Luca Ariano (Mortara – PV 1979) live in Parma. He published: Bagliori crepuscolari nel buio (Cardano 1999), Bitume d’intorno (Edizioni del Bradipo 2005), Contratto a termine (Farepoesia, 2010, Qudu, 2018 prefaced by Luca Mozzachiodi), in 2012 for the Edizioni d’If the poem I Resistenti, written with Carmine De Falco, that it was the winner of Premio Russo – Mazzacurati. In 2014 for Prospero Editore published l’e-book La Renault di Aldo Moro with a preface of Guido Mattia Gallerani. In 2015 for Dot.com.Press-Le Voci della Luna published Ero altrove, with a preface of Salvatore Ritrovato, finalisist at the Premio Gozzano 2015. In 2016 for Versante Ripido / LaRecherche.it published l’e-book of Bitume d’intorno with the introduction of Enea Roversi
Which season are you lagging behind in?
A late snowfall from the dormer window
the terror of mermaids for you too.
You find yourself almost in the summer:
sudden storms and animals
coming down to the plains between squares and weeds.
The city, a row of avenues
with signs “To Let”, “For Sale”
and you can’t find those bars and shops anymore.
Queuing up at “We Buy Gold”, in the pockets
ancient jewels symbol of other seasons,
Where did those Sundays go?
Vanished like the prayers of a saint
but already a new one to invoke
for miracles under catacombs.
Those Egon’s drawings burned like fever
in your chest … forgotten models,
to be sketched in a portrait
drunk in some cafe before the war,
at the end of another secular empire.
after a debilitating spell of flu,
you yearned to run out in the street
It will never be like being in your avenues,
your neighbourhood, those Deco villas
they are certainly not semi-detached…
your myopic eighties world.
Your mother won’t be there to call you back
for dinner, your father tired from work,
another day between life and death
but always smiling for your benefit.
You’re looking for his steps in closed cafes,
silent arcades that did witness
farewell kisses at sunset.
Who knows when you will again see
his figure arising from behind millennial marbles,
now that even a mild temperature
frightens you like distant sirens.
Translated by Max Mazzoli