The weight of what cannot be held—neither the beloved nor the pain of her loss.

ALL IS PAIN

I tasted a fierce grief that stole my breath. 
I felt myself almost faint, 
vanquished, 
a sense of helpless despair. 

An invisible force 
sweeps away memories, 
heals, cauterizes, dissolves. 

The merciful lobotomy of time
that passes. 
The time that heals, 
almost always, almost always… 

I had wandered alleys,
prey to pain and desolation, 
stunned by
the vision of death, 
claustrophobic oppression
the airless, sealed room. 

The wounded, lacerated darkness, 
slivers of fine light through the shutters. 
The white skin of her now-still breast, 
the icy lips I had so often kissed. 

No, I could not fully recall 
the pain, 
the grief 
so close to madness,
All erased 
from my memories. 

The time of bitter tears 
had faded 
into the unknown 
black hole of suffering. 

All is stolen, 
not even the true devastation of the heart 
are we permitted to keep. 

Only a lifeless body
remained,
the poignant image of one
I had loved. 

All seemed so precarious, 
futile. 
Only certainties?
death and suffering. 
The illusion of a faint light 
and… 
once more,
the nightfall
where all is pain. 

[Luca Della Casa]

Bold underground poetry.

The Poetics of Irretrievable Loss.

“Todo es Dolor” crafts a lament that is both visceral and ephemeral, a dirge that wrestles with the paradox of grief: its overwhelming immediacy and its inevitable erasure by time. The poem is a raw incision into the anatomy of loss. Written in Spanish, the poem retains his signature austerity but infuses it with a Latin American cadence—less cerebral, more corporeal, pulsing with the immediacy of a wound still fresh.

The opening lines plunge us into the physicality of sorrow: “Probé un displacer fuerte me quitó el aliento” (I tasted a fierce grief that stole my breath). The verb “probé” (tasted) is striking, synesthetic, suggesting grief as a substance consumed, a poison that overwhelms the senses. Verses sets the tone for a poem that is not abstract but embodied—despair is “impotencia,” a helplessness that borders on physical collapse. The “fuerza invisible” (invisible force) that sweeps memories introduces time as both healer and annihilator, a “piadosa lobotomía” (merciful lobotomy) that cauterizes but also obliterates. This duality evokes Octavio Paz’s meditations on time in “Piedra de Sol”, where temporality both constructs and erases identity, but the author vision is bleaker: time does not redeem; it merely erases.

The central imagery—the “oscuridad herida, lacerada” (wounded, lacerated darkness) and “hojas de luz fina” (slivers of fine light)—paints a scene of stark contrasts, a chiaroscuro of mourning. The “closed and airless room” mirrors the claustrophobia of grief, while the “white skin of her now-still breast” and “icy lips” ground the poem in the intimate, tactile reality of a beloved’s death. Here, Della Casa diverges from the cerebral vertigo of “Una Mente Sconfitta”; the pain is not a labyrinth of thought but a sensory assault, a confrontation with the body’s finality. Yet, memory fails: “No, no recordaba plenamente el dolor” (No, I could not fully recall the pain). This amnesia is the poem’s cruelest twist—grief, so all-consuming, is stolen by time, consigned to an “ignoto agujero negro del sufrimiento” (unknown black hole of suffering). The heart’s devastation is not even ours to keep, a theft that resonates with Baudelaire’s melancholic sense of loss as a double dispossession.

The poem closes on a note of existential futility:

“Todo parecía tan precario, inútil” (All seemed so precarious, futile). Death and suffering are the only certainties, and the “ilusión de una tibia luz” (illusion of a faint light) offers no solace, only a prelude to “anochecer, donde todo es dolor” (nightfall, where all is pain). This cyclical return to darkness rejects any redemptive arc, aligning with the fatalism of Lorca’s “duende”—a raw, unyielding encounter with mortality. Yet, Della Casa’s voice is quieter, less mythic, more akin to the muted despair of Cesare Pavese’s “Verrà la Morte e Avrà i Tuoi Occhi”, where love and death intertwine in inevitable defeat.