Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Andrea Inglese

Inventory of lost flesh

Shark flesh on the greasy pole of Cockaigne
at the gallows of sausage and boars
climbing onto stilts, gullets
voracious tubes, jaws and trunks
in clashes and robberies, to the heavenly lard
ascending, to the bite, the salacious juice
of entrails, disclosed flesh for fangs,
all devouring cavities panting
after the convex fruit of the world,
daring flesh, mandibular
where are you?

True flesh, unquestionable
of hominid predator, running
with hands with opposable thumb
to wield flint blades
on the trail of the wounded bear
Tarzan flesh, of shaggy
yeti of the snows, of Mister
Hyde, foaming in the crazy
orbit of the scalpels, flesh
without word, howling and laughing
in the circle of boxing and copulation
with no heavens other than the infant
digested, the neighbor’s meal,
flesh racked by feverish retching
from the pit of the entrails
to the beacon of fantasies, feeble
carnivorous thoughts, and deep
Minotaur hunger: branches
of fangs that don’t separate bone
from pulp, stone
from fruit, that don’t know
the raw from the cooked . . .

Elementary flesh that bears
harmless within it the human germ
naked and raw, before the cognitive pome,
before the crumbling in twisted delays of the brain
before fasting and diets, the food
simulacrum of ciphers and lines,
acephalous flesh, cannons of excrements
you that serpents of mud return
unto the mud from which you come: worms
fat with every earthly poison
oxides and acids, lead and pitch,
flesh that inside is flayed
free of scraps, and once divided you scatter
in mounds of faeces, flesh of the noble
savage, missed and yearned for . . .

Flesh of incommensurable happiness
do not come back,  stay right where you are,
in myth, in the axiom of comic books,
in the worn out dream, for us the headpieces
of straw – that on a low flame and with lots
of smoke go on – remain, for the brief
pyre allotted us: the residual instinct
is in the misprint, in the missing dot
over an i that a zealous proof reader
provides (After an eminent dose
of enlightenment, etiquette,
pedagogies, sensual gratification is enervated,
but it deludes itself and whips with artifice,
enfevered in the joust of prostheses
wearing the electronic wetsuit
the meek citizen hunts for the cougar
domestically turning round.)

Inventario delle carni perdute

Inventario delle carni perdute

Carni da squalo al palo della Cuccagna,
al patibolo di salcicce e cinghiari
su trampoli inerpicando, gozzi
tubi famelici, fauci e proboscidi
in cozzi e rapine, al celeste lardo
salendo, al morso, al sugo saligno
delle entragne, schiuse carni d’azzanno,
tuttòfaghe cavità anelanti
al convesso frutto del mondo,
carni audaci, mandibolari
dove siete?

Carni vere, indubitabili
di predatore ominide, in corsa
con mani dal pollice opponibile
a sciabolare lame di selce
nella scia dell’orso ferito,
carni di Tarzan, di villoso
yeti delle nevi, di mister
Hyde, schiumante nell’orbita
pazza dei bisturi, carni
senza verbo, ululanti e ridenti
nel cerchio di pugilati e copule
senz’altro cielo che il pargolo
digesto, il pasto del vicino,
carni che i conati scuotono
febbrili dal pozzo di viscere
al faro di fantasie, di flebili
pensieri carnivori, fami
fonde di Minotauro: rami
di zanne che non separano l’osso
dalla polpa, il nocciolo
dal frutto, che non sanno
il crudo e il cotto . . .

Carni elementari che hanno
innocuo, in sé, il germe umano nudo
e crudo, prima del pomo cognitivo,
del crollo nei torti ritardi del cervello,
prima dei digiuni e delle diete, del cibo
simulacro delle cifre e delle righe,
carni acefale, cannoni d’escrementi
che serpi di fango restituite
al fango da cui sorgete: vermi
grassi d’ogni veleno terrestre,
d’ossidi e acidi, piombo e pece,
carni che interne vi scorticate
di scarti, e scisse vi sparpagliate
in tumuli di feci, carni di buon
selvaggio, rimpiante e desiderate . . .  

Carni d’incommensurabile felicità
non tornate, state pure dove siete
nel mito, nell’assioma di fumetto,
nel sogno usurato, a noi le teste
di paglia – che a fuoco lento e tanto
fumo vanno – restano, per il corto
rogo che ci è dato: il residuo istinto
è nel refuso, nel punto mancante
della i che un correttore zelante
supplisce. (Per dose somma
di lumi, galatei, pedagogie
spossata è la felicità dei sensi,
ma s’illude e sferza con artificio
infebbrata nella giostra di protesi:
con indosso la muta elettronica
il mite cittadino caccia il giaguaro
ruotando casalingo su se stesso.)
Close

Inventory of lost flesh

Shark flesh on the greasy pole of Cockaigne
at the gallows of sausage and boars
climbing onto stilts, gullets
voracious tubes, jaws and trunks
in clashes and robberies, to the heavenly lard
ascending, to the bite, the salacious juice
of entrails, disclosed flesh for fangs,
all devouring cavities panting
after the convex fruit of the world,
daring flesh, mandibular
where are you?

True flesh, unquestionable
of hominid predator, running
with hands with opposable thumb
to wield flint blades
on the trail of the wounded bear
Tarzan flesh, of shaggy
yeti of the snows, of Mister
Hyde, foaming in the crazy
orbit of the scalpels, flesh
without word, howling and laughing
in the circle of boxing and copulation
with no heavens other than the infant
digested, the neighbor’s meal,
flesh racked by feverish retching
from the pit of the entrails
to the beacon of fantasies, feeble
carnivorous thoughts, and deep
Minotaur hunger: branches
of fangs that don’t separate bone
from pulp, stone
from fruit, that don’t know
the raw from the cooked . . .

Elementary flesh that bears
harmless within it the human germ
naked and raw, before the cognitive pome,
before the crumbling in twisted delays of the brain
before fasting and diets, the food
simulacrum of ciphers and lines,
acephalous flesh, cannons of excrements
you that serpents of mud return
unto the mud from which you come: worms
fat with every earthly poison
oxides and acids, lead and pitch,
flesh that inside is flayed
free of scraps, and once divided you scatter
in mounds of faeces, flesh of the noble
savage, missed and yearned for . . .

Flesh of incommensurable happiness
do not come back,  stay right where you are,
in myth, in the axiom of comic books,
in the worn out dream, for us the headpieces
of straw – that on a low flame and with lots
of smoke go on – remain, for the brief
pyre allotted us: the residual instinct
is in the misprint, in the missing dot
over an i that a zealous proof reader
provides (After an eminent dose
of enlightenment, etiquette,
pedagogies, sensual gratification is enervated,
but it deludes itself and whips with artifice,
enfevered in the joust of prostheses
wearing the electronic wetsuit
the meek citizen hunts for the cougar
domestically turning round.)

Inventory of lost flesh

Shark flesh on the greasy pole of Cockaigne
at the gallows of sausage and boars
climbing onto stilts, gullets
voracious tubes, jaws and trunks
in clashes and robberies, to the heavenly lard
ascending, to the bite, the salacious juice
of entrails, disclosed flesh for fangs,
all devouring cavities panting
after the convex fruit of the world,
daring flesh, mandibular
where are you?

True flesh, unquestionable
of hominid predator, running
with hands with opposable thumb
to wield flint blades
on the trail of the wounded bear
Tarzan flesh, of shaggy
yeti of the snows, of Mister
Hyde, foaming in the crazy
orbit of the scalpels, flesh
without word, howling and laughing
in the circle of boxing and copulation
with no heavens other than the infant
digested, the neighbor’s meal,
flesh racked by feverish retching
from the pit of the entrails
to the beacon of fantasies, feeble
carnivorous thoughts, and deep
Minotaur hunger: branches
of fangs that don’t separate bone
from pulp, stone
from fruit, that don’t know
the raw from the cooked . . .

Elementary flesh that bears
harmless within it the human germ
naked and raw, before the cognitive pome,
before the crumbling in twisted delays of the brain
before fasting and diets, the food
simulacrum of ciphers and lines,
acephalous flesh, cannons of excrements
you that serpents of mud return
unto the mud from which you come: worms
fat with every earthly poison
oxides and acids, lead and pitch,
flesh that inside is flayed
free of scraps, and once divided you scatter
in mounds of faeces, flesh of the noble
savage, missed and yearned for . . .

Flesh of incommensurable happiness
do not come back,  stay right where you are,
in myth, in the axiom of comic books,
in the worn out dream, for us the headpieces
of straw – that on a low flame and with lots
of smoke go on – remain, for the brief
pyre allotted us: the residual instinct
is in the misprint, in the missing dot
over an i that a zealous proof reader
provides (After an eminent dose
of enlightenment, etiquette,
pedagogies, sensual gratification is enervated,
but it deludes itself and whips with artifice,
enfevered in the joust of prostheses
wearing the electronic wetsuit
the meek citizen hunts for the cougar
domestically turning round.)
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