Dip 7 brushes into your heart that was 36 years old yesterday April 7thAnd touch up that face worn down by the passing seasonsYou’ve ridden life like a nickel-plated carousel mermaidWhirlingFrom city to city from philosophy to frenzyFrom love to passion from royalty to povertyThere isn’t a church movie theater newsroom or bar that you don’t knowYou’ve slept in every family’s bedThere should be a carnivalOf all the sorrowsForgotten along with umbrellas in the cafés of EuropeGone in a cloud of smoke with handkerchiefs in the sleeping cars of express trainsheading north or southCountries hoursThere are voices that follow you everywhere like the moon or a dogBut also the whistle of a smokestackThat mixes up the colors of the morningAnd of dreamsNo, you won’t forget the fragrance of certain nights drowned in armpits of topazThese cold narcissus that I keep on the table by the inkwellWere painted on the walls of Room 19 of the Hôtel des Anglais in RouenA train was rambling along the quay late at nightBeneath our windowBeheading the reflections of multicolored lanternsAmong casks of Sicilian wineAnd the Seine was a garden of blazing flagsThere is no more timeSpaceIs a twilight worm coiled in a drop of phosphorusEverything is presentJust as in 1902 you’re in a garret in ParisSheltered by 35 square centimeters of skyMelting across the glass of the skylightLa Ville offers you again each morningThe flowering bouquet of Square de ClunyFrom Boulevard Saint-Germain bursting with trams and busesThe evening arrives with the hoarse cry of the paperboyOn Rue de la HarpePari-cûrses L’Intransigeant La PresseThe shoe store Chaussures Raoul still rivals the starsAnd I rub my hands stained with the liquors of sunsetLike that time I thought about suicide near Rigoletto’s houseYes my friendThe fortunate man knows how to live with uncertainty like the flowersLook at that gentleman strolling pastAs he lights his cigar proud of his manly vigorRestored by the page-four spreads in the daily papersOr that cavalryman galloping through the indigo darkness of his barracksA sprig of lilac between his teethEternity shines in the flight of a houseflyPlace the colors of your eyes side by sideAnd draw your own arcHistory is as fleeting as a nod at the train stationAnd the tricolor automobile of the sun keeps breaking its own recordpointlessly amid the used machinery of the cosmosYou remember along with a kiss planted in darknessThe window of a German bookshop in Avenue de l’OpéraAnd the goat grazing on yellow broomAmong the ruined stairs of the palace of Darius at PersepolisYou need only look aroundAnd write as you dreamTo revive the face of our joy
- Ardengo Soffici
Translated by Olivia E. Sears
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