Dario Bellezza

Trans. by Peter Covino

My House, The Entrance Way

from Home

I have written various poems about my house.
But none about its front door—
I repainted it white, a blinding
illusory sense of suspension. Someone
may comprehend its obscure notions, of death
invoked, hurriedly; I like it like that,
white and whorish if it offers a solemn
viaticum for a wronged life:
my perdition, cared about little—
the solitude of this handiwork resounds
on the accursed doorstep, the assassin
I sense always in ambush; the cats
faraway, forsaken to the vigilante
of futile nights. In this way I no longer 
try to stir up the tumult, I tell myself
alone, I’m home, in the part most
threatened, the part most haunted
where everyone can find me. Whether
I arrive, or leave out of breath,
every home, every entrance is lost!
May the will to endure twisted
dreams or calamity disappear;
whoever enters, or if no one does;
may the door be closed forever
as after the earthly death,
of the senses; on the unsullied threshold
may only the sought-after fear remain
like a perfumed rose. Yes, may 
the anguish, fury, and barbarity 
of a moment already gone also endure 
while staring at a regal, brutal
corridor—a feast for the eyes  

Poet-editor-translator Peter Covino, Associate Professor of English at the University of Rhode Island, is the author of the poetry collections The Right Place to Jump; and Cut Off the Ears of Winter both from New Issues, Western Michigan UP; and the co-edited Essays in Italian American Literature, Bordighera/CUNY. His awards include a 2019 National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship, the PEN American/Osterweil Award. He is a Founding Editor of Barrow Street Press.

Dario Bellezza (1944–1996) was an openly gay prizewinning, Italian poet-novelist (Viareggio Prize, 1976; Montale Prize, 1994) who died a premature death of AIDS related complications. His work was championed by such luminaries of twentieth-century Italian, and American literature as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Alberto Moravia, Elsa Morante, Allen Ginsburg, and Gregory Corso.