Kimberly Campanello: from This Knot: A new version of Dante Alighieri’s Commedia with the poet K
PURGATORIO 3
Galleria Passo del Lupo / Strada Statale 17 / Variante Volturara
Trattoria La Zinfarosa & Commonwealth Cemetery Foiano della Chiana, Arezzo
Gran Caffè, Rappallo
Imperium sine fine (the way from Rome to York)
August 2024
ARGOMENTO
We’re going down. Or up. We know this mountain inverted like we know our own guts.
And that’s not all. I know it. The poet K knows it. The question.
Where will we have lunch. And what.
Driving up the shape’s cracked leather. It’s shaven in places. And then there’s hair sown into it.
A chip from a shinbone. Stew.
A voice says such food is all nostalgia. For good eating. And women to make it. The voice gets turned down. Then off.
The vehicle turns toward a town I found on the map. Not too far from the road, or too near. A place that seems real. On the map.
Sit down. Eat. Look up the place on your phone. Well. Here we go again.
Young men bone-baked under cinematic sun.
See how they come. They came. From far far away.
Their graves maintained by. Breaking the word.
Down. What does it say.
Common. Wealth.
Twenty-odd years before the they who had those words as aims were first elected.
And then other men became shirts and did the killing. For a blank soul. A clean table. A salute. Thanks to a poet.
Give me crumbs. Give me stains. Any day. Give me invasions of those in need.
And then stars came out. The same as those there. We’ll catch up with the ones before down the line.
And longer ago every castle built by that father on every hill or it seems as such. That man’s son is praised here in this canto.
This praise has created interest. Confusion.
Alright.
Heel.
A castle is not the thing that makes us.
Heal.
Nor the tower. It’s not what’s mounted. Not what is higher up.
Nor is it relics you hold a mirror to as you circle to leech their power.
Nor is it his wonderful hair.
So what makes manifest. Manifests.
What. What. What.
Come on. Now.
A ship’s manifest. A list of names.
A fixer. A mover. Among them.
A destiny. Boundless. As if there are empty spaces.
A guide. Manifesting a poet’s plan. Who to trust among them. Among us. Track record of funding. Impact. Public exhibition. Turning over or under governments. Blanket.
Carpet.
Are poets mere propagandists. Statements. Bombs. Brooms.
Poet. Shield.
Poet. Shirts. Staffs.
Poet. Broadcasts.
Poet punisher. This one here. Not quite.
No truth rises under conditions of torture. The yeast goes dead. Needs to breathe. Inspire.
But is this really real?
A vehicle. A tenor. That tenor’s family says to the man, the man of this now who is reminiscent of THE LEADER from then, hell no you can’t use his sound.
Let’s try sounding ourselves. From inside of what you yourself have made. Are made of. Make off with. Here.
Or the village tower. Bells. Restored. Iron branded with her shape. Pull the rope and ring. She I we you sound.
At whatever time.
Does this work.
Test conjugation (time and whom) and agreement (noun and view).
Is this right. Is this correct. Is this just.
A response: You make yourself understood. That is enough. Or, take it easy, slowly. It will come.
Poet. Me. Trust this poet crossing over another poet?
Try me.
I don’t have to invoke a single figure or design a drape from scratch.
I say that whatever is classic here or wherever is probably going to involve pain.
I merely say again and again.
A long line of
Here and now.
Here and now.
This is it.
I have no shield or shirts or staffs. I do not sift to punish.
I say instead until forever that this is the Great Meanwhile.
Also. Know. As.
While I am eating this here. A wild animal mixed with wine. Cooked down for a long time.
Meanwhile I eat. Meanwhile. Meanwhile.
What is happening to those there. A different time. A different meal. Or none. A different smile. A smile that is a scream.
And here below this seat is a cave. Who hid there then. Was saved. Whose body was laid out dead. When.
Get humble in the face of this truth. It does not torture you.
Details salve. The salve is what’s under the skin. Clarified.
Meanwhile. Mean well. Well. Mean. Move away. Good luck. Unblock.
Hands up. Heads up.
Think on it.
Dignify wounds.
Resurrect.
CANTO
Meanwhile. Calculated punishments.
The field. The mountain. Them, those ones,
not us, there, suddenly running.
Meanwhile. Me, here, close to you.
I can’t run. Often. For long. Ever.
I need you. You. Now. You self-scolding.
You idled. Finger wagging now bitter
knife stabbing your noble mind.
You dignify it with too much time.
Rush to make it up. I can’t go this
fast or I must go faster. I always focus
on distance. Pace. Necessarily curious.
Mountains pitch from sea to sky.
I can always climb. But can’t walk the flat.
Inflamed rays shatter my back.
Meanwhile. I fear dark ground, at last
my need turns you around. I trust you.
Meanwhile, casting non-shadows
in this place known as The Mid-Day
none of us shading anything, quite,
though in time we perspire, respire, expire,
no one knows why or how but Some
Power subscribed us to this scheme.
It’s the infinite road. We can’t think it through
so dream it up as a vague number, like three
and a story of a birth. Meanwhile is always.
Meanwhile confined in a cell, a mind, a womb until
it divides in two and two a million times.
For and because of whatever words
can’t describe but always aspire to.
The longing of others and their methods.
Their systems without fruit, eternal
lack. This has become a point-of-view.
Don’t feel bad. Old classics are on a fine run.
Tablets. Chunky books. Series. Broadcasts.
Meanwhile I make something that wasn’t once.
Foot.
Mountain.
No legs can take it.
Hyperbolic comparison with jagged
mountains you know.
Compared to this, yours is easy. Wide. Open.
You don’t need to fly. Pick a way.
Imagine one. A track.
A trace. A path.
Consider
always
check.
Look up
from whatever
device
as others pass
they may
know more.
Meanwhile
catch up
sweet you sweet me sweet us
sweet distance
thrown off
to
face
to
rock
squeeze against
refusal.
Meanwhile
flatter
as you
ask directions
assign value
herd animals.
You assume
so much.
Meanwhile is it really best to observe them
observing you
best to tell them so much.
Meanwhile
any one could interject from the herd
display a great wound
and much regret
while alive on earth
before and before and before
a battle ensues
meaning
while still
others
acquire or inflict wounds.
COMMENTO
The poet K returns. Is driven back.
Old routes of the old empire. Around the mountains. She has come.
Audio history. Audio books. Audio interviews. Hours spent in battle. And just before and just after.
Views.
Tunnels. Curves. Bridges flow with vehicles. Aqueducts dried up. The poet K smeared against the door or reclined. Or pained at the place where she folds in half.
It’s been a summer.
Holy hands man. Blood. Acid.
Wings. Feathers. Flight.
Right. Left. Around. And back.
Swords. Foot on the throat. The devil. The detail.
Shapely calves. Caves.
Herd. Mentality. Or real stories of.
In the lodge on the neighbouring mountaintop, a village for tourists with hotel rooms and three pools now emptied out, K and her family ate beneath years and years.
Photographs.
Wolves. Mouths open, branches jammed in the roofs to hold whole bodies up. As if alive and relaxed in front of such hunters.
As if on a crucifix which is an X, a cross on its side, or a K, part of the abbreviation for WHY.
The way of the wolf reopened for the celebrations of the woman who rose up. The date and story not long ago decided.
The way of the wolf closed again. Its repairs can’t keep up with time and decline.
The poet K is afraid of what will happen here and how. In the cold as she and her brain go down.
Few want reminding. This gets worse and worse. Never better means exactly as such.
Her pain, to return.
Her movement, to slow.
Her wound, to grow.
The gap in the great lake of her heart reappears. Can she fill it with words crossed over in lieu of fear.
Or is each word a net, a strainer that lets salty substance through.
Yes.
The strainer holds a knot. Of threads.
Taken to the mouth these strands fill.
PARADISO 3
L’archivio communale, Fiera di San Luca / Sagra dell’Anguilla & percorso storico, Volturara Appula
Tempio Italico (Santuario Sannitico) di San Giovanni in Galdo, Campobasso
Extraordinary power tra i confini
October 2024
ARGOMENTO
The we have always been between. Confines. The they over there. Lines. Draw them again. Name the place for the boss of that scribe from this time or that.
Where do you draw the line between this heavenly hill and the ritual of the spring, to cow, to bird, to wolf. To shed youth. To immigrate. As if. Explain. The people before them. Before them. Before them. Before them.
Note animal tracks. Even before their traces they peeled off the sides of your vehicle. Though you aren’t you weren’t going that fast. Or their sound is unfamiliar. A howl. Again. Down by the closed tunnel. They carry on.
I slip off the dress from the procession through the past. Come down from the house at the disappeared door to the village to the square where the eels are plattered.
The eel is not quite a snake and yet it does energise. Slice its belly and breathe its rust. Sleeves up. Plough through fresh water. Its last domain.
This doctor saint. Why did he write. To convince. To record. To rise.
Presented three ways. Submerged. Alone. Overdone. Posterity slides. Not like before. All gone badly downhill. Meanwhile is time between the lines.
These files give me a rash. I go in anyway with dish gloves and a plague mask. A lamp plugs in. Illuminates floating things. Take it all in. A few lines about the fountain. A few more about what a threat now means. See this or that past.
Maps of maps. Some would have known maps a poet may have felt for a time. Time of great concepts and uncertain locations. Swearing you are right. Right as you could be. No more than that. About how much grain there is. To feed. Happy with mine. Some said.
The grill returned to its place with traces of the sacred feast. I’m happy enough here. In such paradise I find.
CANTO
that sun heats
my chest
proof
yet again reworks
me
so sweet
I lift my head
say yes
I am held
tight
by visions
sometimes I
forget
to declare water
so clear
it’s glass
to see through
those pupils
yours
mine
from the past
so close
not deep
right here a pearl
a worked flaw
on skin
soft faces
ready to speak
they crowd
the loved fountain
I was warned
of such sights
told they’d come
to pass
from me
with something of me
or of me’s
who won’t dare
or just can’t
follow through
with this or that
promise
other I’s
content
lines
between
add
speak
well after pain
into deep waters
singing
me going
on
focused on asking
COMMENTO
The poet K thinks about homes. The ones you buy. The ones you need. The ones you are moved to before you die. And the why. Is it so bad after all this striving.
It’s the fall that can kill. It’s the lonely times. It’s vision retreating. Or visions crowding. It’s urgent you see. Otherwise.
The urgency is whose. Yours to resolve it. To prevent. To avoid blame. To rework the vow. Still make it.
Make it clear you have done so. Otherwise.
Or the urgency is hers. Mine. The one who will die. Sooner than later. Urgent days sliding. Last meals. Each bite a combination of sun and time. If you could, you’d go out on the town. Who cares now. Who cares. Now. Then. When you need it.
The poet K flies all over. Speaks to you there. Reaches down deep into folders. Listens to all sorts of sighs. It’s a vow. Beyond limits. Intensity. Paradise pills working for now.
Then it all goes. Transmitters crash and she’s flat backed and listing. All she loved. All she said. Did she fulfil it. That time or this. Do you know she kept trying.
This is almost every night. Can’t move without lurching. So she lets all these flecks come to rest after sifting. For making.
She wakes early and sits up high. The sun spills over the brim of the peaks. Heats her chest.
She descends. She goes to the sacred sites. Battlefields. Sits beneath that sun-scorched tree. She goes to buy meat over a border line. A sign says shot here were them or those then.
Through glass in the palace she sees the repurposed chalice. Blood jasper. Rare.
At the edge of the trough, the gap. Between titles and time in the old prison that is the archive. She picks up the thread from last time. She reads line after line.
Deliberation.
Ordinary.
Deliberation.
Extraordinary.
Seeing that.
Seeing that.
Seeing that.
Seeing that.
Resolution now a command.
From one who acts on behalf of one. One thing, one concept that is an object that is a body, that is a person, that is everything. Or so some said and wrote here it’s time, to systematise. To take care. But not as you know how. A threat not made. It’s all been prepared.
Pages missing.
Outside a breather.
The poet K steps forward and back to grab your hand. To pull a thread from where she is leaning and slip you through to the cell. Storing.
Heating.
Eye.
Memorial.
Recording speech.
Not over yet.
Kimberly Campanello's most recent poetry collection An Interesting Detail was published by Bloomsbury Poetry in April. Her debut novel Use the Words You Have launches June 23 as the inaugural title from Somesuch Editions, the imprint of BAFTA and Oscar-winning production company Somesuch. She is Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds.
