Biographical Notes: Alfredo de Palchi...
Born in 1926, raised fatherless by an anarchist grandfather in the province of Verona, Italy. As a teenager in the Fall of 1944, during WWII, tortured by Fascists and German soldiers. Still a teenager, after the war, tortured by Communists and mythomaniacs of the ludicrous Italian resistance. From Spring 1945 to Spring 1951, as a political prisoner defies and insults the government, the army, the church, and decries Italy as a country inhabited by vileness. Scratches first poem on a cell wall in Naples in 1946. Begins serious writing in 1947, when encouraged by an older poet. From 1947 to 1951, completes two collections of poetry. The first accepted for publication by a well-known literary critic, then lost. The second: "The Scorpion's Dark Dance."
Released from prison in the Fall of 1951 after being declared incorrigible and unstable by the Italian army. Since 1960, Associate Editor of Chelsea, a literary magazine published in New York.
"Anonymous Constellation" is
de Palchi's most recent translated poetry collection.
Alfredo De Palchi's "Anonymous Constellation" posits the view that history teaches us nothing. Human beings are locked in struggle with each other and Nature. An ancient programme written into the laws of Nature and the character of Man induces conflict and stymies good judgement.
"paleontology repeals
the distorted lies
there is a need
to kill and expedient
selection neither
of the strongest
nor the smart:
the most cunning
decides."
De Palchi's belief in the cyclical architecture of history is in direct opposition to a neat sequential order academics assign to historic events and their relation to social progress. He is skeptical of mankind's claim to progress, submitting as his evidence our proven record of brutality and imitation.
In short, murder and theft are constant companions of human existence. And any criteria used to measure social progres are distilled through a political construct. In strictly spiritual terms human nature is unchanged: still at war with itself, its neighbours and its environment. We are savage cave creatures in Calvin Klein gear---tone-deaf to notes of conscience.
"The circle
of pinks grows in a single flame
slow inside
the ever-barren morning
shaping the
wedge of our re-entry
still logy
with sleep
but already
set to get a neckhold
on whoever
aims to...there's
that old
familiar cycle."
"the meaning
of what we expect
or the unexpected
--- the world
grins under a fist
we have opted
for not weeping not helping
but looking
away
when a body
collapses
and walking
off with the same indifference
we feel for
the beast knocked out
by a car
or a shotgun ---
it's useless
to pretend, everyone
is out for
himself
and locked
in himself."
One man's cynicism is another's realism. A reasonable argument can be made about the cleansing of this poet's perception by bloody methods of power abused. What failed to destroy him strengthened his resolve to come to terms with the duality of human natue.
"there's no
way out,
I'm a chain
of insidious origins
orders mechanisms
fantasies
already charged
with extinction
gruel mud,
tedious hush
laid on the
coals of the still living ---
I / witness
of each morning's crescendo
am nothing
at evening but the simple
shock of
two extremes."
How Faith and Fear coincide on the same plane, same planet, and in the same people is a deeper understanding worthy of daily meditation. What is poetry but a sleek vehicle transporting vital goods to a starving global village. And whatis the poet but a half-naked prophet rejected by his people until they discover his lunacy is a finer form of liberation.
"The heart's silly
paradoxical events
the organic temptations
of the blood
pump this split
man
off-centered by
different persons
within one:
anomalous life-form
continuously unfinished
and
ending right here
--- the rest
I get and give
is nothing in appearance
or self-interest."
The Ages have
taught, the wise are often ignored, but never anonymous. Some of us
are lost in the darkness, but dreamers steer by the stars in constellations
hoping the journey we undertake is worth the precious energy spent.
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