English

10 ways to murder a woman without killing her
 
One, you don’t want her dead
it’s silly to want her dead
a kitchen
a washing machine
a cot
a vacuum cleaner, a duster
a drug
an object with many holes, pretty
a teddy bear
you don’t want a useful thing dead
use it
 
Two, kill, fine, but the time
kill her time for thinking
do not give value to her time
dilate it and restrict it
snatch the control of time from her
let her live for others
she must donate her time
 
Three, fear, make her afraid
describe her own fear, shape it
she must be afraid of being afraid
 
Four, kill the space
squeeze it
define her space
define every place where she cannot be
narrow her steps
 
Five, define her body
define her blood as shameful
silence her orifices
speak for them
 
Six, define her stupidity
call her stupid as such
define feminine = stupidity
remove spoken or written words from her
define her words as stupid
 
Seven, isolate her
leave her 
alone,
she, alone,
must be afraid
to be alone
 
Eight, impregnate her youth
humiliate her old age
kill the woman but not the mother
marry the mother, rape the woman
make sure she hates the woman in the other woman
 
Nine, she must be dependent
make sure that she learns how to depend on him
make sure that she teaches her daughter to depend on him
so that her daughter learns it too
 
Ten, beating
slamming
snapping her neck
multiplying the edges
the teeth, the crunching bone
break everything but especially in the mind
overcome the resistance 
handle the clumsy mechanism 
of the heart
 

An Ordinary day

In the match
between what we call good
and we despise as evil
today a bomb will make noise
smoke will assault the eyes
scattering shards on screens
and people
a woman’s tears
will stand still
before the body of the third
killed son
she will wash this one too
with the gestures she knows
thinking about the only one left
the son maybe alive, travelling
the thought with her every morning

the plants, as usual, will have nothing
to say, keeping at their constant
advancing, dying, changing

a kid will think that a day is a tree
then will run off to a football game

there will be gestures of love
many, contemporary,
accompanied by shining words
in multiple languages

many today will say they’re happy
and there will be thankyous to life
and there will be deportations
and there will be the hand of the strong on the neck of the weak
choking
and there will be notions of peace and social justice
many will believe in something
and then will do something
they will do something and it will be brave and compassionate
and an example to others
who will do it again out of justice and compassion
many will believe in something
and in its name will do something
atrocious unfathomable and terrible
and many will be afraid

some will do something desperate and bad
a woman in a square will be swindled
and will feel shame

in the match there will be the dead and alive
wins and losses
and someone will pay dearly
and everyone will have to choose
and some will think they can everything and be mistaken
and some will think that their choice matters little
some will learn from mistakes
there will be accidents we will try making sense of
we will lose all sense and find despair in death
multiple imaginary deaths
there will sudden closing of newspaper headlines

a man will not get up from the street
and all day passers by will ask
if he is dead or alive
and the answer will make no difference to anyone
in his dreams the voice of the woman
who sings that song

someone will save ten days from certain death
something will teach a kid something
that something will be the centre of life
even today newborns will arrive, many will be loved
a woman will give birth to a specific thought
the beginning of a work of art, she will raise it as a child

someone will try raising an eye on all this
but will desist almost immediately
they will cry for things close by
they will think of what they need or want to do
someone will have wider eyes, but still finite
someone else will look for a specific point
they will think that what matters is finding a specific point
and from that point, tell their story.

 

RESIGNATIONS

Resigning from words (with an attempt to find a job in a famed multinational company)
 
I resign from words
all those I know
I want to inhabit the wonder
the unpronounceable the eye
the sound
but I was born late
I was born too long ago
banished from the primitive and the fetus
I send a letter to IKEA
let me make the catalogue let me name the names
I feel it’s a good solution
they don’t reply
nothing
not a word
 
Resignation from my feet
 
I resign from my feet
I want another base, another support:
overcome the stall
step onto a new pedestal
 
Resignation from the day
 
I resign from the border of this
day, I stay inside the night
the nest the folded knee the
friction of fabric the sheet the
reasons in the dark
I resign from the day
I stay here in wake in gnashing
my teeth in the morning, banquet
in the violent bed the pillow
I turn my back to the vertical
erect posture, no one come look
(and no one does – they’re asleep)
 
(Mainstream) resignation from Sundays and the mainstream
 
I resign from Sundays, I’m not like all the others
I behave like it’s a Thursday
they don’t get what I’m doing
so I try helping them out: I behave like it’s a Wednesday
it takes me a lot of effort
Wednesdays are really hard for me
I feel like someone gets it now: I like it when efforts are rewarded
Then there’s a moment, though, when you
have to resign from Wednesdays
it doesn’t matter if they won’t get it, I’m not like all the others
and I need a rest too
at least it’s Sunday tomorrow
 
Resignation from being in time
 
I resign from the orthodoxy of time
the enfilade of days
the weft and the warped of the hours
the axiom of tending towards the end
but I still don’t know how
so I madden up at will
I do like that old woman in Turin
I dance in the street I walk backwards
I curse cats and their seven lives
I jump onto the washing line
I waste food at night
by day, I don’t know, I’m still confused
 
The Resignation
 
I resign from death
but there is no one nowhere to sign my papers
they say I could, maybe,
choose a religion
I’m appealing
 
Iconoclastic resignation
 
I resign from photos
I let the emptyness fill out my figure:
the bathtub without the baby
the cake without the birthday girl
the classmate hugging an empty space
a wedding with only the groom
a newborn son floating in mid-air
Once the proof is deleted
I’m convinced I no longer exist
 
Resignation from past loves
 
I resign from past loves
and because they are celebrated by many
songs and poems
when I hear them I say out loud
these are silly silly lines
no one knows what they’re talking about
by doing so I nail myself to the present
everyone lets me do so
the crowd loves public executions
 
Resignation from love (with swift change of mind)
 
I resign from the love
I feel – from feeling it from having felt it
from all types of love
real or supposed literary
sane insane mine of others
from divine love
from the thought of love and the word itself
in every language known and unknown to me
from the pleasure of love and its pains
I resign from all gestures of love
and from your last note to me
But then it’s horrible
I resign from my resignation
I do anything to make everyone forget them
 
Whatever resignation
 
I resign from meaning and sense
foolishness isn’t welcoming at all
I open 100 tins of tuna and I cut myself
I’m not sensible
I die of bloodloss
but not now
next time
because reasons
 
Resignation from sensitivity
 
I resign from sensitivity,
with my middle finger
I touch the nerve of the pain of others
When they do so with me
I say with force
Can you imagine?
They join me as a crowd
they say: poor you, the beasts, the brutes!
It’s a good game
we play it all together
we spend many evenings this way
 
Violently pacifist resignation
 
I resign from violence
I do so with a dramatic number
I resign so violently
so many get hurt

Alessandra Racca, Consigli di volo per bipedi pesanti, Neo edizioni, Trad. Alex Valente