Canto LXXII

Presences

Provided one begins to remember the war of shit
certain facts revive. In the beginning, God
the great aesthete, having created heaven and earth
after the volcanic sunset, after having painted
the rocks with lichen in the Japanese manner,
dumped the great usurer geryon, prototype
of Churchill’s backers. And now I’m gonna sing
in crude slang (not the true [t]oscano), of
how after death Marinetti told me:
“Well, I’m dead,
but I don’t want to go to heaven, I want to go on fighting,
I want your body, with which I could go on fighting.”

And I replied: “My body’s already too old, Tomaso,
besides, where would I go? I’ve got no need for a body.
But I’ll give you the site in the Canto, give you the floor,
but if you still want to fight, go seize some kid;
seez sum keed impotent and imbecilic,
give him some heart and a bit of brains
to give Italy yet another hero in the crowd;
Thus you’re reborn, thus you’re a raving animal,
have a second Renaissance, and die another time
not lying in bed, old
but dying to the sounds of battle–
that way to Paradise!
Purgatory is so done with
after the surrender, after 21 september,
zee daze of betrayal.
Get out of here! Go be a hero!
Leave the words to me.
Leave me to explain myself.
I made the song of eternal war
between the light and grime.

Peace, Marinetti!
Drop in when you’re free.”
“Atten-SHUN”
And, after the barked order, he added sadly:
“I wasted my time in futile foolishness,
Loved show more than substance,
Ignored the ancients - nor did I study
Confucius or Mencius.
I praised war, you wanted peace,
both are blind men!
though I was hollow, you hated the now.”
Only in part
Was he speaking to me – nor nearby –
A part of him seemed to be quizzing himself
Without contact with the source; and so his shadow
Shaded off into grey
Until another turn of the dial
issued a voice from the hollow receiver:
“Vomon le nari spiriti di fiamma.”
Quoth I:
“Torquato Dazzi, is that chloroform in verse
you’ve come to peddle –
‘Nostrils spewing flame’ – translated 20 yrs back to wake up Mussato?
Marinetti and you – a great double-feature
Both over the top, he for the future
And you for the past.
Too often extra-affection
Creates over-kill – all that goddam blasting;
enough ruins even for him now!”

Again that hasty and impatient spirit
Like a messenger irked at a delay
who will not stay for business of less merit
Burst in – I recognised the voice of Marinetti
Heard long ago in Piazza Adriana, down aside the Tiber.
“Come back!
At Macallè, the Gobi’s farthest bound
A skull lies bleaching in the desert sand
and SINGS
Tireless, strident, sings, and sings, and sings:
– Alamein! Alamein!
We shall return!
We shall return! –”
Me: “I believe you”
... Enough, I hope, to give some peace to his soul.

The other spirit took up again his own refrain
With:
“poco minor d’un toro” ...
(a line translated from the Eccerinus;
Latin: “little less than ... bull”).
He did not cap
The quote.
For all the air was trembling, and the shade
Wavered
And, like sounds drowned out by driving rain,
Flung phrases without sense. Just like a ship
Whose sunken hull caves in when touched by light,
I heard a rattling heave
Of discharged breath (or on a sick-
Bed, when a man’s about to die):
“Guelph slanderers! Their weapon was it ever –
Calumny ... still is; world without end.
The age-old war’s still raging in Romagna,
Filth risen to Bologna
With looting and seizure – See horses stand
In dark regalia knee-deep as in a river,
Moroccans and such scum
Enough to rouse the bones beneath the fields
To breathe, clench fists, salute, come
to life anew, armed spear & shield
Against the foe.
I’ve seen such dirt-bags often in my time –
Look through the books, you’ll find them there in droves
Betrayers of a province or a city
But this microbe
The Empire sold, as well as Italy!
Forlì in flames & Rimini forsaken;
Who shall again frequent Gemisto’s shrine
(A wise man surely, even if Grecian)?
The walls on fire, the arches all are fallen
In Ixotta’s apartment – goddess & queen ...”

“Who’s there?” I cried
Clamouring to be heard above the storm,
“Is it Sigismundo?”
He did not listen, but
Raved on:
“Sooner the Seat of Peter will be clean
Of a Borgia father than of a Pacelli.
Sixtus, too, was a son of usury
– The whole conspiracy
Of those who’ve grown so fat on scribbled deeds
Aimed to deny him worthy followers;
So now they’re bellowing that Farinacci
Has dirty hands, because he caught on quick.

One hand is dirty, but the other one
Has earned him pride of place among our many
Unsung heroes: Tellera, Maletti,
Miele, de Carolis & Lorenzini,
Guido Piacenza, Orsi & Predieri,
Volpini, Baldassare, Borsarelli,
To give you just the names of the commanders.
Clement was a banker’s brat - a son
Of usury il Decimo Leone ...”
“Who’s there?” I cried.
“I am that Ez-zelino who would not credit
The universe was created by a Jew.
No doubt I was guilty of other errors, too –
let’s just forget that
Now. Your friend & I got scammed
By the same man: old Muss,
Who told me I was damned
As ‘Satan’s son’ (try swallowing that
& you’ll not need carrots to turn into an ass).
Adonis was disembowelled by a boar
Simply to make the Cyprian goddess cry.
It’s tempting to make a joke of it & say
A prize bull from the zoo or abattoir’s
Worth more, because he weighs more than a pig
(Students of Aesop’s Fables will complain
That animals can’t do arithmetic).
More harm’s been done by one false load of bull
Than all my tricks: a fig, a bagatelle!
Dig that fat ferret out of his warm lair
& see if he don’t say:
‘The bête humaine rejoices in its chains’?
If ever an Emperor sent forth that decree
Byzantium had defiled the parent stream;
His Virtue had ebbed into a parody
Of law, divided from the golden mean.
Caesar sapped not his own integrity,
Augustus, before Peter, built in stone
(The rock sustained the same authority).
‘The lawgiver is law’s custodian’
– Fought for in Florence by the ghibelline.”

Like waves that come from more than one transmitter,
The rippling voices
Fused (in broke-up phrases), and I heard
A skein of birds who sang in counterpoint
As in a garden
on a summer’s day,
amongst whom, most softly:
“Placid were, soft in sleep of gold.”
“I, Placidia, sleeping under gold” – rang from a well-tuned string.
“Sorrows and sweets of ladies” ...
I began
“Sorrows and sweets of ladies;” but I felt
Goose-pimples rising,
pulse racing
Like engine,
arm and shoulder seized
As if by force: that is, I saw a hand
Had gripped me,
yet I could not see the arm
crushing me like a push-pin to the wall
(You won’t believe – who cares? You weren’t there).
And then the one who leered at me before
Cut in – I say ‘cut in’; not rudely, rather
Almost like a father
Explaining to his son their gripe:

“It’s an old man’s prize, & you’re the greenest hand.
Listen to me, before I have to go
Back to the night.

Where the skull sings our soldiers
Will return, those banners hoist.”