Berlusconi’s prison bars have been bent!
And his chains have been loosened!
So that this ravening maniac can be released!
He who thrives on every scrap of gossip carried by the wind
And he who exists in a whirlwind of foul whispers
And in a chaos of thieves
And who lurks in thickets of politicians’ falsehoods –
He is to be free to resume his role
At the helm of his Forza Italia
So that he can steer the ship of state
Onto the rocks. Again!
Berlusconi is back to beat a violent hole in history
And to dash people’s hopes, yet again!
In his world of illusion and corruption,
of manipulation and deceit,
the body of the people is now to be squeezed:
as the endless play starring Silvio Berlusconi
Can be staged once again
with the evil curtain being drawn back
to reveal that the Teatro di Berlusconi
is still drenched in innocent blood
and our lives are still being sucked dry
By human leeches
on a stage set that’s frighteningly arcane
perverse, grotesque, from absurd plot.
History repeats itself again and again.
The stage lights come on,
Centre stage is a clown,
returning to shame his public.
A mask glued to his face bears a constant smirk
The clown manipulates his audience,
with a terrible hypnotic dance.
The audience is stunned; it bows down to the great clown, captivated
starting with a strange confused, nightmare
full of false ideals and ending in an endless torture.
Young girls lie in beds of used and dirty banknotes …
They’re persuaded to allow their clothes to be torn off,
They’re no more than children They’re unripe
Yet they’re told they’ll enjoy being drunk on semen.
They awake having lost everything to a sadistic orgy.
The clown’s audience is petrified
But it can’t take its eyes off him.
All Italy becomes the Clown-President’s sex doll
Awaiting his every desire with an open mouth.
He penetrates his audience in the lewdest,
the cruelest, the most horrible, most terrifying
and depraved clown fashion.
Greedily perverted lust games stained with sin.
Like every film, this must surely have an ending
But it doesn’t, then we must immediately act!
And now the clown, must immediately
Take that smile off its face.
We must close this chapter,
and write with indelible ink,
a great and eternal
END TO BERLUSCONI!
Elena Caldera
Translated and Adapted by Heathcote Williams (2015)
Artworks: Elena Caldera