Patrizia Cavalli > Quotes

“Very simple love that believes in words,
since I cannot do what I want to do,
can neither hug nor kiss you,
my pleasure lies in my words
and when I can I speak to you of love.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, My Poems Won't Change the World: Selected Poems

“How sweet it was yesterday imagining I was a tree!
I had almost rooted in one place
And grew in sovereign slowness there.
I took the breeze and the north wind,
Caresses, blows-what difference did it make?
I was neither joy nor torment to myself,
I couldn’t detach myself from my own center,
No decisions, no movement:
If I moved it was because of the wind.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, My Poems Won't Change the World: Selected Poems

“Cosa non devo fare
per togliermi di torno
la mia nemica mente:
ostilità perenne
alla felice colpa di esser quel che sono,
il mio felice niente.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, Vita meravigliosa

“Just like last year, yes, between the 23rd
And 24th of June, when I felt my heart
Grow in me and glow, heart in solstice,
In maximum expansion of light.
All those rays then- I remember I was eating
Huge cherries that were almost too sweet-
Had a mooring, though distant
And uncertain. What ill I invent now
For this repeating heart
Obeying seasons,
Where will I send it now, into what void?”
― Patrizia Cavalli, My Poems Won't Change the World: Selected Poems

“Se ora tu bussassi alla mia porta
e ti togliessi gli occhiali
e io togliessi i miei che sono uguali
e poi tu entrassi dentro la mia bocca
senza temere baci disuguali
e mi dicessi: «Amore mio,
ma che è successo?», sarebbe un pezzo
di teatro di successo.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, Poesie

“You arrive like this, as always,
To spread the suspicion of paradise,
And before I open the window
I know you from the gentler light,
From the dust that hangs in the air,
From the bird’s obsessive performance,
And if it weren’t the birds it would be something else,
For you have your specialties for every place;
And when you come in and I surrender my senses
I’m living in unfamiliar houses again and feeling nostalgia
For things that never occurred. And across your labyrinths
You hand the continents and seasons on my back
And I become the wall of shouts and reflections
The platform flight’s take off from
Till the silent eddies of summer.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, My Poems Won't Change the World: Selected Poems

“I think I want, but what is it that I want?
Do I want something? I don’t know.
It’s like in the summer when lifting the eyes
To heaven, hoping to see a star
Fall, or one that might fall, uncertain
Of my vows I entrust myself lazily to the ambiguous
Secret part of me, separate from me,
By me forgotten in some back room
Which may still hold within it, if it’s there,
Its original shape, the mold of pleasure,
And with muted voice I say: may what I want come about
May the wish come true. Even though I don’t know
Don’t know what that is, the star will know,
Because it’s far away.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, My Poems Won't Change the World: Selected Poems

“What is lost is returned to me,
what is far away is near me today.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, My Poems Won't Change the World: Selected Poems

“Con la sua grande alberatura il sogno
era già pronto a tendere le vele.
Nostromo e capitano erano assenti
e i marinai fantasmi inconcludenti.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, Poesie

“I didn’t know then that was a keeper,
Just the keeper and no door,
A keeper alluding to a door,
Wondrous even easy to open,
If you knew how, never using force.
She offered me small side doors, meanwhile
Opening into dank basements…

When in the morning I awoke and you entered
The constitution of thoughts
That in infinite phrasings spelled out
The enigmas to be solved, the sacrifices and gifts...
I was guilty. Of not being able to reach
For having aimed too straight at it the cloistered softness
Of your heart…
Of not being able to find
The door that wasn’t there, the dreamed-of door
That locked you away in goodness multiplied,
Which even you, tired keeper, knew
Was not there, but which even you dreamed of,
Hoping that the keys the laborious
virtue of my keys, could bring into existence
what wasn’t there, for if only I had found out
the right sound, the right combination
of words, managed the right
description, we might bother have entered
into that invention. To finally discover
pleasure has no doors and that
if it does they’re wide open, and
that we could have stayed outside
both of us ill equipped and surrendering equally
playing at doors and keys
with me as the door and you as the keys.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, My Poems Won't Change the World: Selected Poems

“Occhi miei aspettate e guardate.
Corpo mio corpo non fuggire
verso casa tra una macchina
e un muro, non rubare mai piú
l’ultimo suono dal gruppo di ragazzi
fermi sulla piazza: non della prossima
strage stanno parlando
ma del prossimo film che vedranno.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, Poesie

“Duro intelligere e morbido sentire,
il peggio che ci possa capitare.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, Pigre divinità e pigra sorte

“Oggi il mio cuore superbamente alberga
nel suo immenso malumore. Addio. Pazienza.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, Poesie

“My landscape, which I thought was limitless,
Because disassembled and put back together again it gave me the illusion
Of always new most intricate forests
Of dense meadows, ruffled and unexpected,
Now having reached the edge I can see: a closed
Little vegetable garden, walked on and bare,
Suffocating perhaps by too much care. And so

Bare myself I’ll go into the unbroken world, even
Though I fear its crashing noise. Let it spread
Over me, I sweat and feel lost, lost to myself,
A greengrocer to me, what’s the use of that?”
― Patrizia Cavalli, My Poems Won't Change the World: Selected Poems

“Esser toccata vorrei poter toccare,
ma scopro sempre che ogni mia emozione
dipende da un vicino temporale.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, Poesie

“Fingo di aspettarti per ingrandire i minuti.
E fai bene a non venire.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, Poesie

“Questo nuovo malessere che mi confeziono
mi serve per raggiungere il perdono.
Perdo danaro al gioco, mi svuoto di sostanza,
mi tolgo alla misura della tua bilancia.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, Poesie

“Devo fingere volgarità e tradimento
per accomodarmi sul divano
per ricambiare sguardi; spiegando
le tredici pieghe di un pensiero
decifro l’accorta sentenza che scende
sulle mie sentimentali parole che dico
che dico fingendo anche l’amore
e nella finzione riconosco il punto perfetto
l’unico possibile della certezza.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, Poesie

“E fosse pure quella pietà sbagliata
che immaginando crudelmente avvera
rovina e morte di chi piú amo, amata,
che è come farli fuori ancora in vita,
prima che muoiano, i morti miei futuri
cosí che morte quando arriva intera
non può piú togliermi quel che già non c’era;”
― Patrizia Cavalli, Poesie

“Era lí senza bene e senza male
aspettava il bene e il male,
aspettava nella stasi
bene o male calcolava
quanto tempo le restava
come rompere l’attesa
di questo persistere
in un’idea stanziale
che vuole sistemarsi in penitenza
eterna paura di esistere, pure
sapeva di non essere immortale.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, Vita meravigliosa

“Onto your sea my ship set sail,
(dentro il tuo mare viaggiava la mia nave)
Into that sea I sank and was born.
(Dentro quell mare mi sono immersa e nacqui)
I am struck by how strange a season it is
And by how my body felt the cold.

From figure to figure love migrated,
(di figura in figura transmigrave amore)
Now it stops and shows itself.
I recognize it in that crimpled current
On your forehead, small waves alike
And contrary- and on the surface a kind of awe
Moved, surging through
Whatever seemed rigid, and gave way.
Was transformed into tenderness.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, My Poems Won't Change the World: Selected Poems

“I cannot love what you are, no,
what you are is indeed a mistake.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, My Poems Won't Change the World: Selected Poems

“Stupita cercavo le ragioni
di quel sogno che fu piacere di baci.
Ma presto giunse il mio rivale
di tutte le notti il mio rivale
e senza sforzo come cosa sua
sottrasse a me
la rara prigioniera.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, Poesie

“Here I am, I do my bit,
Though I don’t know what that may be.
If I did I could at least let go of it
And free of it be free of being me.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, My Poems Won't Change the World: Selected Poems

“Non è stupefacente che una sera
mettendo dentro il suo sacchetto il pane
io ricominci il solito dettato,
riapra il repertorio, alzi il sipario
mostrando il tempo fermo, mai passato?
Niente è passato, non c’è più passato,
l’attore nato non scorda mai la parte.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, Pigre divinità e pigra sorte

“O stay where you are! Here
in the uncertain hour of a late afternoon
looking outward and looking in
I see this beauty
all I see is beauty.
Something that convinces, asks to be seen,
though it does nothing, just stays where it is,
and merely by existing wins me over.”
― Patrizia Cavalli

“Non dipende da me
riconosco che non dipende da me.
Dipendesse da me
sarei in felice completa dipendenza.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, Poesie

“Affresco della notte palombara
Fresco of the underwater night
Immersa nel recinto di figure
Sunk in a knot of figures
Strette all’attore, custodia di parole
Surrounding the actor, keeper of words;
Fame e miniera di nostalgia alle due
Hunger and quarry of longing
Del pomerrigio, l’ora di mezzo
At 2 pm, the middle hour
Priva di preghiere, che non presume
Without prayer that doesn’t presume
Ma si affatica strana dietro l’immensita
But labors strangely over the afternnon’s
Del pommerigio, molto o popolata immensita
Hugeness, crowded hugeness
Di guarigione, che si allontana
Of healing that drifts off;
Insieme al tuo silenzio intento e affacendato
And your focused silence bent on
A togliermi dal sole, mio sole virtuoso
Taking my sun, my virtuous son
Per il quale io son quel che sono
Thanks to which I am what I am
In piena luce, sono el mondo
In daylight, I am in the world
Assieme agile atra, agli atra quasi uguale.
With others, others almost like me.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, My Poems Won't Change the World: Selected Poems

“Che tu ci sia o non ci sia
ormai è la stessa cosa,
comunque sia io ho la nostalgia.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, Poesie

“Tenersi all'apparenza, forse descrivere / soltanto cose in mutua tenerezza.”
― Patrizia Cavalli, Vita meravigliosa