Little town, bastard place, as a newborn I immediately understood you
or maybe it was fate that after three months carried me away.
Little town, I know you, fog and smoke, I can't describe
the scent of memories that improves with time,
but the streets of yesterday are here in my thoughts and what's coming back
is the faces and sorrows and seasons, loves and bricks that tell stories.
Little town, later I saw again your unfamiliar stones
your houses ruined by an old war
my strange enemy, you are distant, with those sins among the ruins
and games played at the Florida club
a hundred windows, a courtyard, voices, fights and poverty,
and I, with the mountains in my heart, I learnt the smell of the postwar period.
Little town, purple-tinged windows, the first days of school,
the word carries with it the sad smell or religion;
old nuns in black, with what faith did you teach us in those evenings
the meaning of sin and atonement...
Our eyes looked at you, yet we dreamt of heroes, weapons and marbles,
our imagination was running towards the prairies, between the Via Emilia and the Far West.
Silly teenage years, fake and stupid innocence, self-restraint,
a meaningless, hand-me-down American myth
Unhappy puberty, half-shouted, half whispered in shrilly voices,
chaste sentiments derided, yet pursued in vain;
If I try to recall a day, a moment, I only find melancholy,
a dark nightmare, a period of useless gloom.
Little town, old girl that was so loyal to me
to whom I was so loyal for three long months,
street corners that witnessed my erotic dreams,
my frustrations and my unrequited, misunderstood love,
where are you now? What do you do? Do you still refuse or do you offer yourself on a Saturday evening?
Do you despise the ones I have these days or are you envious and sad if they take your place?
Little town, old courtyards, dreams and gods of Spring,
rhymes and faiths of youth, girls who have grown old,
I bemoan, yet I don't long for, your dust, your mud, your lives
your stones, gold and marble, your shacks.
You are so different now, I'm always the same and always different,
I long for night life and a flask of wine, if I die I am born again, until the end.