Compagno Di Scuola

In front of the school, so many people
eight and twenty, first bell
"put out that cigarette"
and thousands of legs and glasses
running up the stairs.
Half past eight, everyone standing
the president, the cross, and the teacher
who always reads you the same story
to the same book, in the same way,
with the same words for forty years of honest profession.
But the questions have never had
a clear answer.
And the Divine Comedy, more and more like a comedy
to the point that even today I don't know
if Dante was a free man, a failure, or a party servant.
But Paolo and Francesca, I remember them well
because, tell me, who has never fallen in love
with the one in the front row,
the prettiest, the dumbest,
you fool, who always laughed
just when your love had the same words,
the same breaths from the book you read secretly
under the desk.
Noon, everything disappears,
"come on! everyone to the bar".
Where Nietzsche and Marx shook hands
and talked together about the latest party
and the new dress, specially made
and always about that girl who rejected everyone (except you)
and the assemblies and film clubs, the debates
never allowed back then
and the cowardly escapes in front of the gate
and the fights in the courtyard and in the hallway,
first cries of a '68
still long to come and too short, to forget!
And your commitment that grew stronger in you...
"Schoolmate, comrade of nothing
have you been saved from the smoke of the barricades?
Schoolmate, comrade for nothing
have you been saved or have you also entered the bank?"