I've only read that one once before,
and this one I never read at all.
I can read a bunch of poems I've never read before.
This one's called "Homage to Cesare Pavese."
Cesare Pavese was an Italian poet and novelist
who died in 1950 by his own hand in a hotel room
in his hometown, Turin, Italy.
Probably the most significant contemporary novelist
that Italy had up to that time, and perhaps even still.
And this poem takes off from some of his--
a couple of his poems and some lines from his autobiography.
I did several poems where I was working with texts, which
is to say I wasn't sharp enough to do the translations,
so I did variations.
They're not exactly imitations, but they are variations,
and then have some of my own stuff in here too.
The first line is a very-- in the poem--
that repeats is a very famous line of a Pavese poem.
"Homage to Cesare Pavese."
He killed himself because of an unfortunate love affair.
But it was the last of a series of unfortunate love affairs
that he'd had.
And he killed himself over an American actress.
You never heard of her, so I won't even tell you her name.
"Homage to Cesare Pavese."
"Death will come and it will have your eyes from morning
to morning, sleepless, an old remorse.
Your eyes will be vain words of silence
you'll see as you lean out to the mirror each day,
the one look that it has for everyone.
It will be like ooze from the sea,
like stopping a vice and the sin.
It will be like stopping the sin.
It will be the dead face in the mirror listening to shut lips.
It will descend silently, ceaselessly, into whirlpools.
Death will come and it will have your eyes, ridiculous vice
and the same look.
You are the great weariness.
You are scorched and burned back by the sea.
You say nothing, and nobody speaks to you.
This is a balance sheet and the names don't count.
One nail on top of another, four nails make a cross.
Nothing can add to the past--
woman is as woman does, and night is always the night.
With its black heart and its black hands it lays me down."