04-07-2021, 10:11 PM
Fellini's Children
The producer asked,
“So, Fellini you’ve made movies
about queers and whores
what’s next?”
“Producers,” replied Fellini.
Cabiria’s cinderblock shack on the outskirts of Rome
the subway ride into the ancient past
Marcello’s sad wave to Paola on the beach
La Saraghina’s lewd dance outside her bunker
before the frantic schoolboys, Sandra Milo’s prancing buttocks
the ecclesiastical fashion show, the dying hermaphrodite
Casanova’s tryst with a mechanical woman.
Revelations from Cinecitta:
moments that succored a middle-aged salary-man
locked into work world;
Fellini’s women seemed a way out.
“Woman, who millions of years ago,
sent a message that luckily never arrived.
Life is waiting for that message,
not the message itself.”
He taught me the magic words
asi nisi masa,
that for all of Fellini’s children
dispel fear amid stone and shadow.
Fellini was a born liar,
whose stream of lies made a universe
where truth is an actor
counting to twenty
as il maestro grins back from beneath his black stetson,
and teases him about his Fascist salute.
“If you see with innocent eyes, everything is divine.’
The producer asked,
“So, Fellini you’ve made movies
about queers and whores
what’s next?”
“Producers,” replied Fellini.
Cabiria’s cinderblock shack on the outskirts of Rome
the subway ride into the ancient past
Marcello’s sad wave to Paola on the beach
La Saraghina’s lewd dance outside her bunker
before the frantic schoolboys, Sandra Milo’s prancing buttocks
the ecclesiastical fashion show, the dying hermaphrodite
Casanova’s tryst with a mechanical woman.
Revelations from Cinecitta:
moments that succored a middle-aged salary-man
locked into work world;
Fellini’s women seemed a way out.
“Woman, who millions of years ago,
sent a message that luckily never arrived.
Life is waiting for that message,
not the message itself.”
He taught me the magic words
asi nisi masa,
that for all of Fellini’s children
dispel fear amid stone and shadow.
Fellini was a born liar,
whose stream of lies made a universe
where truth is an actor
counting to twenty
as il maestro grins back from beneath his black stetson,
and teases him about his Fascist salute.
“If you see with innocent eyes, everything is divine.’