Numero 8 - Sylvia Plath

Name: Sylvia Plath
Profession: Poet



LADY LAZARUS


I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr god, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

Numero 7

Name: Marco Travaglio

Profession: Journalist

Age: ?

This man is legend!

He's one of the best journalists ever in Italy, and it's really rare for those who work in the politics field to emerge when they are so young.

The demonstration against censorship the 3rd October was amazing... if you've ever been in Rome you'll know for sure Piazza del Popolo: it's a huge square very close to the Spanish Steps. Well, that square was so full of people that I couldn't even walk toward the middle as I was totally squeezed in the border.

Students were screaming with megaphones in their hands, big provocative banners were constantly waved by untiring guys.

On the white stage arranged for the occasion, famous italian singers, actors and journalists were announcing their dissense about Berlusconi's politics.

A few time ago the newspaper "La Repubblica" asked to our prime minister 10 questions. Here I'll report the most interesing ones:

- When and where were you introduced to Noemi Letizia (a young girl that apparently calls him "daddy", and who is suspected to be one of his "lovers") and do you frequent more under age girls?

- What's the reason for which you lied for two months giving to the media 4 different explenations about how did you know Noemi?

- Don't you think it's weighty that you rewarded with candidacies the escort girls that called you "daddy"?

- You were with a prostitute the night of the 4th November, and many girls have come to your house. Did you know they were prostitutes?

- Your behaviour contraddicts your politics: could you still partecipate to the Family Day or sign a law that punish a prostitute's cusotmer?

Berlusconi never answered to these questions, but brought action against them and the whole newspaper.

Numero 6

Today I have the pleasent sensation of feeling the future in my hands.
Uni is going to start in a week.
I have been enjoying Spetember doing nothing, a part from writing and occasionally helping my parents with houseworks.
I don't know why am I so enthusiastic about starting my new life. All my friends miss alredy the old one, the times back to high school, when we could be as silly as we wanted without having any real responsibility. Maybe it's because I am going for the first time to take choices for myself only. I've always hated planning, but now I can't stop thinking about myself one day, in five or six years, with a good degree and the same stong will of helping people with my job.
It's not going to be easy, that's why I am afraid that all this enthusiasm will collapse veeery soon, at the sight of big, thick books lying on my desk.
I have problems in concentrating. It often happened, when I was in high school, that even if I enjoyed the subject I was studying, suddenly I found myself staring at a vague point outside the window. Maybe I wasn't born to be a diligent student, maybe I was born to be an artist.

I don't believe in the concept of justice, even though I am going to study law.
The fact is that justice is not a universal principle, but a human invention, which is necessary only inside the society, that is when human beings decide to join each other and create a convenient community.
Everything can be right as long as be wrong, to the universe's eyes.
Sometimes it feels like nothing is worth it, sometimes it feels like we have to put efforts in what we do in order to give sense to our senseless life.