Featured Poet -  Ivan Pozzoni

HOTEL ACAPULCO

My emaciated hands continued to write, 

turning each voice of death into paper, 

That he lefts no will, 

forgetting to look after 

what everyone defines as the normal business 

of every human being: office, home, family, 

the ideal, at last, of a regular life.

Abandoned, back in 2026, any defense

of a permanent contract,

labelled as unbalanced, 

I'm locked up in the centre of Milan,

Hotel Acapulco, a decrepit hotel, 

calling upon the dreams of the marginalized, 

exhausting a lifetime's savings 

in magazines and meagre meals.

When the Carabinieri burst 

into the decrepit room of the Hotel Acapulco 

and find yet another dead man without a will, 

who will tell the ordinary story 

of an old man who lived windbreak? 

AUSTRIANS HERE ARE STRICTER THAN THE BOURBONS

The Austrian, of true Aryan stock, is very strict, does not charm,

achtung kaputt kameraden, demands maximum flexibility

so as to put the whole of Europe back in the 90,

bombs the Milan stock exchanges absolutely free,

better than Radetzky or Bava Beccaris did.

We could try again with a tobacco strike,

mixing hashish with marijuana with detachment,

although I don't think the lotto strike would work,

we are too far removed from the uprisings of 1848,

now the whole nation is pulling to get to the morning,

dreaming of cashing a pair or a five of a kind.

Hoping for a return of the Bourbon dynasty.

the Milanese are not accustomed to revolution,

pawing, clamoring, shitting you off,

returning the next day to the office to work,

not having the energy of the good-tempered Sicilians,

the only special-status region to protest with pitchforks.

Here the Austrians are stricter than the Bourbons,

Merkel thunders from Brussels threatening resolutions

of the European Council, in which sit supranationally paid

the various front men of one or another multinational corporation,

undecided, with all-Teutonic scientific rigor,

whether to bankrupt Greece or a farm in Valcamonica.

THE FORGOTTEN CHILDREN'S PARADISE

Forgotten children's paradise,

there play dead children asleep

in hot cars, without relief,

victims of mnemonic crises from work fatigue

that make them forget budgets, meetings or certificates.

Little girls play in a relentless summer,

indifferent to the sun that has dehydrated them,

free to soar in tides of air

in spite of the bad moments spent in respiratory crisis,

without having to feel heat and thirst.

Forgotten children's paradise,

dead children asleep play there

strangled by the insecurity of belts,

eagerly waiting to re-embrace, without rancour,

those who murdered them.

IGNOTE TOMB

Corpse No. 2,

the shadow of the wave reflected in my right retina,

hands clenched to grasp Mediterranean sands

worn under red surfing bermudas.

Corpse n.7,

muffled screaming attempts at the pit of my stomach

Marrakech hash maps in my pockets,

scanty dirhams sown between my purse and trousers,

led me to the mouth of the abyss.

Corpse No. 12,

‘Eloi, Eloi, lemà sabactàni’,

I don't remember who was shouting it to whom

not being written in the Koran:

I too died invoking it in vain.

Corpse No. 18,

retreating on the roads between the dunes of Misrata,

in thirsty slalom between friendly and enemy missiles,

and dying of water.

Corpse No 20,

although nomads, like me, sway

on desert ships, detonated fluids,

never will they get used to drowning.

Every grave of the unknown migrant

whispers that it is hard to embrace

a death that comes from the sea.

BORN BACKWARDS

Why do I keep writing?

B., like Bangladesh, was

sixteen years old, on the windowsill

of the balcony of a Milanese high school,

but sixteen years was not enough

For God to embrace her in his leap.

R., as Romania, was

thirteen years old, feeling a hundred,

and no angel

was flying by her side.

E., as Ecuador, was

thirteen years old, with no Genoa

reminded her of Quito,

in the solitude of her dress

off-brand, disintegrated.

C., like China, was

twelve years old, worn out quickly,

looking out on a balcony

with the desire not to see the world,

throwing herself into the vortex

of performance anxiety.

Their names are not difficult

to forget, they are names

- like me-born in reverse,

pressed against the glass

of the windows of life

jumping from the asphalt.