[ highwaytothestars ]
we were flying at a hundred miles an hour.
the night advanced a thousand miles a minute.
whorls of lead, clouds shifted in the sky;
the mountains reared their peaks of anthracite.
the lake below us looked like a basin filled
with the ink of cuttlefish.
lights began to flicker along the shore.
on and on we sped, as through a mighty sea,
cross-hatched with lines and shadows,
our nostrils flaring in the windy mist.
the landscape rumbled to our engine's roar,
and my heart sang an ode impossible to repeat.
behind us the women chattered gaily, like fountains,
their veils caught in the blow, and trailing perfume.
suddenly, lights flaring -
we streamed away, a comet with a tail,
on a highway of bright abysses of stone and water and air
fixed in the devil-prism of our beam.
the rain poured, spilling diamonds.
blackness all about
the women's eyes shot sparks,
and in that wide and glowing orbit
we lived through a grand vertigo of whirlpools
like strange creatures of fire
from another part of the far-flung galaxy.
later,
bone-drunk on starry metaphysics,
how like gods - in the stillness of the spirit's cloister -
did we warm our flanks and our dreams
by the glowing meteors in the fireplace!
- paolo buzzi, 1913
the night advanced a thousand miles a minute.
whorls of lead, clouds shifted in the sky;
the mountains reared their peaks of anthracite.
the lake below us looked like a basin filled
with the ink of cuttlefish.
lights began to flicker along the shore.
on and on we sped, as through a mighty sea,
cross-hatched with lines and shadows,
our nostrils flaring in the windy mist.
the landscape rumbled to our engine's roar,
and my heart sang an ode impossible to repeat.
behind us the women chattered gaily, like fountains,
their veils caught in the blow, and trailing perfume.
suddenly, lights flaring -
we streamed away, a comet with a tail,
on a highway of bright abysses of stone and water and air
fixed in the devil-prism of our beam.
the rain poured, spilling diamonds.
blackness all about
the women's eyes shot sparks,
and in that wide and glowing orbit
we lived through a grand vertigo of whirlpools
like strange creatures of fire
from another part of the far-flung galaxy.
later,
bone-drunk on starry metaphysics,
how like gods - in the stillness of the spirit's cloister -
did we warm our flanks and our dreams
by the glowing meteors in the fireplace!
- paolo buzzi, 1913