if i could

if i could write each poem
as a precious drop
warm sparkling clear
i surely would

instead, with my back to the rock
surrounded, i reload ready to run
like Butch and Sundance
into freeze frame

as the great theme grows under
the credits roll on the screen
lights come on, people go home
with proud steps and good memories

when you’re in the game
you take the pieces you have
and create with them
the best you can

vigilia, the night before christmas

rode with Roberto from the center
cross town to Parioli for Vigilia
eight thirty in the evening, no traffic
surreal tranquility in the city

more parking spaces than usual
many Romans are out of town
it seems even birds had flown
home to see the family

we wore light open jackets
on the evening of soft rain
unseasonably warm for Christmas
it was different to drive the city
without stop and go
no pressure from too many out there
a rare lazy meander across town
while at the Vatican the Pope was knocked down
some one was making a fuss

after dinner with Paola and Sandro
it was well after midnight
when outside the Vatican
workers had slipped the infant into the Nativity scene
as we departed our dinner with friends

in the same quiet we returned home
even buses had stopped running at nine p.m.
adding to city silence by the noise they left out
silent night, holy night

no snow, clouds over fields
no blue light from the Christmas star
drunks counting sugar plums asleep in doorways
even gypsies have taken holiday

electric bus

hopped on a whirring electric bus
that soon turned down an alley
then suddenly stopped stuck there
cause it couldn’t get by

a car was parked in that alley
protruding out into the lane
our way forward was finished
while cars packed us in from behind

a lot of horn honking ensued.

a quarter hour later the guy showed up
that got in that blue car, and then
like taking the lid off a pressure cooker
we sighed off our steam and all drove away

Natale is Christmas in Italian

preparations for Natale
now the day before
a good day to begin

bought a desert pie for the night before festa, Vigilia
with a physicist and two professors
who all love pi and pie and their wives

at Feltrinelli’s bought books for gifts
called Giacomo to compare notes
my Roman pal who is quick, alert and ready

his son Alex’s group is leaving now
to play for cash outside the bookstore
in the hum of street activity

said hi to Franco outside the store
his motor bike was stolen last week
didn't ask how he got there

closer to home
sat down for coffee at a table
outside Angelo’s coffee bar

intense people traffic
here they come
there they pass

a pigeon just got by an electric buses wheel
as I sipped coffee to a, look around,
a persistent subtle whining sound

it’s the dog under the next table
saying his piece without
moving his lips

and art show tonight, got ta go
crowds shopping now
all on alert, hurray the day

a woman comes buy
dressed like Pinocchio’s mother
Christmas is on the way

Alberto's car

his worn vintage car quit again
on the cold rainy road into Roma
no one in traffic stopped to assist
Alberto pushed it two hundred yards

then opened the hood
tapped the engine with a hammer
tried the motor again
this time it worked

proving that as with some people
now and then it’s a matter
of getting a machine’s
full attention

campo dei fiori

i know this campo
of flowers and markets
a circus in progress
many new faces in groups
slow walking and talking
some carrying sandwiches
now tourists Italian
all caps and dark warm jackets
slow passing non stop
through the piazza of Bruno
sun going down, lights coming on
many regulars out for the season
even beggars have rotated
near over the line, yet still in order
with just above freezing
no tickets or towing
cars, motorinos and bicycles
visible police and undercover
overflowing action no on can follow
too cold for mime or musicians
in season’s chill December
four days before Christmas

Leonardo

stepped out this morning
suddenly a guy yelling for help
limping on fire to the knee
flames leaping waist high

i put him on the ground
put out flames with my hands
windows opened above, shouting
soon an ambulance came

i calmed him, said he was Leonardo
a street person with a small fire
keeping warm under the arch
next time he’ll remember me

the ambulance took him
put lotion on my hands
i had stepped out for a smoke
not to burn merry Christmas


I have repeatedly posted this as Leonardo, then changed it to Leonardo Burning, four or five times in the last 24 hours. I like the title Leonardo Burning, but don’t want to offend the worth of this street person Leonardo by seemingly trivializing the event; and the poem ends with a burning reference and I didn’t want to lessen the effectiveness of the poem. To burn merry Christmas is a swirling mystic somewhat ambiguous reference and I wanted it left like that, unrestrained.

Maybe I’ll have to stand back and let time pass before I can make final cuts.

As it is, the energy in there. It happened, I came upstairs and wrote it. At this point the poet is too close to the event to judge what has effectively transpired in the writing.

tre marias

late morning coffee
near Santa Maria in Trastevere
mainly Italian tourists about
quietly milling this tranquil day

then beyond the fountain in the Piazza
for Chinese food with our friend Maria,
where yet another Maria
operates that restaurant

though not a true Maria
she was made in China with another name
but found it easier to be a Maria and go along
swiftly as the river flows though Roma

make a list

passed Monica
said high a little
she was gone

see her twenty-three times a year about
talk more or less a minute each time
and of all the people i know
she is a good one

dresses neat, stands up straight, cheery
how are you i am fine that’s it
she gets a gold star in my memory

so if i made a list of everyone i know
she’d make the good list
once, years ago when i was sad
i made a list

why not try it
make a list of everyone you can think of
everyone you know

see who’s there
the list is privileged information
and you have a right to know

going about

going about in Roma
we have a car
and use it to get out
traffic clogged and lost

there is a slowing way down down
a large van is holding everyone up,
as we pass we see her reading a book
while texting on a cell phone

in circles by catacombs on Via Appia
old high stone walls so we can’t see
where we wander, which way we're headed
cloudy, so can’t tell north from south

then stopping for coffee, always a good idea
somewhere out of the center
where people get human again
we asked directions

sempre dritto, keep going straight ahead
that’s the best and favorite response
you’ll ever hear, no complications
they must teach it to children

strange, yet it works
for as all roads lead to Rome
inversely, when you are there
all roads will lead out of Rome

so no one is ever
really lost
only slowed
by traffic congestion

i've had it with you, Roma

i’ve had it with you, Roma
and refuse to be your fool any longer
two decades of chaos is enough
pushing, shoving, and oblivious pretentious aggravation

i’d rather pull my puppy’s ears
drag him out of the tiny box
from under the leaky sink
where i’d make him sleep if i were you

but to leave you, Roma
would be most difficult
to compensate for the loss
of aggravation

should i run stumbling against bulls in Spain
take lunging rapids in a leaky wooden boat
or walk in traffic blind folded
do please allow me to suffer longer

i know you lie and cheat to get your way
but loaded with art everywhere
you are noble, though distant and aloof
leave me unattended to wander in awe

scorch and boil me in summer’s cauldron
winters cast me out chilled into cold
treat me hard all seasons
if you must

but to turn away and leave you
as if you didn’t know me
would be more than i could bear
your tears would heap more agony on my anguished soul

allow perpetual suffering to continue
perhaps near the end you’ll cradle me
giving peace at last in knowing
that once you cared

for certain,
at the moment of torment’s end
my beloved,
i’d rather die in your arms

stolen horse

in light late afternoon chill rain
M. went to Standa to pick up things for diner
she’ll make pasta carbonara
carried a shoulder bag and an umbrella

bused up a few blocks
temperatures were dropping
she wore a hat pulled low
in gusts i started out to Alberto’s studio

along the way a couple called out
asked directions to Via Corso
i told them, pointed, down that way it begins
by the large monument at Piazza Venezia

then i walked out into heavy traffic
i was waiting for the light to change
must have forgotten, was distracted
from both directions cars were honking

made it calmly without incident,
and some embarrassment i digested
at that time
M. was carrying her loaded shopping bag

walking back across the bridge of angels
in front of the old castle San Angelo
there was an art show this weekend
Alberto told me his wife couldn’t go

because their five year old son
had homework to do
he said always there is too much homework
on the way home i saw Franco, age 67,

an Italian born in Libya
a persistent worker who lives miles away,
we crossed paths at the same corner in piazza Campo dei Fiori
near where he does inlay and waxing

fine detail in centuries old wood work
bought him coffee at the corner bar
he said a week ago gypsies stole
the cover for his motor bike

the evening before it disappeared
he saw the father and son checking it out
this weekend his motor bike,
his ride to work, was stolen

devastated, though tried not to show it
thievery is an invasion that strikes at the heart
i said it was like someone stealing his horse
he agreed, sadly, he agreed

we parted, i wished him well
by the time M. made it safely home
i did also, under city lights
and yes, her carbonara was outstanding

just say no to shopping

women don’t really want
hubby along slopping
always in the way
forever incompetent

to say they’ll take him
is only a scare tactic
a threat meant to show man
how brave they are

fighting fatties on electric isle-crowding carts
while finding the real bargains
checking what’s the latest
ahh, my queen of hearts, i know you’re da greatest

making a list

making a list
or soon will be
nothing serious yet
in my head at first

have to get things in order
i’ll jot notes in a minute
when i get a few ideas going
i’ve just gotten started

right now, i’m looking out the window
and there, she is in the yard
head down, pulling weeds
doesn’t stop, ‘cept to wipe her brow

black birds and robins fight in the bird bath
nothing overly untoward, only showing who’s tougher
and there she keeps going, pulling’ weeds
i wonder what she’s thinking now

she had better wrap it up soon
come in and clean up
you know she ought to be
making a list

the best

Zachariah makes the best pizza
he’s why we go there
house red amid pre crowd quiet
that’s a friday evening meal

Zachariah, two things i’ll recall
at the end of my life
one is your pizza
a pause as he reflected

Zachariah then asked,
and what is the second?
silently i tight-lip grinned
then we both laughed

i am a writer

i am a writer
alive in these words
breathe in the spaces

my pores
absorb periods
that’s why you see none

a flicked bit of ash from
every time i smoked
like food over a fire

with a line into water,
waiting the next one
to donate himself to feed me

phish swimmings
what he does he says
feels so good

i write for no one that pays me,
feeds or gives me shelter
am happy at this moment

writing especially for you
it’s practically i am
like speaking to you.

oh, see that
a period
quick - ingest it

the balance

a leaning fence in a fallow field
pile all parts in a heap
the good over here
bad on that side

so when standing back
way far back to see
the resulting evaluation indicates
an evident perception

worrying excessively
over minutia
or insufficiently about
everything else

pasquali's for the holiday

M. thought like an artichoke
i mean she thought she’d like one
a fond memory
I knew what she was talking about

without family in Roma
holidays are our time to eat out
we walked to a popular locale in the ghetto
forty minutes before the usual lunch time

already a crowd outside was buzzing
all had made reservations the day before
the head man said they were fully booked
the doors hadn’t opened yet we were turned away

bused up the Corso through holiday crowds
then around the corner to Pasquali’s
a familiar favored haunt,
one we had found a decade ago

he and his wife work the counter,
daughter cooks, the son waits tables
they smiled when they saw us
as we smiled at them

we took our table again
one we had known and tested
ate pasta amtriciana
drank red house wine with our meal

all was as it should be
we ate among friends
it was like home again
for the holiday

not comets

comments

(you have to click on it
and i have to tell you
cause the colors aren't right.
like, i messed up the way i picked them)

what you are clicking on is a poem from april '08 called "i feel like you"
i read it again and thought you'd like it if it put it out again.

days off

a moderate, quiet tuesday
a catholic holy day
also a state holiday
they work together

monday was the ponte
the bridge between sunday
and the official state holiday
italians know how to take time off

walked to the ghetto
for an eleven a.m. coffee
plus a slice of thin crust pizza with
sweet red peppers and a light tomato sauce

walked back by the turtle fountain
built from 1581 - 1589
a beautiful, calming sight
for a light rain tuesday