E ttu, ccojjona, hai quer mazzato vizzio
D'avé scrupolo inzino de la pajje!
But, more than anything, it was the demented devotion to the sonnet-form that now drew him to Belli, and he saw a strenuous hobby beckoning – the translating of all the 2,279 sonnets of Belli into what he was to call "English with a Manchester accent." He needed help with the Roman dialect and had to search hard in New York, whose Italian population is mainly Neapolitan, Calabrese, Sicilian, to find a speaker and reader of Romanesco. A countergirl in the New York office of Alitalia – Susanna Roberti – was able to help him, and, horrified and fascinated by the magnitude of his self-imposed task, he set himself to translate a sonnet every day. He did not get far. He chose those sonnets dealing with biblical subjects and managed to achieve draft translations of them all. They follow here, unedited. He died prematurely (but what, when we think of Keats, can this be made to mean?), badly slashed and cracked by hoodlums on West 91st Street, where he lived, when he was staggering home at three in the morning from a party on East 84th Street. An uneasy and unhandsome death. The person is snatched away and the goods remain. And all this is the law and constitution of nature.
The Creation of the World
One day the bakers God amp; Son set to
And baked, to show their pasta-master's skill,
This loaf the world, though the odd imbecile
Swears it's a melon, and the thing just grew.
They made a sun, a moon, a green and blue
Atlas, chucked stars like money from a till,
Set birds high, beasts low, fishes lower still,
Planted their plants, then yawned: "Aye, that'll do."
No, wait. The old man baked two bits of bread
Called Folk – I quite forgot to mention it -
So he could shout: "Don't bite that round ripe red
Pie-filling there." Of course, the buggers bit.
Though mad at them, he turned on us instead
And said: "Posterity, you're in the shit."
Animals led a sort of landlord's life
And did not give a fuck for anyone
Till man fucked up their social union
With gun and trap and farm and butcher's knife.
Freedom was frolic, roughish fun was rife,
And as for talk, they just went on and on,
Yakking as good as any dean or don,
While Adam stood there dumb, with a dumb wife.
This was the boss who came to teach them what
Was what, with harness, hatchet, stick and shot,
Bashing them to red gravy, thick and hot.
He stole their speech too, making sure he'd got
Dumb servitude – the plough; if not, the pot.
He had the last word. Nay, he had the lot.
Man the Tyrant
This furred and feathered boss of bird and brute
Assumed the god, all bloody airs and graces,
Nor deigned to look down in his subjects' faces,
Treating each creature like a mildewed boot.
He swilled, he gorged, but his preferred pursuit
Mixed sticking pigs and whipping hounds on chases,
Marches through arches, blown brass and tossed maces,
With decking Eve, that bitch, in hunter's loot.
The beasts had hunted looks, being forced to make,
Poor wretches, the bad best of a bad job
And put up with that swine – all save the snake
Who, spitting like a kettle on a hob,
Weaved at the foul shapes tyranny can take
And hissed: "I'll get you yet, you fucking snob."
A sort of interlude. Let's look at dogs.
At mastiff, Great Dane, greyhound, poodle, beagle,
The sausage hound, that yelps like a sick seagull,
Asthmatic bullpups honking hard as hogs.
Now men. Irish in bogs and Dutch in clogs,
Swarthy as turds, sharp-conked as any eagle,
The Jew and Turk. Then, trying to look regal,
Tea-slurping English, and French eating frogs.
Compare some doggy that leaps on to laps
With a prize wolfhound. Different as cheese and chalk.
In spite of this, our parish ballocks yaps
About us springing from a single stalk:
One primal bitch for pups, and one for chaps.
Did you ever hear such stupid fucking talk?
Adam
If God made man, we've no call to regret
Man's love of blood and lack of bloody sense.
God, who's all what they call omnipotence,
Meaning he'll piss the bed and prove it's sweat,
Pissed on some clay and sweated cobs to get
A statue from it, sparing no expense.
Then he took breath and blew – Haaaa Hadam.
Hence Man's sometimes called the Puffed Up Marionette.
In just one minute he could spout out history
And write and read great tomes as tough as Plato's.
He knew it all when first he tottered bedwards.
The names of beasts and birds – no bloody mystery.
Like a greengrocer sorting out potatoes:
"This lot is whiteboys and these here King Edwards."
Now, Brother Trustgod, Godtrust (never knew
God had a rupture. Sorry), please let me
Shove in a word. I just won't have it, see.
God made us all in his own image, did he? You
Are mad. If Paul himself, yes Saint Paul, flew
Down to agree with you, I'd tell him he
Was mad. (He was mad.) Why don't you decree
Old Nick was made in God's own image too?
O bleeding Christ and Christ's own bleeding mother,
Even if the sanctified three-hatted sod
Says what you say, it's still, my half-arsed brother,
Mad. Is God's image in greengrocer's shops
Then, in greengrocers? God, he must be a God
Of cabbages and turnip fucking tops.
About Eve
Give me a woman bare as a boiled egg,
Who'd think a brush and comb came from the divvle,
Who owns no snotrag to entrap her snivel,
Or towel or dishcloth hanging from a peg,
Who has no shoe on foot or hose on leg
Nor any of the Amenities of Civil-
Ised Life, to use the advertiser's drivel.
No jakes to thrutch in and no pot to deg,
Who will sup water but not sit in it
Nor on a chair nor underneath a roof,
Who'll never see the muckman do his duty.
Picture this little lady decked in shit
From hair to heel, then try to give me proof
That Mother Eve, Christ help us, was a beauty.
But some say: Scorn her not. Remember, she,
When Adam took her, did not turn her face
But drank the dreadful fire of his embrace.
Dirty or not, without her where would we
Be? She merits homage. So, with me:
"O ave Eva, though full of disgrace,
We love thee as the root of all our race;
Thy sap runs in us, leaves of thy living tree."
Dirty? How do we know? Perhaps her skin
Was laved in a miraculous hygiene,
Just as the second Eve was laved within.
Not that it matters. For myself, I lean
To lauding both her sordor and her sin.
Without those to wash off, who could be clean?
Greed
Which of the seven deadly sins is worst?
Pride sneering skyward, avarice shrieking
More, Liplicking lust, or anger, one red roar?
No, gluttony, the fifth sin, is the first.
From Adam burst a famine and a thirst
For a wormy apple offered by a whore,
A penny pippin. God has rammed its core