ORPHAN PAGE by Régis Bonvicino

Much new material at the site: Sibila

And a new book of poems, ORPHAN PAGE, by Régis Bonvicino

It’s not looking great!

Cocaine, Kate
it’s not looking great!
Chanel bid you adieu
Burberry’s iced you!

you need a wet nurse!
addled anorexic
atheistic nicotine maniac
your career’s gonna burst

stop fawning that piece of shit from Strokes
your daughter’s name is Lila Grace!
you’re on your own now
doing rehab in Arizona

your out of the Pleiades!
as curvaceous as Karolina Kurkova
Diana Dondoe
devastating, on the cover of Vogue

the myth of fashion made flesh
chameleon beauty of
Amber Valletta
Giselle’s diamond bra

All’s ruined, Kate
go straight to hell
or get to a nunnery
no credit cards to cover you

H&M has passed you by
for Mariacarla Boscono
sexy bella ragazza
from the calendar of Pirelli

who get blown in the park
so get used to it!
Givenchy’s and Cavalli’s ragazza
and don’t forget Stella McCartney’s

So you feel like “Dracula”!
You cosmopolitan flame!
Cocaine Kate,
it’s not looking great!

Régis Bonvicino
Translated by Charles Bernstrein and Maria do Carmo Zanini

Residents

At the end of the tunnel
at one of the exits leading
to the avenue lined with tall buildings,
where there's a painted
corner of a wall
a detail of Migrants by Candido
Portinari, oil on concrete
no ceiling light
cars constantly roaring by
a woman and a child sitting
on a wooden crate
next to
the neck of a
headless female mannequin
a gray shape,
gray perhaps from the paint of the child's
skull on the mother's lap, decorates
a waiting room at midday
a couch, a real one
two wooden crates form a chair
and table at once
where carbon monoxide is
shared, here, a vagrant
idles away
people in cars hurl
cigarette butts
on the jeans and pink blouse
hanging
from the loose planks of a wardrobe
clothesline
the full moon in the picture
another skull, on the father's lap?

Régis Bonvicino
Translated by Odile Cisneros

The Hamster's Way

Stinking of cigarettes and of myself
I cross a street
at twilight
sirens, cars

muffled voices
wide, rough street
on a cross street
the body of a dead dog

hit by a car
metal wheels grinding slow pace
stinking of sewers and of myself
stinking a bit of the lighter's flame

stinking like that rotten apple
stinking of stupid songs
sung nowadays
and of myself

collected garbage gives off
a distinct smell on the street
stinking of shoes and of myself
of mice, of neon sweat

of chairs and of myself
of useless news and of myself
stinking under the moon
my nose stuffy from carbonic gas

the noise of the bus engine
stinking of the same shirts
stinking of myopia and of myself
stinking of street corners

giving off smells
stinking of hopes
which suddenly end
in the next strophe

Régis Bonvicino
Translated by Odile Cisneros

Manuscript

Sailing in a frigate
made from old bottle glass
old copper, iron, and brass
A saxophone

made from antimony
echoing on the deck
a single-note song
"an unbearable

hell"
attacks kill insurgents
assaults, car bombs
someone hangs himself in a cell

a missile, clandestinely,
burns the woolen jackets
of furtive guerrillas
And the methane emanating from the trash

left on the streets,
year after year, in this very place
crouching rag-pickers chat
on the street

it was not just the birds
who died in the bombing
the flight of roach-winged samaras
was also interrupted

by an explosion
and the subsequent fire
words:
a message in a bottle? no

words
a bottle hurled against a mirror
and meanwhile
the summit discusses the place of burial

Régis Bonvicino
Translated by Odile Cisneros

Blue tile

My pa & mine ma
dead
no ones
some

one
double
silence
uninterrupted

jagged shards
that, now
by act of accumulation
I rejoin

Régis Bonvicino
Translated by Charles Bernstein