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“Errata”
and Other Poems

 

Daniele Pantano

Art by Amelia Saddington

 
1.Saddington-Free Boots-sm

Amelia Saddington - Free Boots, 2019.
Acrylic, gouache and chalk pastel on canvas, 51.25 x 49.25 inches (130 x 125cm)
Courtesy of the Artist and James Fuentes LLC.

 

Motel (Window)


what happened to us at such an hour the postman picks lemons
and tomatoes en route to the tiniest boxes of lies
the empty school bus delivers our children’s terror without blame
or refusal because the morning light is a fresh bandage
the mother singing to the little girl who is ready for another forgive
me who does not belong to cruel answers scribbled
somewhere no the morning cigarette is not solitude it’s a loss of faith
and it’s not too late to take pleasure in more survival
someone keeps going we all do what would you say
why do they not dream of our thirst when all we are
is thirsty the catastrophe we confess when we show
how lucky and forgotten we truly are how the rain
came to destroy us the poor the silent the miracles
of a lifetime we keep reading and rereading Pozzi:

and now you want me to tell you the history of birds?

and now you want me to tell you the history of birds?

and now you want me to tell you the history of birds?

we can’t hear it all passing over us unclean as we are
every beautiful thing is as painful as everything else

 
1.Saddington-Free Boots-sm

Amelia Saddington - Free Boots, 2019.
Acrylic, gouache and chalk pastel on canvas, 51.25 x 49.25 inches (130 x 125cm)
Courtesy of the Artist and James Fuentes LLC.

 

Motel (Window)


what happened to us at such an hour the postman picks lemons

                                                  and tomatoes en route to the tiniest boxes of lies

the empty school bus delivers our children’s terror without blame

                                                  or refusal because the morning light is a fresh bandage

the mother singing to the little girl who is ready for another forgive

                                                  me who does not belong to cruel answers scribbled

somewhere no the morning cigarette is not solitude it’s a loss of faith

                                                  and it’s not too late to take pleasure in more survival

someone keeps going we all do what would you say

                                                  why do they not dream of our thirst when all we are

is thirsty the catastrophe we confess when we show

                                                  how lucky and forgotten we truly are how the rain

came to destroy us the poor the silent the miracles

                                                  of a lifetime we keep reading and rereading Pozzi:



                      and now you want me to tell you the history of birds?



                      and now you want me to tell you the history of birds?



                      and now you want me to tell you the history of birds?



                                                  we can’t hear it all passing over us unclean as we are

every beautiful thing is as painful as everything else

 
2.Saddington-Spontaneous Generation-sm

Amelia Saddington - Spontaneous Generation, 2021.
Oil, acrylic, and chalk pastel on canvas, 51.25 x 39.5 in (130 x 100cm)
Courtesy of the Artist and James Fuentes LLC.

 

Errata

after Tolstoy


Page 04, line 19: for time fails to reach us read I sent a message in German
Page 15, line 06: delete semicolon and line after it’s just a matter of theory
Page 17, line 10: for do not read allow us to taste the pomegranates in silence
Page 22, line 32: delete full stop after be ashamed of our flesh that rages
Page 38, line 08: for ponder this rope read patient and abandoned ululation
Page 40, line 25: for fury read the language in our hands becomes another
Page 41, line 12: insert comma after children, stills on the cutting-room floor
Page 49, line 04: for seemingly doubtless read frozen and brutal and found
Page 56, line 27: for our duty to teach others read posthypnotic museum
Page 63, line 31: for shapeless and unformed read as though sewn together
Page 68, line 15: delete comma and rest of line after we were only young
Page 72, line 16: for breathe for one another read breath is a palimpsest
Page 83, line 22: delete dash at beginning of line after Ausschnitt
Page 91, line 03: for we will never be as hungry read beautiful . . .

 

      Amelia Saddington - Landscapes, 2020.
      Acrylic and gouache on canvas 26 x 43 (65 x 110cm)
      Courtesy of the Artist and James Fuentes LLC.

 

Contre-Jour (Burden)


during the siren test
without a warning

she’s the evacuation
order no one follows

the shock of low voices
in the cerement of tunnel

light or larvae the immensely
moving darkness of a nose-

bleed after the only dream
she can afford finds her

outside rented windows
as her remains are

added to the chorus:

science has failed
heat is life
time kills

yet sometimes she’s simply
breathing a brave thing

on the horizon the storm
that forms childlike and hungry.

 

    Amelia Saddington- Best Intentions, 2021.
    Acrylic, oil, gouache, flashe, and chalk pastel on canvas, 26 x 48 (65 x 120 cm)
    Courtesy of the Artist and James Fuentes LLC.

 

Exit (Points)


this one’s a blue storm
in a cracked jar

but there’s no rain.

—

this one’s a spiral stair-
case in an orchard

but there’s no fox.

—

this one’s a downtown
bridge of fingers raised

but there’s no singing.

—

and now the sounds of a car
crash from the nearby autobahn

but there’s no miracle.

—

and now the folds in the sky
made of ammonia and whispers

but there’s no mother.

—

and now we re-strip the carcass
the loneliest parts of our bodies

but there’s no answer.

—

and now we listen to what
we should have been told

whatever is forbidden lives a hundred times over.

 

Daniele Pantano

Daniele Pantano is a Swiss poet, essayist, and literary translator. He has published over twenty volumes of poetry, essays, and literary translations, and his poems have been translated into a dozen languages. He is Associate Professor (Reader) in Creative Writing and Program Leader for the MA Creative Writing at the University of Lincoln.

Amelia Saddington

Amelia Saddington is an artist based in New York City. She received an MFA from Columbia University, New York and BA from Concordia University, Montreal. Her work has been presented at venues including Know More Games, New York; the Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1; Night Gallery, Los Angeles; and Franco Soffiantino Arte Contemporanea, Turin. While painting is her primary medium, she has also been involved with music, playing in bands such as Et At It, Remote Burial, and most recently, a solo project called Open Topic.

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