Edoardo Sanguineti (Italy, 1930)
Edoardo Sanguineti (Italy, 1930)
Ballad of the War
To Gian Carlo Binelli
where are the Vikings and the Aztecs
and the men and women of Cro-Magnon?
where are the old Atlantis and the new ones,
the Great Door and the Invincible Armada,
the Salic Law and the Sybylline Books,
Pepin the Short and Ivan the Terrible?
everything is over, in bits and morsels
in the morbid jaws of time:
here, what is not resolved by a war
another war at once provides a remedy:
where are the Triples and the Quadruples,
the Belle Époque and the Iron Guards?
where are Tom Mix and Tom Pouce,
the Celestial Empire, the Zeppelin, the New Deal,
the Orient Express, the electroshock, situationism,
the twist, the OAS, the Humbert of Savoy hairdo?
everything is over, in bits and morsels
in the full belly of history:
here, if something is not concluded by a war,
another war at once provides a remedy:
oh, where are you, wars of pigs and roses,
wars of secession and succession?
oh, where are you, holy and cold wars,
thirty, a hundred years wars
six days and seven weeks wars,
you, great swift wars without end?
you are all over, in bits and morsels
within the nothingness of nothingness of all nothingness:
here, if a war is not settled by a peace
another peace will at once have another war
princes, presidents, eminent potent privileged military,
builders demanders of indecent monuments,
wars against wars is the war to go,
class struggle is the war to do:
