Scirocco [English translation]

[Stanza #1: Murubutu]

And looking at it from the park in Cardo Street

And the sun there was a herald, the canticle of heat

And the sky there dripped tiredly onto the cars,

Its pale mark upon every gaze

And everything there was grey and white

Offices and traffic, every park was a graveyard

And every building a barrack, a slot,

An exhausted pachyderm of lime and asbestos.

I'll run away from this free port, ominous place

Prepare your eye for the impact:

Suburbs of rivers and waste,

Trails of jolting lights,

Streets of grazing, drifting wolves.

And this space crushes dreams in two minutes

One on the other as if on the conveyor belt (as if on marble)

Pulverizing them in an upward toss

As if in a lightning

And (makes) confetti of the soul.

And a wind warmed his morning thoughts

And Paolo there watched the world, sitting on a cast iron bench

"Will I ever be able to run from this line?

The borders of my life over the borders of these grey suburbs

Or will I stay here like train station moss,

With my joy that melts after hours behind the counter

Or with the boredom that gets stranded into people's eyes

And then gets out of them in the dark in the smoke of tinfoils.

Only the Sirocco wind1 gives me hope

Him2 that passes and warms every land by brushing it

The only one able to run beyond these streets

(The one) that even when staying in place after a while is able to go away

Him2 that blows and dances, turns and rises,

Matches drops of rains with lines of air,

Him2 that crosses time and sea, storm and mountains

Then stops to flirt with sails in the shipyards."

And Paolo watched his whereabouts, (watched) the borders become tighter

And friends become more like spectres, (watched) the silhouettes of Eternit roofs

"What are you waiting for? Leave belongings and loved ones, quick."

Off with the locks on the two-stroke, mirrorless Benelli3

And when he started the motorcycle it was a nice day there;

To those who saw him on the road and asked "Paolo, where are you going?"

"I'll follow the wind and I have no purpose and I have no place

But a detailed map to be able to never come back."

[Refrain: Murubutu]

And away from here, away from here, away from here

I travel on roads of air

Going towards Utopia and

Away from here, away from here, away from here

But tell me where, eh!

And away from here, away from here, away from here

I travel on the roads up there

Towards undiscovered course, man

And away from here, away from here, away from here

But tell me where, yeah

[Stanza #2: Rancore]

This unruly world

Has a peeling face,

Beasts in jails that pray in apnea,

Parties in this crumbled archipelago

That cuts itself off from everything and then feels like Pangaea.

Paolo will hear laments coming from

Submerged continents that sing the verses of that epic

Now that he's on a salty meadow, (now) that he'll count

Wind roses grow amid the high and low tide.

The sunset that was awaken became the stalls

For an audience that then introduced itself as a starry sky;

A veil, Paolo tensed every muscle and sped up

Moving from ruined asphalt to dirt

Black, like a hole inside the dark while at the corners

Of the woods sounded the old proverbs of trees:

You never destroyed all the monsters, by copying them

The weapons you bought you now throw away, confetti!

The audience of stars left the theatre applauding,

The dawn started to blend her self-portrait

And Paolo on the last toll asked that rising dawn

For one finishing touch to the painting.

The motorcycle was found but it wasn't damaged,

It was a heap in the middle of a road without pavement.

The town (was) embittered, the atmosphere mortuary among the shadows;

The grey suburbs mourned, they didn't get the roads of air.

Got it? What Paolo said to that dawn

That looked to him like a painter sounded cocky, foolish:

"Paint me, even as transparent as a word,

But paint me forever as Sirocco wind.

No, the fact that I won't come back isn't an important concept;

I won't be biannual nor easy to tame

And, going hand in hand with the Levant4 and the Austro5,

I want to tear the sea and throw it against the Mistral6

I want to blow, inflate, water every candle,

Steal leaves of fire leaving a trunk of wax;

That evening I stole just for you

The windiest rose from the salty meadow of rose gardens."

Dawn, plucking a petal from south-east

And using it as brush, painted the story for the great sailors;

Now it's said there's a wind that carries

A map with the right course

To never come back.

[Refrain: Murubutu]

And away from here, away from here, away from here

I travel on roads of air

Going towards Utopia and

Away from here, away from here, away from here

But tell me where, eh!

And away from here, away from here, away from here

I travel on the roads up there

Towards undiscovered course, man

And away from here, away from here, away from here

But tell me where, yeah

1. South-easterly wind of the Mediterranean, it brings warmth and, in some places, rain.2. a. b. c. Personification of the Sirocco.3. Brand of motorcycles.4. Easterly wind of the Mediterranean.5. Southerly wind of the Mediterranean.6. North-westerly wind of the Mediterranean, brings cold and storms.