(Poor Workers, written in the Veneto dialect of the Opitergino-Mottense region near Treviso)
to Metello, to Cipputi *
Varda chii operai, varda
come che i se perde via
fra i só pensieri intant che
i se fuma ‘na cica sentàdhi
contro ‘l muro dea fabbrica
vàrdii, stràchi e spàzhi,
co’i gins che ‘na volta
i ièra quei boni, e ‘dess
i ‘é sol un pèr de bràghe
màssa curte e taconàdhe
co’ chee camise smarìdhe,
‘e scarpe zhòzhe de còea
o de ojàzh, zhéjie e cavéi
zài de segadùra. I par squasi
dei pajiàzhi scanpàdhi via
da un circo, cussì, ridìcoi
e maincònici come i comici
del cinema mut, e muti i ‘é
anca lori parché ‘a fadìga
ghe ‘à portà via ‘a paròea
vàrdii ‘dèss che i schinzha
‘a cica soto i pie e a testa
bassa i torna dae machine
che spèta ‘ncora i só sèsti
servi; i sogni soeàdhi lontani.
Look at those workers, notice / how absorbed they are / in their thoughts while they / indulge in a cigarette leaning / against the factory wall // look at them, tired and dirty, /in jeans that were good / once and now / are just short // patched pants // with faded shirts, / shoes besmirched with glue / or coarse oil, eyelashes and hair / yellow with sawdust. They look almost like / clowns escaped // from a circus, like this, ridiculous /and melancholic, comic figures / in silent films and they too are /silent, for fatigue / has uprooted their speech // look at them now as they crush / the butt underfoot and with heads /bent go back to the machines / that still await their servile / acts; dreams flown far away .
I sèsti i ‘é senpre i stessi
òni dì. E sempre pì sguèlti
i deve èsser. ‘E man che
‘e core, e corendo ‘e porta
via co’ lore anca ‘l zhervèl
e ‘l sorìso de tó fiòl ròdhoea
in mèdho ae rulière, ‘i òci
de tó fémena se sconde drio
i bancài, i muéti i diventa
mamùt zai che i vòl levàrte
co’e só zàne de fèro fin ‘ndo’
che i sogni no’ i ‘à pì àe. Sèsti,
i stessi, sempre, e senpre pì
de prèssa ‘dèss, senpre prima
‘e man in préstio, el strèss
òmini deventàdhi robò romài
come farài, co’ i ‘riva casa?
Come farài a far passàr pin-
piàn ‘na carézha fra i rizhi
de l’amór; fàzhie che i dei,
tut a un trato, no’ i se ricorde
‘ndo’ che i ‘é e che i parte via
de scàto, fàzhie che pur savèndo
‘ndo’ che i se trova no’ i pòsse
pì controeàrse e i tache a tremàr.
Their gestures the same always / every day. And must be more / and more obsessive. Hands that / run, and running carry / with them minds as well // your son’s smile rolling / between the rollers, your wife’s eyes / hidden beyond / lathe beds, trolleys transformed / to yellowish mammoths lifting you // with fangs of steel, to where / dreams have no wings. Gestures, / the same, always, and robots now / what will they do when they go home? / How will they let a caress slow - / ly slide through curls / of love; it’s likely that their fingers / will suddenly forget that / they’ve left the madness behind, that they will open / with a snap, it’s likely that though aware / they’ve “come back” they still cannot / regain control, and start to tremble.
Pòri operai, ‘doperàdhi
l’ultimo pel de dignità,
fin a spolparli dea pòca
autostima che ghe ‘a restà
pensarli ‘na matìna de bèl
tenpo, i oseéti che canta fòra
vòjia de un prà, dea morosa,
o ‘na matìna scura de bròsa
el tic-tac dea piòva tii cópi
mastegàr bestéme col pan
e late, vardàrse al spècio,
barba da far, sintìr el zhigo
che vièn su garbo a maedìr
el destìn, a dir merda e dio
‘tacàdhi insieme come che
a lori ghe toca òni dì ‘tacàr
insieme òn e desgràzhia,
sóno e rumór, presón e vita,
o tocàr ‘egno, fèro, plastica
o ‘vièro invézhe de un fiór,
de ‘na strica de sogno persa
tel griso del capanón fra tuti
i tubi de aspirazhión picàdhi
alti come arterie de un orco.
Poor workers, used / until the very last spark / of dignity is spent; where the slight / self-respect remaining // is stripped away / think of them in a sun-filled dawn / birds chirping outdoors / desire for a meadow, your girlfriend, / or in a dark, freezing dawn / the patter of rain on roof-tiles // chewing curses with your bread / and milk, looking into the mirror / unshaven beard, hearing the acid / shout vomited up to damn / your destiny, to say shit to god // glued together just as // every day they must glue / together man and misfortune, / sleep and clangour, prison and life, / or pick up in their hands wood, iron, plastic // or glass instead of flowers /instead of a piece of dream lost / among the grey sheds and all / the suction tubes hanging / overhead like ogre’s arteries.
Ma pì ‘ncora fa pecà
‘e fémene operaie: vièn
in ment, chissà parché,
‘e formìghe, chee frégoe
grande che ‘e se strassìna
drio alte fin tel formighèr.
Le vede, senpre de corsa,
cavéi ciapàdhi co’a moéta
in fabrica, ciapà ‘l pensièr
fra ‘l fiòl da ‘ndar a cior
a l’asìo, lavatrice da svodhàr,
‘a roba picàdha al stendìn
‘a matìna, ‘ncora da stiràr,
el magnàr da far; tut un afàno.
Le vede co’ chee onge rote
chee rughe in banda ai òci,
sorìsi fiapi e ‘a feminiità persa
sot ‘l traversón; ‘na invidia
che vièn su, a volte, pa’ quee
che co’na bèa menàdha de cul,
‘na vèrta de ganbe justa
‘e ‘à incastrà ‘l mona che
le mantièn, pa’e sgrimiéte
dea tivisión, senpre tiràdhe,
inprofumàdhe, ‘a serva in casa.
But even more I feel / for the women workers: they bring / to mind, who knows why, / ants carrying giant / crumbs, on their shoulders / to the anthill. / I see them, always rushing, / hair pulled back with clips or pins / in the factory, their thoughts caught / between the baby to pick up / from nursery school, the washing-machine to empty / the clothes hung out / that morning still to iron / dinner to slap together; no time to breathe. / I see them with their broken // nails, wrinkled eyes / limply smiling, femininity lost / under their aprons; envy / growing, at times, for other who with a coy wriggle, // of hips, a sly spread of thighs / were able to snag the booby who / keeps them, envy for the tv announcers, dressed in the latest fashion, / perfumed, the house servant.
‘A te struca ‘a fabrica,
‘a te castra via ‘l sorìso.
Sol che fiàca ‘a te ‘àssa
pa’a sera e neri pensieri
de èsser sol che numeri
o de èsser un nissùn nisà
da bociàzha e suìto frugà,
‘na stràzha strinzhàdha
fin l’ultima józha de sudór,
‘na crose storta dai doeóri
cussì i se sinte ‘i operai
òni dì, intànt che i prova
a far tàser tuti i só sogni
‘ndati in ‘séo, intànt che
i se conta chii dó schèi
maedéti drento aa busta,
intànt che basta ghe zhiga
‘na vose tel zhervèl, basta
co’sta vita desgrazhiàdha,
ingatiàdha co’a noia, co’a
nausea dea sirena che sóna,
i turni, ‘e ore che no’ passa
mai, ‘a nòt che ‘a passa massa
sguèlta e ‘na svejia che ciama
The factory squeezes you, / it castrates your smile. / Only tedium is left / for the evening and dark thoughts / that you are only a number // a no one destined to fatigue / as a lad and already exploited, / a rag wrung dry / to the last drop of sweat / a cross made crooked by pain // this is how workers feel / every day, while they try / to silence all the dreams / turned to vinegar, / while they count the few, damned / pennies of their wages, while / enough with the shouts / a voice in the mind, enough / with this miserable life, / entangled in boredom, in the // nausea of the siren blasting, / in shifts and hours that never / end, in the night that ends / too soon and the alarm clock calling / one who wishes to be someone else.
Se resta operai anca
co’é festa, parché no’
basta un vistito, un bèl
bagno pa’scónder via
‘na condizhión cussìta
s.cèta: ‘a ‘é scrita tii cài,
tee man tute sgrafàdhe,
ma pì ’ncora i ‘o dise
‘i òci, el sèst che li tièn
bassi, e servi, senpre
de bando a un comando.
Pì de tut lo dise ‘e paròe
che te l’operaio ‘e vièn
fòra ferìe, sotvose, squasi
come se ‘e fusse ‘ncora
‘e busìe che toca contarghe
al capo ‘e volte che i tòchi
i vièn sbajàdhi, dàndoghe
‘a colpa a quel de chealtro
turno, aa machina,‘a lama…
o come che ‘e fusse ‘e pòre
scuse sfarfugnàdhe contro
‘e sberegàdhe alte del parón,
el tòc sbajà tee man, come
Even on Sundays you are / a worker, because a suit / or a bath are not enough / to cover up a condition / so deeply branded: it is inscribed in calluses, / in scratched hands, / but even more it is the eyes/ that tell, the habit of keeping them / lowered and servile, always / at the mercy of an order. / Above all it is the worker’s words / that tell, coming / out wounded, weak, almost / as if they were still / the necessary lies told to / the super when the pieces / came out wrong, blaming / the colleague on the other / shift, the machine, the cutter... // or as if they were humble / excuses muttered in self-defense against / the boss’s shouting, / the defective piece in hand, like / a poor reward for the cross to be borne.
No’ resta altro che pensar
là, in cadhéna, parché
no’ i pòl, no’ i rièsse
pì a parlarse fra de lori
‘sti operai. E anca se
i podhésse no’ i savaràe
còssa ‘contarse, còssa
trar fòra daa vose pa’
‘iutarse un co’ cheàltro,
fracàdhi là, tuti strenti
come s.ciàvi ai remi
te ‘sta nòva nave gaèra.
I tase, oniùn co’a só nera
strica de sèsti da ripèter,
oniùn co’a só verità nuda
e cruda tignùdha sconta
drio ‘sti sèsti, co’l só
zhest de speranze romài
marzhe. I tase, e tasendo
i lavora mèjio, i stà pì
‘tenti, i fa pì produzhión.
Lo sa el parón co’l passa
serio fra i reparti, co’l se
ferma ora de qua ora de ‘à
e li varda, li varda tee man.
There is room only for thoughts / there, on the line, because / they are not able, can no longer / talk to each other / these workers. And even if / they could they would not / know what to say, what / to pull out of their voice to help / each other, / huddle there, crowded // like slaves at the oar / in this raw and naked / truth kept hidden (and to be paid for) / behind these gestures, with its / basket of hopes by now / gone rotten. They keep quiet, and quiet / they work better, they pay // attention, they produce more. / The boss well knows when he passes/ serious on the shop-floor, when / he stops first here then there / to look at them, / observe their hands.
* trans. note: figures of factory workers in literary and popular culture
translated by Brenda Porster
Fabio Franzin was born in 1963 in Milan. He lives in Motta di Livenza, in the province of Treviso. He has published the following poetry collections: El coeor dee paroe, written in the Opitergino-Mottense dialect, with a preface by Achille Serrao (Zone 2000); in 2005, again in dialect Canzòn daa provenza (e altre trazhe d’amór) (Fondazione Corrente, Milano, “Edda Squassabia prize, 2004); also in 2005 Il groviglio delle virgole (with an introduction by Elio Pecora, Stamperia dell’arancio, “Sandro Penna 2004” prize, unpublished works sections; in 2006 in dialect Pare (padre) (with an introduction by Bepi de Marzi, Helvetia); in 2007 Mus.cio e roe (Muschio e spine) (Le voci della luna, wit and introduction by Edoardo Zuccato, “Premio S. Pellegrino Terme”, “Superpremio Insula Romana”); and, in E-book, Entità (Biagio Cepollaro E-dizioni, 2007). A brief collection, Favole naturali (dalle colline al mare) has come out in L’arcana scrittura dell’acqua(Lineadaria 2006). Five poems are included in Seconda antologia del premio “Giuseppe Piccoli” (edited by Paolo Campoccia, with a note by Stefano Verdino, Magenes 2006). His fiction includes Là, dove c’era l’erba, short-listed for the “Italo Calvino prize, 2003” (Filca Cisl) and the story “Lettera ai prati”, included in the volume Il Veneto del futuro. Sogni e visioni. Dieci racconti (edizioni Marsilio-Corriere Veneto, 2005). His poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies and have been translated and published in English, Chinese, German and Slovenian. He has taken part in poetry festivals in Italy and abroad.