10 Italian novels to read

a list of ten Italian novels I’d like to catch up with this year,
some of these look expensive to buy, fingers crossed for re-issues –

1.A Spiral of Mist by Michele Prisco
translated by Isabel Quigley
Chatto and Windus 1969

2.On the Make by Quintavalle Uberto
translated by Isabel Quigley
Harvill Press 1962

3.The Lost Boy by Alberto Arbasino
translated by Bernard Wall
Faber 1964

4.Tune for an Elephant by Elio Vittorini
translated by Eric Mosbacher
Weidenfied and Nicholson 1955

5.The Transfer by Silvano Ceccherini
translated by
Eyre and Spottiswoode 1966

6.The Eye and the Heart by Carlo Cocciolo
Heinemann 1960

7.Confessions of an Italian by Ippolito Nievo
translated by Frederika Randall
Penguin Classics 2014

8. The Dead Boy and The Comets by Goffredo Parise
translated by Marianne Ceconi
Farrar, Strauss and Young 1953

9.The Blue Whale by Stanislao Nievo
translated by Gaetano Rando
Guernica Editions 2000

10.The Faithful Lover by Massimo Bontempelli
translated by Estelle Gilson
Host Publications 2007

ships in bottles

of windows past
transparencies uncleaned
patches of unfocused
details return now haunting
around and all above
memories of feelings
suppressed stacked labelled
and abandoned
now shifting the decimals
silently under the radar
so return to the eye
staring back
reflected in the bottle’s glass gaze
detecting silent wind
tremored in the sails
pushing
the days aside

an approximation

a moon light stained coast
road along
a car losing
routes and turbulences
of dates and her
through him
wind and then now love
pulling over
a timetable extracted
a mantra repeated
into the dark
an approximation
of an ending
across ocean waves
glimmering reflections
of a risen face
searching road atlas symbols
for escape

the receipt

the paper unfolding
in his palm
clearly dated with the hour
of the transaction
on white with black type
of love’s exchange
now caught on the wind
unfurling and
blown out and away
across the ranges
of other mountains
deserted and
devoid

outstretched horizon

love lined
the fields
of the heart
he measured
from aerial view
a figure
escaping, maybe running
a space emptied
once filled
through it
to the corner
then out of sight
gone

night slips

from a substituted night
he may never have returned
stoking fires
of confession
then subtraction
extinguished his springing flame
dwindling in the first
glimmers of grey morning light
leftover after
battle
whose cause now forgotten
after the stampede
whose corpsed casualties
lain out and counted
with useless numbers
have no life left to resolve
his stained love
slipping to the sea bed
to hibernate out
til the embers
of a silent evening
re-spark bruised desire
of a face
out of the night

A favourite at the moment –

flowing again

time as it moved
dispersed it’s own weight
now under and above
reflections glitter
onto the wall
now beamed
from the granulations
of waiting
held tight in the palm
no pen then
to mark
the sheet of an unballoted life
the euphoria of due process
now undone
a dot dot dot
indents the page
deeply and
now only nature
might exhume diamonds

behind autumns

words skimming over
autumnal white noise
in a seasonal retreat
and re-studied answers
those provided
those ungiven
swirl the air
a descending
unto his palm
leaf fall
over spilling into empty
rooms now filling
with rejoice and envisioning
postured shadows against the wall
amidst automatic colour changes
in end of year light
and through studied dreams
return muted motions
of a more silent kind
of love
from memories of a day
eluded
from them all

replanted

in reversal
it remains unstoppable
vision
a love absorbed
waiting awaiting
receiving and giving
an empty pack of
vision
now a memory
of something seen
and held
from a distance
a pulling gravity
cordless
heart tug
and love
replanted