SELECTED POETRY

by
NORBERT BUGEJA

Translated by Maria Grech Ganado

VIA FORI IMPERIALI, AFTER THE CONCERT (Bookends Theme)

Some 30 metres away,
a pit of couples kissing in the darkness of acacias
which divides us, in the mischievous city
dusting scooters from its face
to clear her vision,
we gazed at each other's silence
and decided to break it
with the same bundle of smoke-filled breaths ...

Time it was,
and what a time it was, it was:

And even the moon, damn it, which loves to take the piss
pretending its a new foetus huddling in the night,
has stripped naked tonight
and chased the darkness with its moonie,

a time of innocence,
a time of confidences �

We raised our palms and were stunned
because they chanced to be of the same hue
and like the bodies of the ruins all lit up,
like Garfunkel's hair weaving through the crowd
searching for the muse who has escaped.

long ago it must be, I have a photograph

We gazed upon the silence of each other,
and since silence had fallen on the ruins
we realized
that we had better do with our memories
what adults do � discard them
before we got to the first corner

and then tomorrow, we'll see
if in the darkness of the photo-cemetries
we will be able to discover the yellow flower
we bought to please a pakistani
and also to fool each other that one day
we'll cherish one another with the same song ...

meanwhile this street lies down, a spent guitar,
and the moon's found a shrine to hide behind,
and yet this pauper boy who loves you
still rummages
in the bongs and the green bottles for an evening
which welcomes him like home,
which strokes his hair,
which dances and sings to the same story
he found there.

(Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you)

� Norbert Bugeja

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SCHEHEREZADE

Your fingers defy the chill of a new morning
that cracked the floor and the oriental carpets;
among the luxuries and lusts of the soft room
the ordeals and regrets of a thousand knives reek;
Don't worry, your cheeks are nothing but mirrors
of the sick reflections melting around you,
and the green stones that decorate your breast
were stringed into a necklace, and not the cruel noose.
Your trembling is quite natural � the edge glistens
and your words slide along it and accumulate
in your heart, in this deep well of patience and of waiting ...

Stay, fairy tale, stay! This land was built upon you,
and knows the direction of your mistress' freedom;
your wrinkles are like lanes forking into lecherous fingers,
and it was Good that formed the princess' tears!

The last knife slit into the tender skin;
her fingers stopped; in the dusk the air went silent.

� Norbert Bugeja

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AN ELEGY FOR THE GIRL WHO DREAMT IN THE STREET

You knew it by heart �
Great Portland Street.
You knew the lit alleys and the front steps
From which, until the roof above you darkened
You'd squeeze $10
In coins which had been marinated in human pain.
Then every day you'd drag yourself to its very end
With half your body wrapped in white trousers,
Soiled by all the many stories which pass before you.
Once you had told me
That you can wake and sleep, eat and live
Upon a dream
As long as it remains a dream,
and before you lay down
on the only bit of marble without piss
you even told me
that before you sleep you spend a quarter of an hour
savouring the white beaches I had tempted you with
and the pine trees which sing under the sun.
Till your eyes almost burnt with salt
of tears or the sea
and you slept content
until the roof over your head woke you once more
to search by heart
for yet another story

Then once, my good leg hurt
and they took me to a big white building and told me
that in the ward where many legs pass
there's no room for more legs
and I had to be put in a terminal ward
and I told them,
after a week of being unable to sleep a wink
that though in the subway as well
I can hear people moan and pee in their pants
at least I can find a bit of comfort,
a bit more space,
perhaps

When I sought her this year
her mates told me,
her heart gave out
Without a dream.

� Norbert Bugeja

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BALLADE FOR A READHEAD

Where does this wind come from?
Where from this darkness?
Where are these ripe words falling from the trees?

From the street�s end a voice was heard announcing:
"the city�s lost itself in the poet�s hair!�
Deep in the green bone-marrow of time-worn doors,
accents which slept through centuries crack open,
sentences invade the narrow alleys,
words ride the rain like earrings,
each syllable woven into a red mane
which screams its way amongst the curling streets.
In rue de l�union at five a.m.
the elderly Arab gazes at the sky:
�Somewhere a slightly alien phrase
must have been uttered,
and the city�s lost control of her own body.�

On the city�s outskirts, a little girl emerges,
her eyes dancing together with the roadsigns:
�why all this wind, mama, why all this darkness?�
And then she gets up on her bike without another word
and disappears in the anarchy of cadence.

� Norbert Bugeja

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JUANITO BORGES, BEGGING

The Sailor sits beneath the bastions of El Corte Ingles,
a scrawny cat, gnawing at the sun with his vile oaths
and unknotting the yarns that prod him in his sleep.
The very shape of him, like waves of vintage radios
stinks in between one country and another,
snatches words uttered, and those slain,
and then transmits the moral of the story �
an olive-skinned giggle, a filterless cigarette
and two italians trailing a one-nighter.

Ola mujer, que pasa? Ostia puta.

If you come into the complex and start climbing
one floor after another,you can look down
and see him curse from every point of view:
trussardi, zegna, fnac and valentino
regard you with a slightly bizarre beard
downing the sun beneath a scorching beer�

And if you get to the top floor and gaze,
down at this city that loves you by the rate
you may be late � by then the Sailor will have picked
the pick of tales to date.

� Norbert Bugeja

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PHOTO NO. 7

From me to you there�s a second, a laugh,
there�s a full clothesline looking out to sea.
After the larking at It-Toqba z-Zghira*
I tried to reach you. And maybe because
there are no lights in this house,
in its still-echoing hallway,
in the rooms upstairs and down, at the bottom of this well
that moans and mumbles your barren words,
I found no one. By myself in your kitchen,
my starving intestines grumble about the boy
who wanted to be born and found himself hanging
on the parched breast that sprouted in the wasteland;
almost like a city which everyone has fled.

And it is useless to hide behind ancient walls,
and to walk barefoot along your mothers� roads,
inhabiting the ruins of your beauty with pride;
since you were never a mother, you will never be.

From your neighbour�s door a girl exploded,
her eyes, two cannonballs crossed
on the cornettoat the small door of her mouth.
She gazes at you, she does not try to reach you.
Like a mine on the port sea bed which never blasted
she regards you, the peeling paint, and laughs
for a second, at you, lying that you are beautiful.

*It-Toqba z-Zghira is an inlet beneath the bastions of the historic maritime city of Vittoriosa in Malta.

� Norbert Bugeja

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BONJOUR TRISTESSE

(some hours after Sagan)

Between this city�s legs a young woman weeps,
yesterday�s worries staining her uniform,
on her face the green of thie white registers
and the sadness recycled in the office.
A young man wears a laugh and a black blasphemy,
the sleepless night engraved upon his tie:
he recalls how often he almost slipped
on the uncertain words lounging against the pavements.
For what he�d heard was right, this city of faceless looks
and white staircases had never come into its own.
In the morning she hurries by without a nod,
at night there�s not a soul with whom to talk�

This morning I rubbed my eyes, wiped off the jam
and thought of you. Offering me the first one
of the day, and that forced smile.

It�s the boss. She wouldn�t give in to him last night.
Good morning.

� Norbert Bugeja

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THINGS THAT NORBERT LIKES/LOVES:

* The sea

* A 'good' book

* My sister

* Vangelis soundtracks

* Cycling along the river-bank

THINGS THAT BOTHER NORBERT:

* Jellyfish

* Traffic in the morning, traffic in the evening

* Constant bad weather

* mobile phone ringtones

* hangovers

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