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Frankie Hi NRG — La Morte dei Miracoli (1997)
Autodafè (1) (Italian original)
Translation by freezerman, with C-Sal of DLH PosseI stay clear of myself, because I don't want to have anything to do with myself, nothing to share with somebody like me who doesn't do anything to improve himself: I'm my worst enemy.
Dear friend, I won't write you, I won't look you up and I'll never call you, knock once if you're there and are listening to me, drag me out of my ataraxic torpor (10), I got lost in a park that's not jurassic and I can't find a way out:
I'm my own jailer with the key in my pocket, I cry for freedom, but for the time being I know that this cell will stay closed from the inside with three turns of the key: I am the lost soul (2) guarding my own hell.
I repress every possible "me," inflexible, unstoppable in my being montionless, I mark the passing of days on the calendar, I am the victim, the killer and the one behind the crime (3).
I am the Black Man (4) that haunted my dreams, when I dreamt, I thought I was free but I didn't know myself as I do today, and ego non mi absolvo (5) not even when I confess the sins that I committed - and I drive an autodafè.
In bad company especially when I am alone, negative like the Gs in a free fall, I fly, climb up, stall and wait for the worse to happen, which is not in the fall, but rather in the landing, like Hubert says. (6)
Imaginary like Moliere's hypocondriac sickness (7) I'm my own henchman and I act like Salieri (8), but don't ask me why, because like the Tethered (9) when the thread is broken you can't catch me anymore.
come and get me or I'll fall, like Maximillian i'll slide down the black hole of trouble (11) :
in boredom there's no remedy for me, and I realise perché sono sotto assedio mentre tu mi fai l'embargo.
Critico, m'arrampico su cattedre che non mi spettano and I realise after a moment that I'm exaggerating: but as usual the wrong is done and can't be undone, history is irreversible, my memory is short, washable (12).
I live in this low rent shadow, paying my dues to habit and taking the exception as a rule of life: I'm at home on the ground floor and I style myself as a stylite (13)
I wander, loiter, like Dr. Zhivago. (14)
I wave my arms and you don't see me, I look for hands and often find feet instead, I look for rivers but find lights that burn me, and I know well that the scars remain.
A paper, a pen, and nothing else to stay afloat, in my head my thoughts are like a spider in a bubble: sitting on the river bank waiting to see my corpse float by... patiently...
NOTES:
(1) Autodafè is a Portuguese phrase meaning "act of faith" and refers to the public announcement and execution of the sentence imposed by the Roman Catholic Inquisition, usually burning at the stake. BACK
(2) In Italian, an anima dannata (lost soul) is also someone who is abused regularly, a person you take pleasure in making suffer. BACK
(3) The word "mandante" is the person who selects a victim, orders a killing, and pays the killer. BACK
(4) "Uomo Nero," literally "black man" is the name for the boogeyman. BACK
(5) Catholic priests use the Latin phrase ego te absolvo (I absolve you) during the act of confession. In Frankie's case, he doesn't absolve himself of his sins. BACK
(6) Hubert is one of the charcters in Mathieu Kassovitz's 1995 film "La haine" (Hate). BACK
(7) French playwright Jean-Baptiste Moliere's 1673 social comedy "Le malade imaginaire" (The Imaginary Invalid, or, The Hypochondriac). BACK
(8) Composer and musician Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) taught Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert. Mozart accused Salieri of plagiarism and of attempting to murder him with poison, an idea that was explored in the 1984 film "Amadeus."BACK
(9) The referenced Italian Tethered Satellite System, failed when the tethered satellite broke lose. BACK
(10) Aataraxia (freedom from disturbance) is "the experience of optimal, enduring pleasure," a notion promoted by Greek philospher Epicurus of Samos (341-270 B.C.). BACK
(11) UNKNOWN BACK
(12) WORD PLAY: Labile refers to a short memory, while lavabile means "wasable," thus the idea of a "washable memory," a sort of brainwash. BACK
(13) Stylites were ascetic hermits who lived on pillars (stylos). The most well-known was St. Simeon Stylites the Elder. BACK
(14) Dr. Zhivago is the title of Russian poet and Nobel Prize winner Boris Pasternak's 1955 novel about the Russian Revolution. BACK
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