The Poet was there, a Neapolitan stranger, looking at the dust of Amazonian forests ground down by greed. Then, charging through the hallways, hurriedly, flinging her shoes—high and black—past the gate.
Those shoes cast to the ground roared with a concentrated voice, as if it were possible to hear through them the distant, intense musical voice. Because there are women who use their feet to dance; others, however, use them first to groan and then to break free—for the leap that tears them from the asphalt glue and the impulse that smashes walls and barriers.
Whoever takes off their shoes seeks the lightness and comfort of a libertarian act: seeks the sea, the breeze, the state of communion, poetry, those eyes that see, the space, the wind, the storm, the touch of hands made into Renaissance sculpture.
At some point in a woman’s feet begins the path to paradise!
She, then, now discovering herself as woman and person, took off her shoes and kept them there, thrown, like a symbol of resistance and scorn, a landmark of liberation, a melodic design, an expression of intelligence, an invitation to a full dialogical encounter. That woman took off her shoes in search of skin, pores, and body; in search of the soul that travels through the veins, of the life that organizes the muscles and ravishes the breasts, in search of the light that shimmers on the lips and dilates the pupils.
That woman took off her shoes because the wings were not on her back, but on her feet. And she sought wings in her feet, wings to carry her toward the Alpine cabins, from where the Poet had arrived, to drink from the hand of Poetry or, who knows, closer, within a finger’s reach, in the Andean pathways and inns, or simply for the risk of a possible verse in the encounter of humans and beings only.
And now that woman, this woman, so close now, with her feet unbound, shoes thrown, stomps grapes with intensity, singing and dancing all night long. She lifts her dress to stomp grapes deeper still and, at dawn, throws more grapes into the press, continuing to sing joyfully with her dress raised, immersed in wine and poetry, poetry found on the street, in the hallway, at the gate, and in those feet, now, free.
In the world I imagine – and stand for, nobody gets executed for using drugs, hell, not even locked up! Nobody gets burned or stoned for being gay, lesbian, lover, transvestite, man, woman, black, white, atheist, communist, anarchist, Jew, Catholic, Evangelical, Agnostic, Buddhist, Umbandista, Candomblecista. Nobody is shot, electrocuted, sawed, quartered, hanged, crucified, lynched. Nobody is an owner or a beneficiary (not even the State!), but everyone is a user, an inhabitant, in equal measure and proportion. Nobody turns a profit off another human being, but everyone cooperates, produces, consumes, parties, sings, dances, celebrates. In the world I imagine nobody pays tribute to any entity, religious or administrative. Nobody is condemned for worshiping their gods and keeping their sacred books, but, then again, nobody is condemned for blaspheming against the gods or ripping up sacred texts. In the world I imagine there are conflicts, plenty of them, but nobody settles them in courthouses before “Authorities” who don’t know the first thing about the reality of the Villages and Towns, before “Authorities” carrying “handbooks” and codified, uniform “rulings” for everybody, because there is no everybody, there are individuals! Nor, by any means, do they settle their conflicts before distant tribunals or in those courts locked away, out of reach, in Capital cities (there aren’t even Capitals in the world I imagine): conflicts are settled right in the Village, in the Town, with everyone sharing a spot around the table, with coffee and bread laid out for anyone there. In the world I imagine there is no Authority; there is Solidarity! There is no Power, any Power, not even symbolic! Nobody studies to serve the Market, yet there is a Market, a People’s Market; one studies for – and through – Knowledge, Emancipation, and Individual and Human Growth. In the world I imagine there is no Stock Market, no Banks, no anonymous Shareholders. Nobody has official tax numbers – they have a Name. Nobody is discriminated against for wearing (or not wearing) long hair (natural or dyed), being bald or wearing wigs, growing a beard, a mustache, or shaving it all off, wearing makeup, piercings, tattoos, pants, dresses, bras, flip-flops, shoes, boots, shirts, ties. Nobody is humiliated for being heavier or thinner, for being a child, young, or old. In the world I imagine there is no divide between manual or intellectual labor, rural or urban, between carrying a hoe or a book, between scrubbing toilets or writing on a blackboard, between seed-planters and singers of love’s refrains. No woman is prosecuted or condemned for having an abortion. Nobody is pried into and slandered for being separated, divorced, for eating meat or veggies, for drinking coffee or cognac. No man bosses a woman around, in fact, no man and no woman boss anyone around. There are no military police – nor paragraphs! No flag-bearers, no rifle-toting guards! No zoos! In the world I imagine, Love is Free, totally and absolutely Free. There is no Fidelity, no Morality, but there is Ethics!
This woman without veil or tunic more lubricious mouth, is everything and mad, heaven, hell: unique, before whom I leave the world, commas and periods, thus, without brakes, senz’Eden and dazed in the dive of a free, libertarian phrase without end at the bottom of her humid world
From her shameless blue face kiss kiss of flesh and red taste kisses kiss flesh black-red taste in full pleasure plurified and without fear pleasure of free music without pleasure-score pleasure of pleasure-rupture of dance in pleasure body glued together full human pleasure advances
Feet legs arms navel garden flower face lips breasts navel garden flower pleasure of integral pleasure of human pleasure!
God (whatever the Name may be), as a universal and cosmic force, and as a presence within nature, makes no deals with anyone. No individual, nation, or religion holds a privileged channel for bargaining—not even us Jews, whose historical and spiritual tradition helped shape the very human perception of God. Whether someone is Black, white, Asian, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, or anything else, no one is more or less important simply for being this or that. You could give away your entire fortune, live on fasting and prayers, abstinence and asceticism, but God—who does not exist at a sales counter or in a business transaction—won’t give you a single crumb for anything you do. Because real life—and God—reject any type of transactional faith.
What is left, then? I say: respect this ‘Force’ (because the Force is real), and move forward with ethics, kindness, justice, and solidarity, free from prejudice or group arrogance. And that is how you truly live a human life!
If you are chauvinist, misogynist, homophobe, transphobe, antisemite, islamophobic, anti-Arab, anti-pagan, anti-Amish, anti-Protestant, anti-evangelical, anti-Pentecostal, anti-Catholic, anti-Umbandist, anti-Candomblecist, anti-spiritist, anti-indigenous, anti-Buddhist, anti-Hindu, anti-atheist, antizionist, anti-socialist, anti-liberal, anti-anarchist, anti-diversity, anti-pluralist, anti-democratic, anti-worker, anti-business, anti-merchant, aporophobic, ageist, anti-child, ableist, anti-conservative, anti-progressive, anti-book, anti-study, anti-philosophy, anti-rights, anti-science, anti-vax, anti-foreigner, anti-love, anti-solidarity, anti-equality, anti-nature, anti-school, anti-liberty, anti-antifascist, anti-antinazi, anti-antiracist, opposed to the two-state solution (Israel and Palestine), and against free love, you have crossed my boundary, encroached upon my space, and violated my dignity. Begone from here! For we shall not drink coffee together, we shall not toast with wine, nor shall we sit at the same table. I am an anarchist Poet, a humanist Jew, a Neapolitan, and I take seriously the “carpe diem et inutilia truncat.”
א
Amore mio, vieni a letto!
Facciamo l’amore per tutto questo giorno, nudi (e denudati) in godimenti plurali, sfaccettati di piena liberazione!
ב
Vieni, amore!
Quando ci stancheremo del letto, faremo l’amore sul sofà, sul tavolo della cucina, nel corridoio, sul pavimento del soggiorno.
ג
Vieni, amore! Apriremo le nostre pupille e i nostri pori, benediremo le nostre labbra con i nostri stessi corpi, libereremo i nostri fuochi e, in ruggiti, voleremo alle altezze e, senza tregua, sprofonderemo, intimi, nei nostri corpi e nelle nostre anime!
ד
Là fuori, oggi, amore mio, per strada, ci son solo tifoserie organizzate da anencefali, e ci son tifosi drogati che portano le loro bandiere e i loro bastoni, e ci son repressori, e ci son repressi, e ci son distruttori dell’Educazione, e ci son osmotici, e ci son ripetitori di PowerPoint, e ci son omofobi, e ci son islamofobi, e ci son banchieri, e ci son antisemiti, e ci son fascistoidi, e ci son nazisti, e ci son pregiudiziosi, e ci son gli sterminatori, e ci son i militaristi, e ci son maschilisti, e ci son psicotici, e ci son bipolari, e ci son picchiatori di donne, e ci son autoritari, e ci son golpisti, e ci son ignoranti, e ci son razzisti, e ci son dipendenti dalle telenovele, e ci son schiavi dei media, e ci son risentiti, e ci son vendicativi, e ci son antidemocratici, e ci son quelli che odiano, e ci son egoisti, e ci son pecore, e ci son curiosi, e ci son assolutamente incapaci, e ci son baciapile, e ci son ladri di mense scolastiche, e ci son speculatori, e ci son usurai, e ci son ladri di decime, e ci son schiavisti, e ci son ladri di anime e c’è, per disgrazia, la massa asessuata e acritica, trascinata e centrifugata dai suoi padroni! Là fuori, oggi, amore mio, c’è solo una vasca biologica e pupazzi che marciano!
ה
Vieni, amore, vieni a letto!
ו
Vieni, amore, vieni oggi.
ז
La politica, amore mio, la lasceremo a dopodomani, quando si riuniranno soltanto i ribelli, coscienti e libertari.
