

And, now, I remember your words.

You said:

‘Nowadays, it’s so difficult writing poems about our spring’.

 

I was born in a cave,

numbly.

Carved

on the rocky walls:

bites of bitter care

flavoured

of almonds

and sweet shame.

I

 was born, I left, I came back (you are right) but I left,

again.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Here the weather is really good,

in winter too.

Here folks are jobless,

and smiling hopeless,

and tired,

and silently worried

but the weather is really good.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Children do not grow up,

They grow old.

But the weather is really good.

Here you can work without wage;

you can eat without hunger;

you can marry without love;

you can hate without rage.

But the weather is really good.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Here you can talk about nothing,

or about …

the weather: ‘cause the weather is really good!

You can even ask big questions

(about somebody else’s life)

and if you don’t have any answer on your own,

you can always enjoy …

the weather ‘cause, here, the weather is really good!

There is nothing new under the sun.

Since it may sound a bit impolite,

I would recommend you to not ask, in public,

how offices are distributed in the city hall!

There are other things that matter:

for example, to kill the time we can embroider private lives:

firstly, let’s add some spicy details to your neighbour’s bedroom

and, then, please, show off at the Sunday mass

the strange foreigner

with whom you share your most secret holes.

 

There is such a nice lovely weather…

You can stay with us …

If a sunny day is all you are looking for.

Here the weather is really good.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Do you want have children?

 

Sometimes, I love when, in Tilburg,

it rains

all day long.

Brava?

I think you have never liked my poems!

 

Yes, I know that every time I’ve read them aloud

you’ve clapped your hands.

But, I also know that, for you,

hands

(holding,       shaking,             clapping)

are as trustful as predictable liars.

(Have you ever found something in the applause you were always looking for?)

 

I think you have never liked my poems.

But it does not matter… You don’t like Alice in Wonderland either. Do you?

 

Oh, you look great!

I was sure that you,                           as always,

I was sure that you were doing well.

As always.

You have, always, been doing so well, but  so well that,

sometimes,

I feared that you were going to fall

into that                                                   w  e  l l     .

Honestly, I still fear that, one day, you are going to fall into your own well.

As Alice…

 

Down down down down

Down into the well

Down into your safe hell

As Alice…                              always does.

 

You still think that all the doors you have to face are T  I  N  Y doors

 

And you eat your mushrooms, and

you shrink

You eat with anger

-’cause you don’t know what hunger is-

Sometimes you drink ( a lot).

You rarely eat.

And you shrink.

Day by day, you shrink.

And you don’t care.

You don’t care about the cakes marked EAT me (you shrink).

You do not care

about the lovers marked EAT me (you shrink).

You don’t care

about the days of joy marked EAT me (you shrink).

You don’t care

about all these daily stuff that we ll miss when it ll come the day we ll pass away…

all these daily stuff that now are in front of you

marked with a giant EAT me

spell out with

sweet                        dried                          fruits.

(Are you dried? are you dying?)

You just don’t care!

You just do not dare…to care…enough!

1.       These days,

2.       I am curious about

3.       (roll) calls

4.       (title) catalogues

5.       (phone) books

6.       (shopping) lists

7.       (data) collections

8.       evidence (gatherings)

9.       body (of laws)

10.    transit (camps)

11.    photo (albums)

12.    days (in calendars)

13.    (marginal) notes.

14.    All these things,

15.    in a row, one after the other.

16.    As if we had a way

17.    to make sense of them

18.    this way and not in another way.

19.    Someone calls it:

20.    T A X O N O M Y.

21.    Rather than a science, it seems to me

22.    that Icarus is, finally, back to life

23.    with new wings,

24.    made of old wax.

 

DISCLAIMER: Please, do not attempt to take seriously the order in which I put theses lines: these are just my scattered notes.

Sorry,
I am away!
If you 'll stop by my office, today,
you'll find only an empty chair
(please, do not fall into despair!!!)
since I'm going to look after the little pieces of myself
en plein air.

In the meanwhile,
You'll find a very kind 'someone else'
who may help you with your request
because -remember what the 2 rules say-

1) no one is essential
and
2) every one needs a rest!

Summertime can be cruel!
But only for the ones who are lazy enough to
refuse the vital training
in the heroic virtue
of rest.

 

This is not the case, for them.

 

Her sunglasses left back
in the drawer of a rented house.
One of his flip-flop suddenly broken
on a foreign step.
 

Their time in an hourglass. Upside down.

 

New words in another language
immediately turned into

familiar juicy ripe jokes.
 

The barbecue smell on salty hairs

(the need to suck them).
Traces and sweat on light clothes
easy to dry (more times in single day).

Armies and armies and armies
of strangers
– queuing at the check-in or,
usually,
out of ranks
looking
for shadow and fountains
in ancient parks-.
 

And still there are places
worthy

more of silence rather than pictures.

 

Beds and cathedrals.
 

And still there are faces
worthy

more of secretly staring

rather than virtual sharing.

 

And still there are summers that can be tender and days that can be true.
 

And still there are summers that are not just a summer story.

 

At the end of the summer, the sweet tomatoes lying in the sun will be dried.

I shop, I shop
I confess I shop
When you don't see me at home:

it means I'm in the shop.
I shop I shop
with the money you give to me
(secretly)
I shop, I shop

I sob, I sob
I confess I sob
when you are not looking at me
I sob I sob
for the reasons you never give me
I sob, I sob

 

It was hot, hot
the video was hot
the one I watched when you were

not looking for me
(I must confess)
it was hot, it was hot:
the video was hot

And I sent him a snapshot
I sent him a snapshot
I confess I sent him  a snapshot
it's better that you don't see it
it’s a dirty snapshot
I sent him my snapshot

A lot, a lot
I eat a lot
when your eyes were not on me
I ate and I eat I eat a lot
I must confess a lot a lot

I wasn't at work,
I wasn't at work,
when you tried to call me
I was not at work

I wasn't alone when I took a walk
(I must confess)
I was not alone when I took a walk

(I must confess)
It was not my sister

the one with whom I talked

I'm always scared to be caught
I'm always scared to be caught
to be caught
I must confess
I'm always scared to be caught
for the sake of one you think I am
but I am not
I am scared to be caught
in not doing what I was taught

I wrote I wrote
last night
I wrote
I must confess
there are lots of things that need to stay
unsaid,
for this reason yesterday I wrote
(finally, full stop)

 

Dear Mr Tambourine, European Tambourine:

that’s no longer time for kidding!

Put your T-shirt on. (Pick a good slogan though!).

It’s time for a change. (Do you need coins?)

We are the sons of the stars! (28, if I’m not wrong!)

Ant the market is a good Godfather!

(Once, an uncle crossed the ocean).

 

Luckily, I’m too snob to watch the racist chit-chat (shit chat) at the daily talk-show.

(But, I’m still up for free speech, so

I put a broken pencil, on my white and blue wall).

I

’m speechless, damn, I’m speechless, man:

It’s always time for political campaign.

Shatzy!

You can use roll-on, antiperspirant, body-spray, perfume, scent.

Shatzy!

But, sorry, you are still stinky of dead men.

You are like quicksand. You suffer on demand.

 You are like quicksand.

You swallow-up, you swallow-up, you swallow everything up

Just to stay up!

 

And someone wears sunglasses, and that’s cool!

And everyday someone is drowned, and that’s not cool!

And someone is naked.

And sometimes this is sad; and sometime this is cool! (It depends.)

What is needed, it’s le physique du role! And money and charm!

Or at least … a shot with big tits and a swimming pool!

Oh! How difficult it is being the head of household!

Especially, when children are jobseekers; and the husband gets fatter and whiter and old.

Oh dear, how many sleazy faces across the country.

How miserable is the life enjoyed through drones, abuses and thrones!

Come on, wave the white flag!

Wave the white flag!

Wave the white flag!

 

At the border, I saw it:

A waving white flag,

Wave your white flag!

 

We enjoy listening to pipe organ and to jazz, even inside the fortress!

But, my anaconda don’t. My anaconda don’t.

(rather than queuing for La Gioconda and play bass)

there’s time and public only for nasty selfies with a big wax ass.

In the meanwhile, the Temple of Bell doesn’t longer exist.

But Memorabilia from Banksy’s Dismaland are on sale on Ebay and

It’s hard to resist.

 

It’s a hard to come to a standstill;

while, all around, there’s such a noise about choices

and free-will.

That’s time for us to stay foolish, then, let’s keep hungry some of them.

 

We are not short of horror puppets,

we are not short of

stupid chickens,

in a fist fight for nothing.

And above all, we are not short of

garbage poets, and garbage poems, and garbage poems by garbage poets and

Minima immoralia

And minima immoralia

 

(Please, repeat with me:

minima immoralia, minima immoralia…)

 

The end.

My only friend, this is the end

She blows in, My Lady!

She looks tender and mild

when she blinks & waves to her folks.

My fair Lady is like a fairlead

for trembling and blocked tongues;

My Lady: a missed target for not-gutsy eyes.

 

She walks the talk, with her appeal,

 

she walks over a carpet of velvet-esteem.

She wears her humbler beauty like a light

dress made of satin skin.

She lookes like a gorgeous alien just

landed form Mars

to prove that, after all, afterlife is not

bullshit.

 

When you enjoy the fruits of her sight,

 

you drink her juicy tenderness through

your eyes.

You quench your thirst deep inside

-if you'll test it, you trust me-.

She is not the master of her lips:

A spirit is the pilotwho steers them with

a love-stick

They move and they speak

to your soul, listen:

'now, you can breath!'

My grandma was never enrolled in a theology course.

To say the truth, she never went to school.

She was not able to write or read,

but she told us good stories and wise tips.

 

Till the year before she died, every Christmas Eve

she started to cook for the coming little man.

She rolled out dough and on the altar of her old wood pastry board.

I glued my child eyes on her working dusty hands.

 

All around chopped onions and potatoes, seared broccoli and codfish,

boiled eggs and stew pork meat.

 

Every gesture of her was an hymn of care.

She folded and folded again thin rectangles of flat bread.

She stuffed them richly with the poor ingredients unusually mixed

just for the occasion.

She embellished the borders with twisted bread. She was working and praying.

She always made an extra tiny flat bread: this was the one that nobody would taste;

this was the one for the little men.

She floured the pan before setting the pieces on it.

 

Then, it was time to wait till when the room was filled with smell,

till when the bread in the oven was ready.

All the family together ate the Christmas Eve supper.

The children placed the tiny flat bread close to the tiny feeding trough

where the little men and little god made of gypsum laid.

 Then it was time to follow the bells.

 

That was the night when churches smell like kitchens.

All around chopped onions and potatoes, seared broccoli and codfish,

boiled eggs and stew pork meat continue to mix

with the noble aromas incensing the air.

My grandma was never enrolled in a theology course

but she silently approached the mystery of incarnation:

‘he will find a warm welcome in our poor smells of  hungry humans

when  he will come into the world to sojourn here for awhile’.

 

Before writing your next poem, please read the rules of the most popular taboo game.

Write a poem about freedom, without mentioning you distinguish between ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Write a poem about love, without mentioning you love making out with him.

Write a poem about a poet, without mentioning you have never read her.

Write a poem about life, without mentioning you don’t crave for motherhood.

Write a poem about poverty, without mentioning you are paid for that.

Write a poem about Christmas, without mentioning you went to church.

Write a poem about the government, without mentioning you have never voted.

Write a poem about yourself.

I wonder if she knows poems can be short!

She told me she loves huge dogs.
She wishes she had a tail.
From time to time, she may sound creepy.
I wonder if she…

She swings across details.

Yesterday she looked happy;
today she lost control:
she was explaining a game with three rules;
she failed to mention at least one.

She wears black shirts:
no button is left undone;
no button is in its buttonhole.

I wonder what is her name.
Does she spell it right?

Once upon a time, I fell asleep in my red sofa and,
then, I woke up, with you by my side,

and we were in …

Kamchatka.

 

The BBC says that Kamchatka is a place of ice and geysers.
 

In Kamchatka winters are hard, but the first days of spring are even harder
both for bears and for salmons.
(In Kamchatka, hunger does not allow distinctions between victims and perpetrators).

Luckily, when we woke up in Kamchatka we were
… hunting foxes!
 

I was not afraid
nor of killing nor of dying.
And I was completely happy:
since I felt the pulse in my eyes, in my whiskers, in my tail,
and you where there to be my 200 kilos of fatness
which would save me from hibernation.

 

Now, if all these words were…true; or, at least, if all these words were a Greek fable,
maybe this story would tell us that:
those days when I feel a stranger in my own shoes,
those days when I fight to have a point, I try to make a point, to have a point, to make a point
and still I don’t see the point to have a point…
this story would tell us that

those are the days when
I know that there are lots of things that I don’t know.
And that there are even more things that I cannot know.
But, now, I know where Kamchatka is.
And I know that our struggle is about turning this world into a familiar place.
The struggle is about feeding you and feeding me.
And, now ,I feel as I felt in Kamchatka:
completely happy
from the top of my head to the tip of my toes
I feel filled by a violent lust to survive
that I do not want to loose:

‘Let’s make love’

lots of love
yours (at least in letters)

c (full-stop).