Anna Lombardo [Italy]

 

                                                            Poetry,
                                                           forgive me for having helped you understand
                                                           you’re not made of words only.
                                                           Roque Dalton [from "Clandestine Poems"]
 
                 

                    From infinite spaces
The word is still here to subvert the safe sounds
To mark the pauses in the footsteps
To count the effort of joining the A and the Z
And to free the breath of the ditches
 
Raising it from the depths of the dry throat
of those who, without a path, can point the way.
 
(from “Blackout”,  El Martilo Press, USA, 2024)
 
 
                     
               It came the day
of hyenas, hawks, and ostriches
to wield war axes, and barbarians
return from another dimension
 
All enemies now and the others are traitors,
wrapped in obedience and compassion,
they beat gold and silver between their fingers
in a civilized indifference
 
Flies ski over the cadaveric present,
eloquence rises with retches and bombs,
not just bodies without a barycentre, first
of all Reason has demagnetized itself!
 
It clouds the word ‘Peace’
which is not yet the ‘World’
with hands clasped on the lap
to remove the shaking of the mourning
 
(from “Blackout”,  El Martilo Press, USA, 2024)
 
 
 
           And nothing sacred anymore is there
in this silence that dresses
the bleeding of time
 
It is in silence that every narrative
sits on the throne
dethrones bodies and languages
 
transgresses boundaries, assembles walls
seizes glances
divides
 
And as long as this silence lasts,
all flat, inconsistent, anosmic
 
we are accomplices
 
like ivy that harnesses
the proudest tree
 
The silence, this silence,
plays a double game
it’s oppressive
 
How can you swallow it
like lemonade
under the evening pergola?
 
It is a silence that screams, now,
listening to the thunder of the word
that turns everything,
everything together
 
(Translated by the poet)
 
 
 
Author’s Bionote:
 
*Anna Lombardo: Poet, translator and cultural activist. Lives in Venice, Italy. Degree at the Cà Foscari University of Venice; PhD at Trinity College of Dublin. Bilingual poetic collections: “Even the fish are drunk” (2002); “No Alibi” (2004); “That Something Missing” (2009); “Con candide mani” (2020), “Blackout” (2024). She has edited more than ten poetic anthologies, and the annual edition of “Quaderni della Palabra” (for the International Poetry Festival “Palabra en el Mundo” in Venice), since 2020.  Her collection, “Con candide mani”, received a prize of Montegrotto Poesia. Critical and translation works by various authors, among which: Jack Hirshman, Joyce Lussu, PierPaoloPasolini, Amy Lowell, Matt Sedillo, gabor g. gyukics. Her poems are translated into various languages ​​and are presented in national and international journals and anthologies. Guest in international poetry festivals. She is the director of the International Poetry Festival “Palabra en el Mundo”, since 2010. She is a member and co-founders of the international network of Poets POP (Poets of the Planet). In October 2023, she received a “Doctorado Nobilis Causa” for her poetic work from the international committee of the Movimiento Proyecto Cultural Sur, a testament to her global impact.