The Pasolini Book
Playlist by Stacy SzymaszekMay 1, 2010
it was just after all soul’s day, november 2nd, 1975. i was 6. the man i would become was murdered outside of rome, images of his crushed body broadcast worldwide, and no one in my house noticed or could have cared. my family lived in a suburb separated from others by wide belts of undeveloped land. it was organized by section and each section was designated a letter that every street name began with; we lived in the g-section on glen flora drive. the alphabetical logic was meant to give the families living there a sense of natural order and local cohesion. it felt like a gated community, but there was no need for a gate. trespassers were always immediately detected and observed. the gate existed in my subconscious and though i never got close enough, i knew an electric current ran through it. in 1982, my mother chaperoned our class boat ride on lake michigan, and, seeing me among my peers, registered to what extent my clothes distinguished me from them. i went to a catholic grade school where we all had to wear navy slacks and yellow, white or green polo shirts, so the problem was really one of style; my black suede shoes and the tattered holes in my shirts where i removed the designer’s insignias with scissors. she drew me aside at the prow of the boat to ask me, “why won’t you wear chinos and loafers like the other girls?” i took my eyes off of her, furiously, and focused past the breakwater, clenched my teeth and said, “i’m not like other girls.” i want very much to remember what happened next. did i have a hard time sleeping that night? i didn’t know the implications of the 5 words i pronounced to my mother – a message veiled to myself but plain to her. as i found out much later, she cried herself to sleep that night, her fear of what i was had been confirmed. i noted that she intensified her surveillance of me, and her guardianship, as i was both a threat and in need of protection.
i became aware of my own mortality when the man i would become, pier paolo pasolini, was found murdered on the beach in the port town of ostia.
– Stacy Szymaszek
I Too Am
I too am on the way to the baths to free myself of the anxiety of ancient illusions my desires are humble to wear a pressed cotton shirt with comfortable shoes to have a house in a district where people say hello a sun-warmed reading room a balcony for roses to think that a god may still be in me . . .
I too have dreams that anchor me to the world in my custom-made cabinet how many drawers will I need? one drawer for each manuscript how many armchairs will I need? one armchair for each friend and in the bedroom a simple bed covered by a flowery heirloom then to sleep surrounded by the paintings I love . . .
I too am on the way to the baths to make my longing public
Sex Consolation for Misery
I pencil in a Brindisi moustache and go where one thinks the city ends sending watchwords to the glinted
in the grace of love the wretch feels himself a man
then is feared and despised this is the nth onset of the city
secure in intrinsic blocs lovers confirm there is hope in having no hope —century, be silent I have disguised myself within your holographic light
and as a sculpture in acid rain dissolve into the hush of discrepancy
But It Was a Naked and Swarming Italy
in a room with crumbling plaster my thoughts turned to my appearance
my appearance as a man who was clean-shaven in a suit
the sound of kids playing was indistinguishable from a violent dispute
dusk became operatic with mothers' voices
as television reports alerted the public
walking in the city could be hazardous
a city that didn't depend on what I wrote about it
or how I wrote myself into it
or who I was when I left my room that night
I Too Am . . .
I too am on the way
to a Caracalla bath
of the mind thinking
with my stupendo privilegio di pensare
(if there is a chance of God
I love myself for the sake of this God)
our exiles lengthened
I look to the fat fertile mountains
suddenly rapt undisturbed by
the evil of the day a new billionaire
gets made the bath I draw
is a blood bath
with the eye of a broken dish
reduce myself to niente
victorious lesbian off-grid
their brand of violence
cannot locate
me in this immaculate shirt
light house slippers
a run-down house high up in full sun
with a few other women not big on chit chat
who broke the arms off the chairs
imagine being anchored to this world
by the thud of lemons
and the voice of a God in a bird on a wire
alone to the bone alone to the bone
I too am traveling across land
to bask in my belongings
stored beneath a highway
near a waterway
a leak dripping on my cabinet
books manuscripts paintings
of anatomically wrong horses
gifted by cruel mannerists
safe in another corner
I sit on a golden cushion
give the cabinet a thousand drawers
maybe I've written enough
but enough with hierarchies
I offered a bit of possible order
a bit of sweetness
Sex Consolation for Misery
you poets with your secular response to time that is homogenous
are ten-hundred devils trying to replicate the broken world
a virus revealing how broken will I persuade devils
to come to grips with silence the metrics of your audience
is a receipt blowing in spring wind will you exclude yourselves
part crowds with your nudity walk to the nearest parcel of dirt land on your face
where new ordinances say honor is dishonor and there are no winners
or luck for that matter luck
is outlawed will your strength ever be lightness
away from school and some relatable drama
will your joy ever be in the tumult of sex
will your sex ever be an origin story with ten-hundred ends
will you ever admit you are a holy wretch
who could be made fully human when so consoled
But It Was a Naked and Swarming Italy
I worked voraciously in New York City with a completely
naturalized suffering and thus my poetry-dreams
were kept intact it was even fun to write about
if you can recall my raucous laughter and I entertained
the idea that the city might depend
on poets documenting its streets while walking to and from work
our reality demon blessedly devouring literary nostalgia
now I know I have a calling with no church
yet in agreement with Pasolini in his naked and swarming Italy
of jasmine and poor soup in poetry is a solution to everything
our role then to lace into lifetimes of tyranny
solving in our day to day
finding your glasses on your head
palming the pendants of our brilliant dead
in my dusty exodus I who cut a stable and sane figure
sweat the sweat of a traitor
to language hatched by prolific politicos
are you willing to let your body go?
wring out your wrags
in the shadows of what they have named action