Tag: poem

it was amusing to make fun of paying
some of the highest prices in the world
for poor quality basic necessities,
like pretty mediocre home internet
for around eighty bucks a month.
we were amazed at their complete
lack of understanding of the outside
world, coupled with an incredible
sense of superiority. and it was puzzling
how it was possible for them to have
a much lower life expectancy than we do
and the highest maternal mortality rate
in the developed world.

but now we are simply terrified
that a teenager with an assault rifle
could kill people on the street and,
freed of charges, leave the courthouse
with his head held high, or another
extremist could drive a car into a crowd
of protesters with impunity. this is where
their dream can become a nightmare
for the rest of us.

Experience is not what happens to a man;
it is what a man does with what happens to him.

Aldous Huxley, Texts & Pretexts: An Anthology With Commentaries

i have always been a fruit connoisseur and never
missed the slightest opportunity to get acquainted
with the taste and texture of the unknown. not once.
that night, i tried a bunch of cotton candy grapes,
and then the williams’ bon chrétien pear, and even
an oriental persimmon. but in the end, as always,
i found solace in looking at the envy apple, the one
that i was forbidden to eat. and so the gardener
turned into his dog.

i get it; it is more noble to be a widow
than a divorcee, and with my broken heart,
there is hope. plus, there is also my life
insurance. is this what you are counting on?
because i am aware that my poetry has no value,
monetary at least, especially now that i share it
for free, so that can not be the reason for your
evasion. i also know that you do not love me,
if you ever did, as i tried to come back
three times and you always firmly refused.
anyway, i can see you blooming alone.
or is keeping me in limbo a kind of revenge
for wasting two decades of your life?
but that was my life too, so we are even.
whatever it is, i will always be grateful
for a reason to write.

interesting word, solitude. not quite loneliness,
yet already at a distance. a lot of time to learn
origami, or collect linguistic bygones, and practise
casually falling asleep on a ragged plush couch.
and, although involuntary at first, perhaps at some
point, it may become the only thing that actually
makes your morning coffee drinkable.

my father was a fisherman, and you know
what that means. no, i do not mean fish
for a meal three times a day all week round,
only that he was never there. and when he was,
he hardly sobered up. i was ten when i first
sneaked into a tavern to bring him home.
that night, i was awakened by his screams,
the crash of chairs hitting the walls,
and my mother’s crying. so it is puzzling
that seeing you on the beach that afternoon
made me remember this very memory.
is this why i did not dare ask you
for your name?

i fart. yes, i do. but why would i mention this?
because nobody does. it is one of those things
covered in embarrassed silence, as if we were
some kind of wraiths, devoid of physicality.
the problem is that we talk about our visit
to a fashionable restaurant with a touch of pride,
discussing the menu down to the last detail,
but a sign of panic appears in our eyes
at the very sound of the word loo.

i still have a few books to read,
a few works to see,
and a few miles to walk.
there are still things
i have not thought about,
the words i left aside
to be used somewhere else,
and unfulfilled little hopes.
and there you are,
who i have never met,
or noticed at the right time.
and here i am, writing
about all this as if i had
unlimited time.

if you asked me what i wanted for breakfast,
i would say a rou an’ a cuppa tea,
just like your father used to be (i have heard
that rowies taste best with strawberry jam).
later, we would go for a walk, answering nae bad
to the neighbour’s ay ay fit like e day?
and on the way to the harbour, you would tell me
how that day you tracked a dolphin, spotted
near the entrance channel, while after school
you waited for the return of the trawler.

she appeared out of nowhere in front of my eyes.
i watched in disbelief as she, wrapped in a bath towel,
vigorously walked down the stone ramp to the beach.
young, full of life, she seemed completely unaffected
by the cold of mid-november, when i stood leaning
against the railing at the end of the promenade,
tucked into my thick winter jacket and a woollen cap.

having reached the damp sand, she dropped the towel
with an unforced naturalness, as if carved by the hand
of michelangelo, and walked calmly into the water,
something i would not be surprised at by the adriatic sea
in the middle of summer but not by the north sea
in late autumn. and as i admired her amid the waves,
i mourned the moment she would eventually disappear

between the stone walls of fittie.