Fierce Cornflower of Swat.

Ivan Pozzoni, a poet and writer from Italy, shares his poetry  

Ivan Pozzoni was born in Monza city of Italy in 1976. He introduced Law and Literature in Italy and the publication of essays on Italian philosophers and on the ethics and juridical theory of the ancient world. He collaborated with several Italian and international magazines. Between 2007 and 2018, different versions of the books were published. He was the founder and director of some literary magazines. He is included in the Atlas of contemporary Italian poets of the University of Bologne and figures in the great international literature review of Gradiva. His verses are translated into French, English and Spanish. In 2024, after six years of total retreat of academic studies, he returned to the Italian artistic world and melts the NSEAE Kolektivne (New socio/ethno/aesthetic anthropology).

GUL MAKAI

Your name is Malala, Yousafzai,

Challenging name as a Pashtun pasionaria,

An Afghan Joan of Arc,

On a fourteen-year-old girl,

Student in the Pakistani region of Swat.

Your name is Malala, Yousafzai,

Bursts out, loud, like the bullet

Of a Kalashnikov lodged in your brain,

At the age of fourteen, vindication,

By shari’a-defending Barbados,

Of repressed Taliban (from the western invasion).

Your name is Malala, Yousafzai,

You wished to be a doctor, a vocation,

You fight, between life and non-life, in hospitals all over the world,

Symbol of a new generation,

‘Where is Malala?’ your attacker asked,

And, terrified by you, he shot.

Your name is Malala, Yousafzai,

You continued going to school

Against a brutal interpretation of shari’a,

Renaming yourself Gul Makai, in your diary,

While Taliban beheaded, in Swat,

Innocent victims of un-Islamic behaviour.

Your name is Malala, Yousafzai,

Fierce Cornflower of Swat.

***

AND EVERYONE WILL APPLAUD

Laughing at not being there, I will be in a thousand cities

Bear out of hibernation, showing a thousand faces and lying a hundred identities,

Without you realizing that you are not being affronted

By a consummate actor, worn out by the hiatus of an ego free from indulgences.

Laughing at not being there, chased from the stage

In the anxiety of having Judas maître at the last supper,

You’ll erode months stultifying yourselves with incense,

Like clerics in church in vain moments of waiting,

With the anxiety of immolating myself to audiences of counter-senses.

But i will not be there in the reading rooms,

Closed jaws, clenched in the odour of contracture.

I will not welcome you, minstrel, to the spotlight,

Far from the nostalgia of a listening audience.

***

THE DEMOCRACY OF THE AMPLIFON

The democracy of the amplifon runs through the stalls of the local markets: “accattatev’illo! “

Shouts the greengrocer’s boy announcing the republic of fags,

Rants the tronista, enthroned on the throne of the Maria De Filippi Show,

Demanding telegenic acquittals or condemnations to subscribing boos,

At the stadium, the exception is a minute’s silence, the norm is singing in the choir,

In thousands shouting, in rhythm, like Mongols of the Golden Horde.

The democracy of the amplifon runs on the parliamentary benches: ‘mortacci!’,

The right-wing boor yells at the extreme-left baronet (fag),

Rants the camorrista, in the cage of the maxi-trial, wishing the death

Of the judge (communist), in front of the subdued hum of the video cameras,

Applause at the funeral, at the performance of the deceased? Applause at the generals,

Loud applause at the silence on the hundreds of collateral victims

Of the noisy carpet-bombing, flying, of the liberal air forces.

The democracy of the amplifon runs among the artists’ stages: ‘go in mona!’

Shouts the eminent (know-it-all) writer, slamming the door of the poetry slam

Deaf to the background noise ‘poetry isn’t of who writes it, it’s of who need it’,

Rants the muezzin from the minaret sponsoring Islam,

Accompanied by the bejewelled archbishop of Milan, ite, missa est, and eat my shorts,

Screeching at traffic lights, shouting at parade, at condominium meetings duracell-like cackling

The democracy of the amplifon relies on the monarchy of the decibel,

Subordinating to amplification the value of every argument.

_____________________ 

Read: The Anti-Promise to Love – Poetry from Italy

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