Caterina Davinio Italia
Beach Boys (Kenya)
You asked me for something
Two shillings
They were not much to you
And we were friends.
You were experienced
In the sly begging
And you were a consummate adventurer
With walks on pointed corals
Attentive connoisseur
Of Italic showgirls
And in your pocket you kept
Your crab
With its long claw
To show it to the limp
And pale tourist,
Suffering and pierced
By the killer-sun
And by the sharp nacre barrier reef.
He, the bwana, took leave by giving you
Shillings and holiday
Promiscuity, unmindful
And forgetful
Of the sub-alpine
And pastoral bell tower
Where he defended the ancestral use
The symbols and the hearth
calling you "a stranger"
"Wearenotracistsatall
Landlordsinourland"*
(he – his very own –
the "vappensiero" ** then)
And "tohelpthemintheircountry"
In those remote shores
From which a beggar wind drives them
Toward (our) nation,
Beautiful and confused.
And you said goodbye
As a ceremonious
Professional of mendicancy
On the diamond beach
You promised hunts
Artifacts, mythical circumnavigations
Treasures and magical peaches.
Under your visor
The Ray-Ban twinkling.
----
*“We are landlords in our land” is a slogan by people of the Italian political party Lega Nord, known also as Lega, which is rather localist and xenophobe. The Lega party in 2010 was in government allied with Berlusconi and very popular in many small cities in northern Italy.
** “Va, pensiero” (also known in English as the “Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves”) is a music piece from Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Nabucco, which had been chosen as a political hymn by the Italian political party Lega.
From: Aliens on Safari, poetry and photography, Robin, Rome 2016