"The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will."

"What I'm saying here is not, I agree, poetry, as poems should be written rarely and reluctantly, under unbearable duress and only with the hope that good spirits, not evil ones, choose us for their instrument."

"All was taken away from you: white dresses, wings, even existence. Yet I believe you, messengers. There, where the world is turned inside out, a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts, you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seams."

"They say somebody has invented you but to me this does not sound convincing for humans invented themselves as well."

"I have heard that voice many a time when asleep and, what is strange, I understood more or less an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue:"

"All my life to pretend this world of theirs is mine And to know such pretending is disgraceful. But what can I do? Suppose I suddenly screamed And started to prophesy. No one would hear me. Their screens and microphones are not for that."

"I have no wisdom, no skills, and no faith but I received strength, it tears the world apart. I shall break, a heavy wave, against its shores and a young wave will cover my trace."

"Only when two times, two forms are drawn Together and their legibility Disturbed, do you see that immortality Is not very different from the present And is for its sake. You pick a fragment Of grenade which pierced the body of a song On Daphnis and Chloe."

"— How is it, Chloe, that your pretty skirt Is torn so badly by the winds that hurt Real people, you who, in eternity, sing The hours, sun in your hair appearing And disappearing? How is that your breasts Are pierced by shrapnel, and the oak groves burn, While you, charmed, caring not at all, turn To run through forests of machinery and concrete And haunt us with the echoes of your feet?"

"Someone will read as moral That the people of Rome or Warsaw Haggle, laugh, make love As they pass by martyrs' pyres. Someone else will read Of the passing of things human, Of the oblivion Born before the flames have died. But that day I thought only Of the loneliness of the dying, Of how, when Giordano Climbed to his burning There were no words In any human tongue To be left for mankind, Mankind who live on."

"Those dying here, the lonely Forgotten by the world, Our tongue becomes for them The language of an ancient planet. Until, when all is legend And many years have passed, On a great Campo di Fiori Rage will kindle at a poet's word."