Poesia Luciano Cinanni

SOME BEAUTIFUL POETRIES

(by Kipling, Neruda, Baudelaire, Prévert, Saba, Luzi)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream and not make dreams your master,
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And which is more you'll be a Man, my son!

by Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

DIES SLOWLY (Ode to life)

Dies slowly he who transforms himself in slave of habit, repeating every day he same itineraries, who does not change brand, does not risk to wear a new colour and doesn't talk to whom doesn't know.

Dies slowly he who makes of television his guru. Dies slowly he who avoids a passion, who prefers black to white and the dots on the "i" to a whirlpool of emotions, just those ones that recover the gleam from the eyes, smiles from the yawns, hearts from the stumbling and feelings.

Dies slowly he who does not overthrow the table, he who is unhappy at work, who does not risk the certain for the uncertain to go toward that dream that is keeping him awake.

Dies slowly he Who does not allow, at least once in his life, to flee from sensate advises.

Dies slowly he who does not travel, does not read, does not listen to music, who does not find grace in himself.

Dies slowly he who destroys his self-love, who does not accept somebody's help.

Dies slowly he who passes his days complaining of his bad luck or the incessant rain.

Dies slowly he who abandons a project before starting it, who does not ask over a subject that does not know or who does not answer when being asked about something he knows.

Dies slowly he who does not intent excelling, who does not learn from the stones of the road of life,
who does not love and let somebody love.

Let's avoid death in soft quotes, remembering always that to be alive demands an effort much bigger that the simple fact of breathing.

Only a burning patience will lead us to reach a wonderful happiness.

by Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

THE MUSIC

The music is often a sea, that takes every my sense!

To a white and faithful star,

under a roof of mists or in immense sky,

I losen the sails.

Swollen as a painting the lungs of wind,

I cross on crests of waves,

and with the chest forward I run on whirlwinds

that the dark hides me.

Of a sailor in torment the passion quivers into me

in every intimate fibre;

I dance with friend-wind or with crazy whirlpool.

Other times is calm, big mirror where I sense my despair!

by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)

PARIS AT NIGHT

Three matches in line striken in the night

the first to see all your face

the second to see your eyes

the third to see your mouth

and the whole darkness to remember all this

while I hold you in my arms.

by Jacques Prévert (1900-1977)

I LOVED

I loved trite words that no one

did not dare. The rhyme flower lover enchanted me

the most ancient and the most difficult in the World.

I loved the truth that lies at the bottom

almost a forgotten dream, that the sorrow

rediscovers as a friend. With fear the heart

moves near her, and does not abandon.

I love you that I am listening to me and my good

paper left at the end of my play.

by Umberto Saba (1883-1957)

WHERE THE SHADOW

Where the shadow carries on and the streets stay again

among the flowers, remember my words

and the screams of the man is perhaps a deception.

But ever under the usual sky

I find again my traces, my sun

and remote trees from the time

immobile behind the turning points. And ever

even if sweet secret is known by me;

on quiet dust, among the flower beds,

I linger to wait for sticks out

an inenarrable face of the sun.

by Mario Luzi (1914-2005)