SurVision Magazine

Behind the Face

For Rosetta Berardi


I don't know if this light
– a hybrid one –
that traces geometries
of absence and silence
unveils the unspeakable
concealed behind the faces,

and if you can explore the destiny
of non-being-in-the-world
by melting the forms
in a dance of colours,

... but I recognise this song of yours,
this tune of your wanderings
that stops the run of time
in search for another truth,
for a new "elsewhere."





Reading Rimbaud 


Oriental spices I carry with me
and a load of weapons;

from my Gaulish forefathers comes
my indecisiveness,

and from my earthly sojourn,
my eyes' intoxication with absinthe.

The prancing of polychromatic vowels
I carry with me,

the beaches of Armorica
and the dimness of Aden.

I'm bored with the infinity
of the language – a deserter,

I plough not oceans but the puddles of Europe;
damned, I search for a sober dream.

O gods, my gods
consumed by an abundant eternity,
where are you?





Freestyle


From this buoy, to see
the shore – now distant –
and the sand whitewashed
by the August sun,
while the arms
whip the water
and the face turns left and right
      hitting
the surface of the sea.

The detachment from the mainland,
the waiting, suspense:
in the silence of the dawn
a new time
is being born,
an unreal time
protruding into the void.


Translated from Italian by Anatoly Kudryavitsky




Daniele Serafini is an Italian poet, novelist and translator. Born in Emilia-Romagna, he graduated in Literature and Philosophy from the University of Bologna. He was for many years the head of Museum and Gallery Services in the town of Lugo, near Ravenna, the Curator of the Francesco Baracca Museum of Aviation and former editor of two poetry magazines, Origini and Tratti. He has published six collections of poems: Paesaggio Celtico (1993); Luce di confine (1994); Eterno chiama il mare (1997), Dopo lamore (2004); Quando eravamo re (2012); Tra le Radici e l'Altrove (2016); the novel titled Café Hàwelka (1995) and the novella, Il Maggiore Harris (1996).