HURRICANE

 

A broken crane hanging down amongst skyscrapers,

threatening to fall apart,

a very physical Damocles’ sword

beyond metaphor.

I imagine the persisting shrieking of the weather,

a wrathful unframed mouth

disgorging shrapnel after shrapnel of the world,

the gutters exploding in the dark,

the living daylights wiped out in volleys of angry stars,

rubble blazing into sight, roof-beams dangling

juxtaposed like asterisks, shattered flasks

engorging, later, the silence.

 

A staircase left where a house was,

towering alone, you could walk up on it

climbing into a nowhere.

Questioning the wind

like a dishevelled druid

or a poet stung by

the incomprehensible shards of his lines.

RAIN

It closes us in,

enwraps home, not unlike fog,

this tapping on window-sills,

this sloshing, showering, gurgling,

this curtain of busy needles.

We are maybe closer to each other

separated by it, under lamplight,

under the computer light,

casting reflections into the ether.

 

We were around a fire once

under a rock, telling tales

and casting spells.

The tapping filled the mouth of the cave.

 

I am not sure of what has changed.

ALL I KNOW

 

On this bright day

the lines of the hills shine,

the mountains behind look massive

and undisturbed in the blue.

On the narrow road before the park

there’s that silence that’s a rustling,

the sun and leaves’ fingers playing,

playing but almost still.

Walking I gaze at the asphalt

with the shadows of the leaves

and I think of all I know

and do not  know,

the breath,

ungraspable and familiar,

of things.

OCTOBER SUN

 

It seems weakened, tamed

by the haze.

A harmless disc

welcoming your gaze,

travelling through

a thin layer of clouds,

like ghosts, wisps,

flourishing tongues

of mist.

Feelings like feathers

randomly streaming.

I am just staring

at  their pencil-like lines

in slow reeling.

 

And since I haven’t disappeared yet

I want to say something

about where I was born,

here in this quivering

Venetian light of my own.

Under the October sun,

tamed by

the all-embracing damp.

I am walking now by the canal

on the grey, paved bank,

dots crowding on me,

on my verge:

they show me how I’ll fade, transpire

and merge.

ASIDE

 

 

Far off on the island, out of town,

I pedalled on a gravel path, passing by

an old, restored house,

small, simple, familiar in its Venetian style,

the plaster a full red-brown

like the texture of an oil painting,

you could almost taste it

neat against the quiet morning sky

with by it the still green flame of a cypress.

 

Eternity aside. Mose’s lit bush.

The poet had come across

a miracle like this,

a simple settled light.

But, even he then, had left

and forgotten it.

Going into the straight, absorbing

line of the future, the illusion,

our destiny.

 

I can’t do anything better

except to go back for an instant

to the fullness of a pastel red-brown plaster

and the fiery, airy green of a cypress

that grabbed the wind with a firm fist

and swayed an instant of eternity

into my heart.

TRADITION

Whatever yours is dance to it,

let it sink back

on the amazement of the track,

spreading its stance

in a dance to enhance

the eyes of the land.

Very privately

I am now celebrating my own,

very alone.

In my own den,

sitting still

and letting myself

dance

in my bones.

Listening to an old tune,

time past

“pointing to one end…”

 

I will pass,

a mood, a nod in whatever tune.

The stream will stay.

SIERRA NEVADA REVIEW

I am glad because I have just received the news that Sierra Nevada Review will publish a poem of mine "Travenanzes", a high valley in the Dolomites ,a very dear place to me.

Sierra Nevada Review is one of the print magazines I most enjoyed, it has published my poems twice. The first time in 2003. The issue on that year had probably the best cover photograph I have ever come across: an Asian child laughing and wearing a huge red plastic bubble, a clown's nose probably, on his own.
I remember that two poems of mine appeared in that issue. And I remember how tactfully the editors corrected a spelling mistake I had made, basically clumsily inventing without knowing a verb that didn't exist : "surveil". I remember they wrote: "we are wondering if you want to invent a new word but maybe you meant "survey" or "unveil"? I apologized, thanking them and saying that that was the least it could happen to one who was writing in his second language..and that I certainly meant "survey".

THE SONG

 

It has always been

colouring the seasons

like a lingering gust,

a waft

permeating

this raft.

It unveils

the air’s heart,

with its elusive

half-smiles,

and strewing wishes

sweeping by.

It has always been

dragging you in

looking

casual at first,

coming from afar,

then closer,

like a staring star.

And you always

searching
in its reaches

for its heart.

So familiarly never

fully grasped.

 

Dickensian

I am at last experiencing this adjective in full while enjoying "The Casual Vacancy" by J.K.Rowling. A superb gallery of characters vibrantly connected to one another. Great prose, raw and complex details in every day's comedy and tragedy. I don't mind exaggerating if I say there are even echoes of Shakespeare's clarity in painting clashes of feelings and wishes.
And maybe writing books for boys is the best trampoline for a good first novel for adults.

The best happens when the characters become close to you as friends. And once more you cannot but perceive the world as a stage.

STARS

 

We had a lot to tell each other

after such a long time,

the night fog got brightened by our busy talk

and the candles in the restaurant sparkled,

vowels slid, at ease with the wine,

while we described our projects for the future,

we talked for hours, of everything, even politics,

wanting to be helpful, careful with advice.

Strewing with the night.

We went home then for some menial task

and I felt lightened even while collecting

the rubbish bag.

Walking you back to the bus stop

we felt we had to let something go free,

the dog, who needed her steam off,

she ran straight into a grass field

galloping in circles, in a frenzy

that asked for stars,

watching her we were so electrified

that we almost started to run.

Just before your bus came,

with an exaggerated swing, I hit the bottom

of a huge empty bin with the rubbish bag,

the bag banged loudly, I was sure

it had awakened the stars, some

appeared, actually, behind the fog’s rags

and you too decided it was time

to be exaggerated: “Dear me- you remarked laughing-

where did you throw it? No wonder

things in this country are so bad.”

That’s what beauty is, I thought, after

the measured drops of our voices in the night

we can allow ourselves the luxury

of dashing off with an uncontrolled flourish

sealing up our parting with a further spark

while it finds the lid of the world

and bangs it open.

IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE

I find myself translating

this story of birds, badgers, woods and bushes,

a story for children by a distant relative

plunging me into a distant world,

childhood and all.

But…distant?

As I write this on a whim

or in a further, as I realize,

attempt to define who I am

I feel that nothing has ever been distant or close

among the patchy fields and soppy ditches

I trudged on in lightheartedness or in throes

while laughing and crying and talking

and loving the air swarming,

the world is simply what has always

been here, defying definition,

past and present being nothing

or whatever you like

in the bustle and sameness

of the multifarious grass,
instants swept onward and vanishing
like fists of bright ash.

 

So what remains?
Nothing too unknown,

air, the moment and space,

the glow of this presence like a gaze;

what is, simple and absolute,

in front of your face.