Anny Ballardini


untitled

schizophrenically split
s/he lived the event/fact outside
devilish forces munching down hir face
mind/brain/bones/external-internal façade
[has anything been left?] on wet sidewalks
imperturbable like a landslide a simple step
it took days to draw self to survival state
                   autumn leaves & classical music backgrounding
                   falling rain in a damp surround _diffusing light
                   light is pc writing not much requiring
undone like an unthreaded spider net, unmet again
fragilities fringuelli fracassati
frozen without & within void and untouched
the unlimitedly fearful contrastive black’s back

---

Graffiti

---

SILENCE


Dick Higgins has mouths munching chewing

have you ever seen you father hit by a stroke

not even at the

//stroke unit\\

tubes tubes numbers [?PEG?] lights distorted figures

NOT EVEN at the

\\stroke unit//

:

Medicine 1 Hospital of Trento Ospedale di Santa Chiara

[40 degrees inside the room – feverishly burning – docs on holiday

[Italian docs are always on holiday even while working_with one or two exceptions

[Omertà, silence, conspiracy of silence

[Did you think I would have forgotten/justified/forgiven?

[My last words to the Medicine 1 docs: SHAME ON YOU

                    try to have him kiss you – a hollow black cave

/ to have him talk to you _/ to ask him to see you _/ those lips are still _/ one side steeply lowered to his chin

                    Sometimes

/ with the other side he smiles _/to let gratefulness pass through _/ that you are still there after a day a night a month two three endlessly / an oblique fearful cut under his nose

In his flux action Higgins has live actors        (is that Dick Higgins himself?)

gorging stuffing down ingurgitating

thick lips surrounded by a black moustache

an uncouth ease in facing fake eternity

the crude arrogance of a well-oiled machine

god himself has forgotten Medicine 1

home of the broken angels

comforted by the Weeping Woman, le oranti

Higgins died of a heart attack in 1998 in Quebec, Canada at the age of 60.


_____________________________

Links

Silence

Dick Higgins

Weeping Woman

Le Oranti


Anny Ballardini is the author of Opening and Closing Numbers, published by Moria Press in 2005; and Ghost Dance in 33 Movements published by Otoliths, 2009. She is the editor of the Poet’s Corner, an online poetry site; and writes a blog: Narcissus Works. She has translated several contemporary poets into Italian and English.
 
 
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