30 Habits of Highly Effective Poets #24: Antonio Blunda on Music

Antonio Blunda is an Italian poet, living in Palermo. We have begun a friendship, after we both participated in the 2011 event, 100,000 Poets for Change.

I know that Antonio loves coffee (he talks about it all the time on Facebook.) He is also a music aficionado. Although both play a role in his writing life, Antonio's habit for this series on writing is listening to music.

I get too distracted if I listen to music while I'm writing. I usually prefer quiet. The only exception is if I'm working on a period piece. Then, I find the music helps my mind-set.

I am very excited to share a poem of Antonio's in English and in the original Italian. The subject of Antonio's poem, the ocean, lends itself to musicality because of its natural rhythm and onomatopoeia.

Here's Antonio:

Hi, Laura. Very often the music -- I like all: new age, new classical, classical, jazz, fusion, etc. -- every kind of music opens the mind. Now, for example, I'm listening this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi_0wdXg4Y.

(That's the love theme to the science fiction movie Blade Runner. Great choice.)

I AM THE SEA
by Antonio Blunda

This night has followed me
like a stranger

a foreign spy

I put up a defensive distance

Frisian horses
walking suddenly faster
after crossing the city

All strangers
of a strange land,
strange houses whose insides I cannot read

the prospective dead and the lovers
on a sidewalk
like crushed walnuts

strange souls from hell
on a bus from purgatory
that got a hold inside me
on the sands
on the déjà vus
on the tent of the stars

and in every place anyway
(but have I ever been here?)

This night they were following me
like a dog of this earth
 

what do they clench to themselves?
 

Forgive me, I do not want to understand.

I am the sea
with my usual job
for sailors and guardians

I am the sea,
I am nothing but the sea.
 

A companion
of that pale
eye that is on me.
 

a Rachmaninov melancholy

cooling down
to the right side of dirty windows

a breath
without a strong noise

(Translation Ute Margaret Saine)

IO SONO IL MARE

Questa notte mi ha seguito
come una spia straniera

ho messo una distanza di difesa

cavalli di frisia
aumentando il passo
subito dopo una città

Tutti stranieri
d'una terra straniera,
case straniere che non leggo mai dentro

gli aspiranti morti e gli amanti
su un marciapiedi
sono noci schiacciate

anime d'inferno straniere
su un bus di purgatorio
che si tengono in me
sulla sabbia
sui dejavu
sul panno di stelle
e comunque da qualche parte
(ma io son già stato qui?)

Questa notte mi hanno inseguito
come un cane di questa terra

cosa stringono intorno?

Perdonatemi, io non voglio capire.

Io sono il mare
con il mio solito mestiere
per naviganti e guardiani

Io son il mare,
non sono altro che il mare.

Un compagno
di quell'occhio
pallido su di me

Io sono il mare
una malinconia di Rachmaninov
che si raffredda
sulla destra
dai finestrini sporchi

un respiro
senza rumori forti 

Antonio Blunda was born in Erice and lives in Palermo, where he practices as a lawyer. Among his passions are literature, poetry, fiction, quantum physics, history, philosophy. Among his literary prizes are "Encyclopedia of the Italian Poets Emerging" 2002-2003 published by Publisher Aletti and first place in the 2004 "Prize for Peace" organized by the Culture and Society Studies Center of Turin. He blogs at: www.antonioblunda.com