Empire of Dreams

by Braschi,Giannina

  It wasn’t fire, and you said it well, no it wasn’t fire. Someone started to call me. Come, he said. And I went. What do you need? he asked. I need some sleep. The clocks woke me. No, it wasn’t the cold. No, it wasn’t the game. I still have the clown’s pants. I still have my pockets full of sand. I still open my arms and embrace you. No, it wasn’t the game. I still don’t have hatreds in the sand. I don’t have knives in my pants. I have stars. Listen to me. My huge stars drawn in the port, the ships of my welcoming. My innocent farewells. The world won’t leave me in peace. But the stars, the ships, the caramels, the soap bubbles, the centaur. No, it wasn’t the game. I’ve looked through elevators, prison bars, handcuffs. And the world looks forever like a star to me. Its huge dungeon and its huge jail imprison me on the seashore. There is no exit, there is no outlet from the sky, only an echo screaming: I’m still living in the stars, I’m still sleeping in the stars, still. What do you need? he asked me. I need to sleep in the stars.

  Mathematical equation, you said, the multiplication of bread and fish. A centaur’s eye wanted to go through the mouse’s needle. A really big man wanted to be a dwarf. But failed. Then the world marched onward. Wire boots, how could it be? Mathematical equation. The world declined twice. Life played a poor hand. Stood up furious. And moved far away from the city. Mathematical equation, they shouted, the multiplication of bread isn’t going anywhere. I’m marching somewhere, said the soldier. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! An elephant’s eye wanted to go through an elevator. The doormen stopped it. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! The world’s bicycle, where is it? Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! I don’t have your underwear. It’s not my fault if you can’t find it, said life. And the world started laughing. Mathematical equation, you said, nothing is marching forward. The little dwarves didn’t know what was marching, neither did I, I have to admit. The world is marching nowhere. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

  My tanks were filled with gasoline and wars. I was a lead soldier. I marched against the smoke of the city. There were difficult moments and there were, Hello! How are you? They were all worth the same. I had two pennies. I could enter the city. But they closed the doors on me. I closed my soul on them. They didn’t know what had happened. Did my soul pass by here? Body, I said to you, how are you? I have been a lead soldier. The voice that said it was not what it said. I almost swear by the road. But the segment, the march loaded with clay, eyes of asphalt, hands of lime, legs of drill, navels of cement, resounded, resounded, resounded—the anvils of the hammer against the beams of the body—drilling, drilling, drilling me. Marching in time, the wall and the latch, the heart, my soul, the precipice of the trucks. And everything was black, black, black, white—like the asphalt. And the world closed its doors—anvils and hammers against the sleeping men—the doors of the heart, cities everywhere and little lead soldiers.

  2. Poems of the World; or, The Book of Wisdom

  Fool: Nuncle, give me an egg, and I’ll give thee two crowns.

  Lear: What two crowns shall they be?

  Fool: Why, after I have cut the egg i’ th’ middle and eat up the meat, the two crowns of the egg.

  —Shakespeare, King Lear, act 1, scene 4

  I want everything to be in my book. So nothing is left unsaid. I want to say it all. Live it all. See it all. Make everything anew. The end must be the beginning. The exit from the tunnel. The entrance to the highway of life. The motorcycle chase. The full-moon gaze. I was the magician. All must know it. The world must know it. I was the only magician who performed a trick on a page. And the nightingale appeared. And the girl with red slippers. And the poet appeared. The poet. The poet. The barefoot poet. The child. The comet. The musicologist. I invented the treble clef. I invented the star of drama. So much time has gone by. I’ll close my eyes. To be alone. Alone. Alone. I’m the loner. I would have liked to make you happy. I would have liked to invent paradise. An ice tavern. Or a milk-man. A puppy. And a penguin. And I have it all. I have it all. I’ll soon extinguish myself. Like a flash of lightning. Like the entire planet. Orchestra. Orchestra. Let the music begin. Let the singer begin to sing. Let everything begin anew. I want everything. Everything. Everything.

  I hope your eyes never get tired of shining. I want it all. Eyes that shine like stars. Let me have stars in my hands. Let me draw comets for you. Let there be air and let there be earth. May you have what stars have. May they have what the sea has. May all have hands and comets. May all your wishes come true. May your hopes never stop waiting for you. May the star wait for you. May your wishes wait for you. May you be loved. May all love you. May you be filled with it all. May all fill you with innocent bagatelles.

  I am the actor of hope. I am the dancing doll. I am the singer of the wind. I’ll fly, I’ll jump, I’ll blow my golden trumpet. I’m inside—the feet, the head of the sea, the eyes of the wind. And I feel I’m going to fall at the exact moment when rivers contract. I invite you to dance for me, to laugh at me, to say yes to me. I am your dancer, your maiden, your sewing frame. I am the act and the word. I have nothing.

  I don’t have it, and I wanted it. I really, really wanted it, and I searched the water, the air, and the earth. And I walked and didn’t give up. My eyes were frost. And my hands were long, and I waited so, so long I didn’t give up. And I became so blind I didn’t see it. And I searched and searched and didn’t give up. I searched for it. I had it when I searched for it. And I wanted it when I didn’t have it because I searched and searched. I had it, I had it when I didn’t have it and searched and searched. My lips call it and it always comes asleep, sleepwalker, sleepless, and it’s sleepy, sleepy, and it’s sleepwalking when it listens to the wind, and it’s asleep in the bare stockings of my torn shoe, and it mends my destiny and my sound and my way and fills me with light and wheat and harvests the wheat of my hands and tangles the ways and spins the winds and fills me with wind and wheat and sound and frost and pain and the hot and the cold of rivers and ways and winds and dreams, and it harvests my crops and heals my fruits in my bare stockings.

  What joy. What joy. How happy you make me. How happy you’ve made me these days. What a thrill. What a high. What a trip. I’m so full of memories. The intensity of your body. The way we could love one another. The way we did love one another. What joy. What joy. How happy you’ve made me these days. What a great surprise. Really great. Pleasure so great. Really, really great. Thank you, love. Thank you. I can’t bear so much pleasure of love and joy and passion and memories and gratitude that will issue to the north or the west of my bliss, and I can’t find my way out of this bliss but I want to be inside it swarming with fireflies and wasps. What fun. Love. What fun. Love. What joy. What joy. How empty and how full of passion. And how full of bliss. Love. So full. Joy so full. And such passion, love. How full of joy and passion and pain and love and bliss. And how empty. How stuffed and how complete and how empty.

  How empty and how full of joy. I won’t describe you, I’ll love you, I’ll love you, above the sky, love, above all, you are there, love, with your love, you are there, love, you are there. And I want you to be above all, love, above all, so that all is under your love. All your love is there and is above all. Nothing exists without you above all. There is no underneath, there is no in front of, there is no beside. Only you, love, and you, above all, only you, and you, love, you, who are big and small, you, who buzz around like bees swarming and making honey from my beehive, and you, who stop in my heart. Inhabiting everything.

  Everything inhabited and supplied by you. Nothing is empty. And you are empty and full, and you hunt me like a wild beast and tear my skin, and you are the hunter in my forest, and I am the gazelle and you the vulture, love, and I the tiger. And in the forest I am the star and firefly and you the cistern and I the cherry and you the walnut and I the almond. And you the deer and I the turtle and you the serpent and I the snail. And you happiness and you hope and I grief, love, over the forest and the jungle. You are there, love, with your shotgun and your lance and your crossbow and your arrow wounding my deer, love. And there
is also the boar and the pig and the gazelle and the tiger’s dance, and the love, above all the fairs and festivals and lotteries is your love, love, your love and your love. Above the forest and the feast and the jungle is your love. Love. Love. Love.

  I love hiccups and I love sneezes and I love blinks and I love belches and I love gluttons. I love hair. I love bears. For me, the round. For me, the world. Round is the happy face. And round is the midday. And when the moon is most beautiful is when it’s round. Sex is round. And the heart also. The hand is round. The mouth also. Sneezes are round. And hiccups also. The milk from the breast of Lady Macbeth was also round. I would have liked to be like her and be bad. I am good. I am Bacchus. I am sex. And I am hiccup. And I am sneeze. And I am cough. Hoarse. Hoarse. Hoarse. I am thunder. I am voice. I am obscene. Obscene. Obscene. I am pure like the tit or the milk. I am water, sea, or fish, or tadpole. I am round.

  I’m so full of beetles and serpents, and I’m so full of ants and tadpoles and toads and snakes, and I’m so full of joys and lightning and stars. Don’t say that we’re so full, we’re so empty and so full, someday I’ll say and I’ll repeat, of all the stars, and I’ll return to the house of mirth. I’ll burst and I’ll work, work, work. I’ll light a torch of happiness. I’ll fill cauldrons and kettles with potions and pigs and toads. And I’ll be the king of infinite space bounded in a nutshell. A little worm or a little ant, that snakelike thing that slithers. The outbreak of leprosy, the stench of the breed, and the plague, the mange. That’s not to say, the breeze, the air, the morning. Happiness will blast off, a backlash of lighting. I’ll create a work. I’ll work. I’ll work. I’ll return to the house of mirth, I’ll listen, jump, cheer. I’ll answer, curse, wreck, ruin, rise charged with anger, fed up with the night, no, with round-trips. I’ll make my way back, that’s for sure. The rest of the sileni don’t expect it, and I still don’t know anything about it.

  I’m so full of seven wonders. One is made of sun, another of snake. One is sand, another sea, another land. And another is the happy face, the joyful face. And the little worm. One is hen. Another duck. And another female or snail or male. Another youth. The old man and the boy. The water boy. The trumpeter. And the orchestra conductor. One is the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Another is well-being, pleasure, pain, orgy, silenus, faun. Another is love’s wound. One could be my brother or my distant cousin. A surprise could be another. One is a loud buzzing buzzer. Waking up in the morning is another wonder. Wonder. Wonder. The orange vendor. Sleeping Beauty is another. And the alarm clock is the third. I’m missing five wonders. You could be the fifth. Maybe it’s the black man on the corner. Or the tin drum. The fleeting chimera. The meowing black cat. The hen minding her chicks. I still don’t have seven wonders. I’m missing the third or the fifth. I have the perfect match. There is a lonely wonder. The lamp goes out. There is a darkness that is a wonder. I’m missing the third. Missing the fourth or the sixth. All my wonders are joyful and content. I have them teeming with wonders. I’ll abandon them, I’ll burn them, I love them so much. They are happy and full. They are healthy and robust. They are wonderful. Wonders. Wonders. Wonders.

  I have all surprises open. The gift was happiness. I can’t hide it, open, open, all my doors open. I have no secrets to hide. A gift is a wonder. A slow sound in another wonder. Deafness of thunder. And blindness of lightning. And even my ear is wonderful. An orbit full of joy. An astronaut in the sea. Space of water is another wonder. And walking and traveling and greeting. And remembering and drawing and dreaming, a shell with its nut, or a grain of honey, sugar, and salt with the sea. But the return home, eve of the sea, sad tale of the idiot, poor cross-eyed girl at the corner. Green butterfly. Delayed hope. Day arriving dressed as yesterday. And the plaza in its flock. Gold, parrot, cricket, serpent, river, question, dwarf. Hall of mirrors, wild swans, answers, let’s see if you’re telling me the truth, you lied to me, I already forgot about it, you told me yes and it was no. No, it’s not yet. Not yet. I will be born. I’ll create a work. I’ll work it. I’ll make it. And I’ll see it all.

  The fruits are about to burst, about to provoke thunder, or a storm, or a root, or a sky. The day is about to burst. I’m about to give birth, about to have a pup. The sun is about to dawn. The moon is about to be full. The mother is about to suckle. The poet about to write. The man about to die. The shy about to speak. The deaf about to hear. War about to break. Peace about to return. Storm and thunder about to. Rainbow about to. And also memory about to. Sound about to. Living about to. Laughter about to. Well-being about to. Smile about to. Sickness about to. The killer about to kill. The dancer about to dance. The clown to cry. The child to scream. The conductor to conduct. The violinist to play. The audience to applaud. Love to erupt. The door to slam. The drum to beat. The plane to soar. The stork to deliver. The lion to roar. The poet about to write. About to die in peace. About to live in peace. About to be happy. About to scream. About to love. About to sleep. About to create and create and create and erupt and explode and scream and laugh and sleep and dream and laugh and create and create and give birth and have stars and thunder and lightning and pups. And about to groan, sleep, dream, scream, give birth. And create. Create. Create. Create. Create. About to create. Create. Create. About to dream. About to create, create, create, create.

  The chestnut vendor looks like a nut. Looks like a tadpole, a toad, a mouse. She is scratching a nut. And feels a tickle. Feels an itch. She’s got chicken pox. Measles. Leprosy. And a blue butterfly. Roaring thunder. The witch drops a piece of porcupine into the cauldron. There’s a thorn at the tip of her nose. The orchestra explodes. And the ballerina fell in love with the killer. The hurricane fell in love with the thunder. The boy thinks he’ll be a man. The trumpeter fell in love with his nose. He’s nasal. Nasal. Nasal. The Pied Piper of Hamelin fell in love with the mouse. The Pied Piper is a magnet. The weight lifter has muscles that look like clouds. They’re not clouds. They’re muscles. They’re thunder. They’re nuts. The chestnut vendor wears an apron. The boy dresses like a tumbler. The bench feels lonely, lonely. The loner is full of chestnuts. The chestnut is a basket full of oranges. There is a seed in the fruit. A chestnut in the shell. The trumpeter blows the trumpet. The shell cracks open. The boy falls down. The ballerina dances the minuet. The violinist plays the wrong note. Hurricane, trumpet, thunder, orchestra…

  The sweet madman and the bitter madman started laughing…I won’t say what they were talking about, I don’t even know. I relate to the mesh and the wand. Do I look like an idiot? I’m a tuna melt. I’m a cracked egg. I’m the same as you are. A pair of red slippers. Dance, I will dance. Idiot. Idiot. Your eyes are popping out. Your eyes shiver from the cold. My lips kissed, kissed, kissed. And they opened. And yours closed, closed. I have nothing more and nothing less. I shrug my shoulders, I don’t give a damn. I’m indifferent. Indifference shuts like a tooth. And bites me when it shuts. I’m sad, worried, and helpless. You have to change the record. I know this melody by heart. Change, change the scenery. The sweet madman and the bitter madman started lamenting…

  They don’t recognize me. They don’t know who I am. I’m sadly helpless. I was an earthworm, and a little dwarf, and I believed I was a giant, but I was a nut, and I was becoming an egg. They cracked my shell in halves. My yolk flowed. The yolk of my egg was yellow. They ate me. And I blazed, blazed. I am the yolk of the sun. I am a golden acorn. I am wheat. I am aniseed. I am hurricane and thunder too. I tremble with dread, I tremble with fear. I protect myself from the sun. Then I doubt, but I feel the water. I am the sweet madman. I am the bitter madman. I am helpless amidst thunder. The wind blew off my hood. I have an ant and a snail. And I sleep in a shell. I am the egg. I am the yolk. I am the cloud of the egg white. I am the nourishment. I am the leftovers. It is I. Be careful you don’t throw me away. I might become an egg again and start blazing.

  Stand up, sit down, jump, shout, slide, roll, yell. Curse, burst. Be a knave and a busybody. Be a fool. Be a rascal and a piece of cork. A frie
d egg. A rotten egg. A rotten orange. A snowball. A piece of porcupine. A soccer ball. A man. A man. He stood up and jumped. He looked like a ball. He looked like a fried egg. I shouted. Yelled. Screamed. Smashed. I was a tuna melt. A fried egg. I was the yolk of the sun. The roundest egg that ever existed on the roundest planet that ever existed. I have fingers. I have a mouth. Hands. Balls. I have a shirt and pants. I’m naked. Stand up and shout it. Walk. Stand up. And yell it. Walk. Run. I am. Man. Man. I am. The world. Leg. Life. Laugh. Smile. Tooth. Thigh. Leg. Mouth. Ear. Face. Nose. Navel. Laugh. Laugh. Face. Ear. Life. People. Man. Life.

  I am the round heart of the ball of the world. And I am tired of being thrown around, as if my hand were worthless, as if my legs didn’t know how to bounce back. I love so much. I make a vow. I throw the ball. It’s only a game. A round game. Which takes my eyes. Leaves me blind. I don’t believe it. I have a ball. And lots of other things. I have everything. I have it all. You have to believe me. I’m ready to corner it all. I’ll breathe fire and fury. I’ll get pregnant and love my belly. I love my belly inflated. And I love the exact moment of having pups. Then I groan. Then I bleed. Then my belly collapses. Then I’m the army ant. And most of all the kangaroo. How odd. What a weird feeling. It’s pale. It’s pale. But it’s airy, bulky, and heavy too. And later the explosion. So the puppy whimpers. So the chick cracks his shell. I like fried eggs. I like shells. What would I do without this protective shell? That’s why I love the acorn. It reminds me of a nutshell. And a nut is an aniseed. Such drunkenness. But I’m missing the yolk of the sun. And I’m unbridled. Where is the ostrich egg? It’s playing hide and seek. Playing hide and seek, but the egg, that’s it, the golden acorn, and the chimpanzee that I’m so in love with. And here is the result: the acorn, and from that giant chimpanzee grew the oak. And from the oak, the dwarf called by another name, man. What a fine thing to learn.