when I fell in love I pressed my heels against the sky
as if in a bread oven
sitting with my forehead on the warm ground
and the wind and the butterflies and the clouds like smoke
were hard to be spoken they stuck inside my chest

without even knowing
I invented God in a new season of the year
believing it was the same
through days with sun and moon both white
because of heavy blessing it rained with sweet incense
clocks lagged behind from their minute hands
gooseberries and  red currants popped between my nails
milk teeth grew in my ****** *****
with the name sculpted by man lips

I slept another one’s dream in a stranger’s bed
he looked at me on Sundays through the train window
he saw through me
from our century of loneliness only dust flew over
like from an old Bible leaves

it’s christmas dad
lend me once more your hand to compare ourselves
among the living people i ever touched
only your hand was bigger

if you want to we can go to the seashore hand in hand
to leap wave after wave together
or you can take me to the puppet theater
where the orange tiger swallows pancakes
while we’re clapping along with our big hands

this year i didn’t grow home bread and
i didn’t burn candles
i simply crouched with half-opened eyes
leaning against high cushions
over a cross scratched with my nails on the bed sheets
lying in wait
fishing like you dad
sometimes hours other times days
go by without any catch
apart from your pale and slippery smile
in the last photograph

dad
why on earth didn’t you put aside the fishing rod

I hardly breathe under a hodgepodge
of starched and creased clothes
my heart beats pell-mell
every time clocks take a halt
dragging one second behind
when batteries are low
(could this be a deviation towards red light?)

with straighter and longer fingers
I bow down worshiping
in front of the rising sun
the nunnery pelargonium
the red silk bookmark
forgotten inside the Book of Job
(rose hips will bloom upon my grave)

the empty space on my front
from where a star fell down
still burns with pride
I’m guilty like the deer youth
putting its muzzle damp with love
in the palm of his future hunter
(maybe time doesn’t roll on like a river)

the wax doll mirrored herself in a puddle
she felt a scent of moist earth
upon her barren belly trees were blossoming
full of wild bees

after the magician’s performance she raised on tiptoes
dancing with her arms over her head
for life and for death
she kept the moonrise in the palms of her hands
and the song like a dagger between her teeth
she melted gradually
through her naked breast through her naked body
other swords passing
colder and colder
****** icicles growing in her heart

the real woman lay down in the grass
with a white butterfly sleeping on her *****
like a sailboat over the sea
she did not know
how much she resembled her wax replica
same little mermaid dancing all night long
piano fortepiano
al fine

it is mid summer I stumble like a woman
in which people have never seen the woman
ecce mulier
the summer sky opened up
there will be no more earthquakes or wars
it is nice lukewarm and easy going
things don’t tumble altogether towards the center of the earth
neither the lovers’ eyes nor the jealousy that haunts them
because they are happy
nor the love for your neighbor because it is envied


sing a song you fiddler man
for the girl from the white little house
here where I am allowed to be myself
the others are not sincere when a lonely woman
lives as if in a train compartment
rises and falls together with the moon
(I could have caught it in my bread basket
to cut a slice of it but I am not craving)
I am too simple without secrets
my whole life I got older in a stays ball dress
singing to myself from the window
praying to my angel to make me stronger


how many wishes can I pretend to possess
when I have never wished something for real
it was always something more important more painful
closer to me the one without beginning or end
something that could have been
you are my brother you are my sister
I am the one who draws the gate’s bolt
even if the garden is deserted
things must stay in their place laws must be respected
fences have to stand up


I shall buy lottery tickets to win at least a hope
if my astrological sign is lucky
if there were enough comets going around
trying not to die like a soldier
I am neither man nor gardener to plough for the seed of my dreams
nor monk to sing halleluiah
ecce mulier my lord
the pain is stronger on my waist
on the upper and lower halves I already froze
enough for you to pass over on foot without breaking me


I went astray in another world
I will never be at home I will never part completely
I’m a shadow’s bride but whose I don’t know

Honorable politician,
Truthful and without ambition,
Found behind bars his own place.
Such a lucky mental case!


Her eyes are truly not hypnotic
Although her smile is mystery,
Each man by nature too myopic
Is guilty of adultery.


Because she had an empty purse,
Yet smiling strange like La Joconde,
He drove his Jaguar in reverse
Thinking she was another blonde.


She had a few coins for grissini,
Wearing her old and too short skirt.
With mercy, dressed in white silk shirt,
He bought for her pretty bikini.


A young woman said: “My love is like sunshine”.
An old woman whined: “My rheumatism foretells rain”.
I stood silent between them, under cloudy skies,
Believing the weather report lies.


Sigmund Freud,
Before others find the steroid,
Dived his nose under the *** drive,
But ******* kept him alive.

Schizophrenia survey:

Doctor: Have you ever had hallucinations?
Patient: No, have you ever seen a schizophrenic?

D: Are you a ******?
P: No, until I meet the right man.

D: Have you heard strange voices around?
P: No, my parrot doesn't speak.

D: Do you think you are a great woman?
P: No, I killed only a few cockroaches, with too much spray.

D: Do you think you are a martyr?
P: No, martyrs are killed in a short time and everyone is happy afterwards.

D: Do you think you should die?
P: No, it is better on the floor than below.

D: Can you forgive others' sins?
P: No, Jesus Christ was better than me.

D: Do you think you have enemies?
P: No, I don't have a hammer drill.

D: Do you love your mother?
P: No, only our feelings are the same.

D: Did you try to **** yourself?
P: Yes, because whatever I asked, others said NO.

Patient: Doctor, what are you thinking now?
Doctor: That you never think.

the wife beater sings with all his heart
his mournful song of love
the tremolo of his voice brings shivers up the spine
his mistress is **** beautiful
shining like the moon
with rosy cheeks and cheeky smiles
she waits for his lover every Friday
when her man goes fishing

at sunset he goes home
whistling along the way
his grumpy wife waits him on the porch bench
hiding her tears in her apron
crossing her milk leg feet
he strikes her
she curses him whispering between her teeth
……………………………………………………….
the wife beater’s mistress raises her cheeky grandchildren
her ex-lover sings every Sunday
glory to the lord in the chapel
his throat aches his chest fills with pain
he crawls home like a sick worm
sits down on the porch bench
looking astray near his wife

and she curses God between her teeth
for taking him slowly away

the small woman from the attic sits cross-legged
with her pink plastic hair rollers for hours. her
life spins like the spool of thread on the sewing
machine. she sleeps wearing a flowery morning
gown in the room with a flowery wallpaper and
a secondhand carpet imitating autumn grass. she
boils her lime tree tea and dairy free pasta on the
electric boiling ring. she washes her hair with nettle
essence shampoo. once a month she goes to the
central store to see new dress designs then she reads
at midnight group portrait with lady. in a sideboard
she hides a pair of perfumed lace gloves the color of
the skin. she wears them when the spring wind blows.
on a shelf in the kitchen a grated lemon in an egg
saucer is slowly getting dry.

She lives alone.
No cat, no budgie, no TV, no phone.
Only a cactus.

Each time her mother comes around
she has tears in her eyes,
because her mother always dusts off the plastic door mat.

She thinks that too much dust will **** her someday.

WOBBLE


My questions are no longer keen,
Small pebbles on the bottom line.
My senses bring flavors within,
They blow out my mind like a wine.

The river washes its ground bed
For many years going ahead.

I don'’t search, I don'’t wait, I don’t hope.

All tears left my memory stream,
A fire grows high from a dream.

The past is a white timeless night,
A blind moon forgetting to shine.
I still feel a cold flimsy light
So deep in this body still mine.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

OUR OLD HOUSE


Wandering most everywhere,
I passed once by that small creek,
Finding our old house there
Where I used to hide-and-seek.

I passed once by the small creek
Where wild grasses grew so tall,
And I looked over the wall.

Finding our old house there,
With gossamer nets as drapes
With my grandpa’'s sour grapes.

Where I used to hide and seek
All the trees were almost dried,
I looked back again and cried...


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

INTUITION


Like a heart upon a stone,
Amber burning on a pyre,
Like the scent drilling to bone
On that painful, brilliant fire,

Like a walking on a wing,
Rustles waking up our ears,
Dreams forgotten every spring,
The beginning of all fears,

Like a truth in this time flight,
Finding in my palm foundation,
Which I held maybe too tight
To believe in its perfection.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

A PAIR


She liked white roses in a vase,
Visiting art shops after school,
He liked sci-fi, boxing, sport cars,
Swimming each Monday in the pool.

They met one day while it was raining,
Shopping for hats on the main street,
And both of them were just complaining,
Because the colors were not fit.

He needed black, she wanted blue.
They saw each other in the mirror.
She smiled at once without a clue,
For she was not a conqueror.

They were engaged after a year:
She wearing blue with a black glove,
Cornflowers for the atmosphere,
Both with straw hats, vowing their love.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

THE STORM


A heavy cloud’s silence is shattered
Through every lightning shrilly blast,
Painful memories are scattered
Like night’s haunting blues from the past.

This time flight of questions and fears
Trims yesterday hopes’ flimsy wings.
My last open smile disappears,
An omen among other things :

A dark moon burns under my eyes,
Coating in ashes a blunt knife.
Red stars hide behind summer skies
Long, tedious and dull feelings' strife.

And if I abandon my dreams
Refusing to taste bitter dew,
Ignited by lost love, like gleams,
Tears grow within torches of rue.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

THE SAME SONG


So many dreams in Venice blurred,
Stars showing gondolas their way.
With sparkless eyes, a lonesome bird
Mourns quietly his love gone stray.

A lonely girl with shaggy hair
Walks all alone in St. Mark's Square.
Her memories dance under vaults
Along a gondolier's sad waltz.

good morning
with half opened eyes you can see your life
running like a fairy at the window
shaking the cherry flowers from her hair
raising the train of her dress between her fingers
it would have been unusual not to fall in love
not to see growing among clouds
swans in pairs white hearts in pairs
while you sip your rosemary tea
good morning I command to you
if you stare with wide opened eyes
you see this life
an old cocotte with thick makeup and dilated nostrils
sniffing you as if you were half dead
throwing on your table the dry bread and the hard boiled egg
take it there’s no time for bargain take a drop of sunshine
a pinch of salt on your tongue
swallow at once
like this...open your eyes very slowly until your lives begin to wrestle
and smash one another until dust

those days the sun flew like corn flour
freshly ground at the millrace
even in winter it was yellow  
when I pressed it down with my thumb
like an unfastened button on my chest

I hardly cut my way with a stick
through the tall weeds
until my knee-high socks
were filled with thistle tassels
jumping over the fence like a thief
into our apple orchard
so no one knew where I was

when the Big Dipper rose over the barn
I slipped on the manger’s opening
inside freshly cut grass
stealing my grandma’s small chair for milking  
singing for the young foal with caramel skin

those days all hearts were red and warm
in the shape of a gingerbread heart
each star was a story
whispered by fairies in the daffodils’ glade

tell me what can be found before pain
an upside-down cross between heart liver and stomach
what lies downwards swells like biscuit in milk
and what lies above screams
like Saint Peter would have screamed
upturned cross at the foundation of the church

tell me what survives longer between the four cardinal points
made of living flesh and bluish blood
before pain it is peace and after pain silence
or maybe the opposite
before pain it is the word and after pain only the shadow
motionless unmovable powerless like a flag at half-mast
like sacred banners on the road to the graveyard

let it be yours bighearted man
the rice grain in which I sculpted
a white monastery

( August, 4th,  2014)

It was a tall and white door with the **** at the level of my heart. I knocked discreetly to enter in audience at the cross spider tamer. A fat and redhead man chewing his whiskers minutely. I was wet because of emotion and warm like a freshly hatched chicken. The man spoke with a shrill snigger because it is known that death is not as serious as life. You just swallow a knot in your throat from the corner of the star still left for you. As if you drink hot milk after chickenpox. Sometimes only the sun remains for you and you die in winter. Other times you shake off the stars and the moon from your hair like an autumn willow. You get so annoyed that your eyes roll in their orbits until the spiders stop jolting on your photograph upside down.

It was a perfectly ordinary day. Except for the fact that they sold more tickets at the county fair carousel. Nobody is perfect. Not even those who predict the weather.

it is so easy to **** me unknown brother
carved Samaritan image
do yourself a favor I’m an undecided blotch of color
indigo reaching for purple
shut at once the book you read from
and I’ll become a butterfly with my wings crucified
on two pages

~~~
maybe because of the need to forget
I see death as a hindrance on the wheel of torture
a camphorated ointment for nervous fibers ends
I’m closer today to the tree for hanging the noose
from which God forbid you to taste
look vanitas vanitatum
Yorick’s head lies on your plate when you receive your alms
the candle the baked apple and the wheat porridge helping

~~~
I stand up facing the wall
my voice isn’t yet untied
I wonder what is stronger and if the heart tips the scales
my achy breaky heart
on the balance between life and death
there are a few extra grams of soul
we will need very tiny jewellery weights
psalm 103
Fibonacci’s series the golden ratio

~~~
look my child the soft carpet
my warm body upon which you step this sacred day
my soles are thin they stick to the red clay
I turn upon the potter’s wheel
my everlasting mentioning
like I was that’s how I’ll stay
a crumb of Eucharist bread on the lips
the first and the last

tightrope walker
between stars
trembling on my feet
the touch of the man
I never knew



as if my bones
could blossom
while still awake
the touch of the man
I never knew



his hand over mine
longer than usual...
the new moon's light
reveals an old stain
on my pillow



his fingers
ruffling my hair...
the full taste
of blackberries
for the first time


all your promises...
step after step
fearing to crush
white daffodils
lost in a deep forest

*

these trees
losing color so slowly ...
it takes only one day
for a strong wind
to leave them at rest

I wonder if you remember Eloisa
the wind gamboling in your sand-colored hair
drifting scents of orange tree flower
and you holding on your chest a crystal swan
with a lithe neck

but he’s gone and you
alike the blessed peace makers
dreamed of forgetting the wedding bells
and the silver trout jumping
or the rain plashes in limpid water
to forget how the vine branch cut before the leaves show out
cries drops of cloudy sap
to cry full of joy because the moon melted the clouds
and you have a blank look and there’s so much silence
that you cannot hear your eyelashes
trembling on your pillow
like a faraway call

Eloisa
the name of forgiveness is not forgetfulness
a north star fell over the frozen lilies in your *****
hoarfrost flowers slowly fall off from the empty cell’s window
a vestal once more
the one who forgets is therefore forgotten…

It was snowing too insistently,
snowflakes almost as big as the eye,
over nostrils, over half-open lips,
over the white lace shawl from my grandmother,
exactly when I was not supposed to wear it.
I had the profile of a porcelain statue
like a Russian girl proud of her kokoshnik.

After a while I started to breathe hardly,
choking first while crying, then while sighing
and finally while hiccuping.
Maybe because of cold and bewilderment,
or because of the strange story about mulled wine with cinnamon.
How could he possibly hide in my blood then
when I had grown up with bitter cherries and wild sorrel leaves,
when I had sipped  the milk foam my whole childhood
without crying on the blanket made of rough sheep wool?

How could that man travel between my heart’s mill stones
without being ground down completely?
Now only tears are sticking over nostrils, over half-open eyelids
like a glue from a sour cherry bark wound.
Not a single barrier, not a single one way sign,
not a single red traffic light
or at least a church with holy relics.

and it rolls head over heels
the heart
over the puffy autumn leaves
where a squirrel hops

I pull the wire fence
with my hands
it runs to and fro
the little mischievous one

a child laughs because it has a tail
I even forgot how I started to cry*
......................................................
**leaves lay under the snow
like mummified love letters
some of them freezing
over the acorns not picked yet
while the red monster hibernates

I will eat many seeds this winter
in order to toughen my roots
to grow branch over branch
in my hollowed willow

next spring I will pass over the fence
where we once kissed
to laugh myself of its tail
till I shall cry

Like a blue yo-yo ball, the earth swings back and forth towards a child’s fist. The child is content like God before the seventh day. It rains with indifference for hours and it is still spring. All humans blessed to be alone stay like seeds and yeast in their shells without the hope of any rising.

An entire district of churches, polished and gilded, rose over hearts. No more place for public toilets, no more gutters for beggars. They sleep shoulder to shoulder, their eyes hollowed out by hunger or thirst. It smells again like dead souls, they all fall from the tree of life like apples baked on the stove, sizzling, sprouting juice and cracking on the peel. The core shows up as if it were pus under the surgeon’s blade. A flood of souls is deleted from the big list.

I come back from the market with empty bags. My neighbor has a bitter-sweet smile today, like a thread of fabric torn from the hem. The small old lady from the attic passed away. She had her rhyme poems in print at some publishing house and a photo from her youth on the cover. She begged for a soup helping and shared with vagabond cats. When I hear that another human blessed to be alone died, it feels like pressing a too ripe pear with the thumb. Against my will a dimple appears, and it doesn’t taste like honey anymore.

In my room it smells like mold more and more. My bedroom is a pantry with rotten fruits between bed sheets. It looks like I will remain a worm this spring, before becoming the ant left prisoner in a deserted mole. From my white flesh only a few fat sparrows from the nearby monastery will taste. No one escapes from the common pit, except for those who know how to dig.

because of too many nightmares I’m visited by the dead
those familiar persons with ordinary words
with hobbies and bad habits
so homy /
we ride together on the horse or in the small car
we fall asleep in the bed from the doll’s house furniture

it’s too ridiculous / I am too old
to wear a dandelion flower on my chest
as a mourning sign for the sun of my childhood
when I gathered in my hands small hearts from shepherd’s purse weeds
to grow roots in another place eventually

since I have wandered on the straight road
I hide under my softly lined coat
my arms tattooed by lightnings still lively
my blood dripping in the dust
sticking like scabies onto my shoe soles // I am ashamed
to take off my shoes to follow the shortcut

the gate has moved altogether with its pillars
on the other side of the road /
I tighten my fist under the sleeve
I bend my knees and crouch
near the deserted well with the cry of a white lamb
whiter and whiter

at first the woman sits in the man’s hand when he’s resting
if he goes to work he leaves her in a dimple on the bed sheets
she yeasts like dough
she raises
and picks all flowers all apples all grains
he comes back and sees the disaster
powerless
he sees into her belly through the tips of his fingers
she sweeps and cleans afterwards
the patch of earth they sit upon together

the man and his woman
untie the comets’ tails with their hands united
they’re a supercontinent for a moment
if they break apart unnamed oceans and archipelagos emerge
under the front of his head the front of her head and so on

Before my father died I bought a ***
with a small plant, a fragile sapling
with pale green dotted leaves. He came
to my place to see me, bringing a slice
of watermelon with jagged green stripes
on its rind. He placed it in the fridge and
looked at me, asking with stern eyes: “Do  
you forgive me?” I didn’t understand his
words and I answered “Yes” with all my
heart, stabbed by his stare that moment.

He died a few days later, after calling me on
the phone, saying that I should move into
another house. I did that, taking with me
from that place my small green plant beginning
to rise. I placed it on my desktop, letting it grow...
leaf after leaf from her thin stem, like a stairway.
Eight years passed and she’s my only child, my
only friend, my only lover. She grew steadily
and slowly, I changed her compost a few times.
She’s still here, my small calico greeny treasure.
Two years ago I became a proud grandmother
for three new shoots, stemming at her feet.

I had to tie it to a plastic stick to help it grow up
And when I look at it I still can see my father’s
eyes, taking hold of my heart.

the house mouse squeaks under the heavy wardrobe
crumbs are falling
from grandpa’s black pipe
the whipped cream ice cream is dry in the compote bowl
the clock fell behind with a couple of polar nights

not I
I didn’t care for old things and I seldom dreamed to taste
carob beans to my heart’s content
rag dolls don’t smile but they laugh
their mouth stretched
double stitched with thread
I
it is a word too big for a three years old child
I forgot three years ago how much I loved from this world
I don’t forgive what’s left for me
that triangle in a circle vanished under my eyelids
traveling stars race
between my lungs’ alveolae

before falling asleep
it gets always cold
the postman rings the way he did when I lost my address
where the world had forgotten me
this is something new
the history still repeating itself
in place of the best gift

if man doesn’t have a normal percentage of insanity
the others smell him
alike the cat that finds out which kitten isn’t hers
they nudge him and push him aside
he will go stray from corner to corner all of his life
he will dry alone in his shell like a snail
without tasting the fruits of this earth
and he will die stretched in his bed like soft dough
rolled and thinned between fingers

they crucified a man in all his might

first they made him smaller
until the eyes were pin heads
and the body like a matchstick
didn’t weigh more than a dewdrop
on the snail’s tentacle

then they made him silent
buried all his words in the worn-out ditch
of an old playing record

finally they stretched him entirely
upon the small wheels of a watch
hidden in the back pocket

eventually it ticks on Easter

my body like a bugle
I listen
to the sea ruling unsettled sand
to the sky sticking to earth like a mellow pumpkin
with all its seeds

far and away
high over this mud
gathered under the soles big as a mountain
there is my country ...
the place where I can put my finger on warm bread
on the star from the stag’s front
on the bell’s rope in the old church

from sunset towards sunrise
me too I become whiter
deep into my bones
along with this only sun
always full circle
bound to be turning around my house
as if it were the world’s beginnings

my life ends here / on a Sunday’s evening
after the cross and the globe on the church’s steeple became cooler
I have never felt more non-pain non-love non-fear
the asphalt feels empty and dull for my soles / the resounding box lost its echo
I step further asymmetrically / my soul is slanting / I have no better thing to do

than to stare at people right into the whole / the full of them
without any thought
only the shadow of my elbow embraces other shadows
en passant
silhouette after silhouette
Modigliani’s women / Brâncuşi’s magic birds
la dolce morte della luce
everything flows into thoughts / thoughts into other thoughts even Charon’s boat
and right now my lips paralyzed to stop me from proving something

Good evening, your highness.
How is your sleep now in winter?
When leafless walnut trees show their smooth gray bark,
Effectively when all the trees seem mellow and ill
As if something is missing there,
Where the branches grow from their stem nodes.

Something is breaking there.

Your Highness, I am too young,
Something new still trembles inside me,
Something does not know how to let itself go
Along the road
And opposes its own nature,
I am like a newborn not accustomed yet to resignation,
I would like to succeed even if the odds are against me,
I would like to control the back-and-forth movement of the sun
As if it were a golden pendulum,
And

Then I awake and I am sorry
That I complained
It is winter time and everything seems to grow
And I am happy.

The light breaks into sparkles,
Life is an old habit, your highness,
Rebel sparks fleeing their mother’s eyes,
Like incandescent dust,
A Eucharist from centuries ago.

I feel sick of too much crying
because of too much love for people and life
I cried in every corner that was allowed to me
on the iron poker near the cold fireplace
on the brown bread slice
inside the cup of a jasmine petal
or directly in the ecological toilet

I lost my tears and then found them again
so many times
I wiped them from my lips
I spread them on a delayed train’s window
they were cold as if everyone deserted me
as if getting rid of the Christmas tree wearing protection gloves

some people believed that I was contagious
they swore upon the silence of a dead language
that they haven’t  seen a child
yet
the shadow of my doll trembles on every wall

unborn baby
I yearned for you in my empty belly
like someone hiding his tears in a pillow
I blended the bitter yeast of life with tender wheat sap
to make you grow proud and strong
to be born in a cypress shade

my child
I swayed you on my arms like a rising sun
ending with burnt shoulders in a ragged cloth
I slept with my temple over flint stones
sipped water from summer tempests
fed on wild blackberry
in order to raise you

I baptized you with an old name
in the spring water under a cross
I wiped your front with untouched grasses
bringing you up to the sky on my palms
and cleansed back to my chest

my son
I promise you that you shall have the fast horse fed on embers
that the red and the green kings shall make peace
that forests shall grow bigger and golden fields taller
as far as you’ll remember me
under your feet

I wrote a poem
like a lonely woman
crying for someone
to make a gift of it
whoever passed by
dropped the well’s lid
without looking down

from too much yelling
my eyes got dry
I was blind
it was drought
the acacia grove whistled
for such waste

suddenly the wind
bent my crisscrossed arms
I breathed soul to soul
I cried tear from tear

someone left
without a word
my poem stuck to his soles
like dust

I tore a leaf and signed
I, anno domini

while dew was still shining on flowers
mother went with her knapsack of seeds
to the cemetery
to raise petunias and daisies
father climbed to the top of the cherry tree
half-sleeping
a baby spring wind opened a pathway
in his white hair

some bees came to visit us
I waved my arms to send them away
fearing they would frighten dad
or they would make him think it was too late
waking him up
or lulling him asleep completely

at our home
while mother pulled out weeds
father lay stretched atop the cherry tree
as over a calm sea
to avoid drowning
the way all dead float still on their backs
over flowers

today’s pigeons are heavy they carry churches on their backs
they rest on my windowsill when it rains like oiling
and the world anoints to heal its lack of love
i get angry because i cannot make them leave  
they stay as long as they please knowing what i will never know
with their placid eyes in the light of this century
sometimes white-feathered
i reread the bible and my old letters under magnifying lens
my bow-tied memories
cut them as if a deck of cards to see what’s drawn out
it’s amazing nothing changed i grew old sitting at the wooden gate
on a wooden chair in  a life with basil drying under rafters
and grapevines uprooted

Prayer


candle trays are heavy
I hardly find my way among dead and alive
holding a drop of new light
crossing myself with my hand still warm

the bell-ringer pulls down the rope
people stand shoulder to shoulder
I feel the earth’s silence
candle flames sizzling in the sand
straight or bending
separated or united  

an old cross raises in the churchyard
still upright
an apple tree almost touches the stone
leaning completely towards sunrise

I bow under the entrance vaults
crossing myself again
breathing much deeper
................................................................­........

Matins


Eyes opened behind their dark veils,
convent novices step outside
deep into the fresh snow, so soft and pure.

Their fragile long shadows
begin to take shape behind them
dragged over the ivory field, trembling.

Breaking his shroud of clouds
a new sun emerges in front of them
on the right side, as bells toll stronger.
.......................................................­........................

the prophet


crisscrossed fingers
he crucified dead in a row
on the left of daughters on the right of sons
over the eye of the cascade
or the mouth of the precipice

the dead kept silent
until sick and tired of all that
but he spoke about the love from one human to another
a contagious disease
he intended to put into quarantine

from the top of sweet wood crosses
wild roses and peaches without kernel
dropped down
until God woke up for good

it started to rain
lightnings touched the flint stone
and even he died of dream deprivation

you thought they would open if you knock
tapped gently with your down eyelashes  
small bud of a girl without home
but churches don’t have eaves to shelter you from rain
and big houses have their dogs running free

they told you love is the wisdom of the fools
so you planted red tulips in a ***
and took them too early in the garden
when anyhow it snows out of the blue
over bare tree limbs
over the first cherry buds

with your big child eyes
you look as if you never saw
a sealed key hole

after all you’ll be a sore spot all your life

i won’t forget the times when i made roundish letters
in blue-black ink
as if i were crushing blackberry beads
perfumed and wild
and in the eyes of that man by chance
it was always the same toulouse-lautrec painting
with my watery blue dress
like a cloud in an armchair the color of rose petals
frozen rotted in november
with his checkered hat thrown
accidentally over my raincoat
i wondered too much
why he squeezed the whole sun between his teeth
while laughing
i continued to write about the dreams
like white dead pigeons
my lord
with the heart shielded between wings

I have very sad eyes and white hands.
My child will be born happy.

Over the earthen bread the napkin of the sky will fall,
the baptism of my son among the men who, just like me, love
their land and their work, the joy of giving, the beauty of being human,
the tall firs’ grace, the murmuring waters, the living seed within the ground.
Upon the teardrops of ****** pain a song will fall,
that unseen song that was written on a starlit staff.

For us it’s raining too much, too often,
someone gathers all cornflowers and scatters them on our bed.
When I look into my child’s eyes I am smaller and smaller,
I am warmer and warmer and I have a house of my own
with fireplace and toys,
with simple windows that let the clear sky come in entirely
after my child wipes off the steam of his breath.

All those flowers between us and we stay together.
My child plays with my fingers without counting them.
For him they are more and more as he touches them.
Just like me, he was born happy.

you waited too much
about thirty years before you can say jack robinson
cheops kephren mikerynus
otherwise life like a water under the desert
always played tricks on you
pushed you hunchbacked inside caverns
where everything drips and leaves a small hole
everything yells
tears or laughter tear off  the flesh
they’re forbidden since the world began
they declare you are subhuman
because so many still cry with their eyes closed
you are just a riddled dummy
the more you scream the more you unwind
there’s no place for you at the charity soup feast
you don’t understand why
everyone is something because you are nothing
you have no bright star left
as a proof
amid the stubs from yesterday’s garbage
you still smell good still wash yourself with soap
children still play with marbles
hitting the wall against which you lean
tentatively

alive and alone
I have to chew others’ scolding laughter or contempt
I stand tall
I stand small
with all the music in the world
smearing me like oil
in a gas station disco bar
thinking that I can’t pack my clothes
to leave the dancers behind  

sneaking in the kitchen when others are asleep
dreaming about paradise islands
where it is warmer
I slowly drink my coffee
chewing bread crusts
as if they were mom’s slippers
when my teeth were showing up

It's raining and I remember again my grandpa's words: Lord, give it clean! It feels like quenching a fire, one of the first autumn rains, its sound growing, tapping on the tin windowsills, slithering through trees and through my veins...Lord don't let us grow old, my grandpa also used to say. Is it youth or old age within this rain? Only time can tell...

rain...
the season of handmade bricks
long forgotten

To be old and white
and not ashamed to walk in the rain with a black umbrella,
to be obviously painted in white
like an old-fashioned mill,

so white that even the white cherry petals are
too heavy for the crown of your head
Such as you look out of place
compared with other people, with the red cars, with the rain
inside children’s nostrils

you keep on walking, wise like a tin toy drummer,
bringing to life the whole orchestra,
waking up those who believed they were awake,
you are the white of the paper
upon which the world wrote a masterpiece
and erased it

I was just sleeping, because of boredom, and I woke up on an empty boarding platform with its pavement stones blackened. The grass sprouted out victorious among cracks, black as coal. The wind managed to stir up the dry poplars from their dark silence. It was like the meowing of an abandoned black kitten, precociously aware of its color handicap in a hostile world, a special meowing, hollow and squeaky, pathetic and funny altogether, almost begging for a drop of curdled milk, because fresh milk is available for brown striped kittens with a fluffy face.

I began to go round the station aimlessly, feeling through my thin shoe soles that the train approached. I walked in a kind of led armor, tighter and tighter, looking with my half opened eyes towards the moon’s eyelid engulfing the clouds. The train was really coming closer popping from sleeper to sleeper, as if running right or left from its tracks, anyway completely discontent of its compulsory straight road. Its large windows had a phosphorescent shine, therefore resembling from afar with some Christmas decorations in a city with a sky dark as pitch and smoky everywhere.

I wasn’t certain if I dreamed or if I was awake when the train got in my sight. Although I trembled because of cold and fear, I don’t think I would have climbed up. At every window there was a dead body, with its face almost black, and beside every corpse there was a doll all dressed in white: a bride doll with clean and frothy laces and veils floating in the wind. The lights in every compartment were colored differently, crescendo: white, yellow, orange, red, crimson, violet, blue. At the last window it was dark, but, leaning over the sill, I could see the head of a child, safe and sound, laughing wholeheartedly.

Then  I closed my eyes and started to cry. I was no more afraid but I knew  I wasn’t asleep anymore.

it wasn’t me who invented love by my ignorance
the same way the painter doesn’t have the heart
to mix pure colors
it was there
in the times when I used to swot the differences
between useful beautiful and pleasing

first of all there grew a tree with red leaves
like man’s or woman’s lips before the first kiss
leaves were another kind of hands
trembling
preparing to fall
rustle over rustle till the last silence

only by chance I shared the same shadow
with a stranger
for the jealousy of those who did not know me
I waited for centuries close to the old tree trunk
my cheek against the dry ground
I couldn’t refuse him when he asked me
to lend him a leaf
and I didn’t even know
where do young butterflies hide when it rains bitter

people say that
after a day that tree was brought down
today no one kills himself
because of love
they’re simply killed little by little

I am the prodigal son's mother
I kept the baby swaddled too tightly until he was gone
in the world of temptations
to straighten his knees

I gave the wind my flesh to bite it forty years
in the desert with the rough sack dress over the empty belly  
I washed the feet of sacred statues with oil from olive tree *******
I gave to the rain the color of tears still yelling after my baby
from the mouth of a cavern open in the storm
I learned the barren law
of the ****** souls’ forest

like a sunflower I raised myself at sunrise
going round until the night left me bent to the earth
with my heart black and heavy with my son
who didn’t return
because of my great love

if others slithered between two air columns
the child who had never learned the race was running
as if swimming face to face with an ocean’s wall
his head like an iron ball
dragging the motionless body
only as far as the tethered roots could stretch

when his father carried him on his shoulders
the child felt through his nostrils
how the man’s steps slice the air
how the wind passes close to the ears as if
walking is another kind of flight allowed only to others
a perfectly directed music

with all his heart he would have liked to play
like a normal child
to forget he had had wings before growing roots
but others were faster while playing tag
they ran around him avoiding to touch him

he was left to be the savage defeated without fight
the blue acrobat in equilibrium on his ball
from another paradise

to raise myself little by little
up to the blackbird’s nest
already forgotten by God
my long hair more and more rough and salty
to wrap it around the bird as if a dry tree’s cradle
to feed it from my green nut eyes
from tears of happiness
to make it grow
with its wings crisscrossed
with a bolted beak
until it will be bigger than the sun in my eyeballs
and the only door opened like the clear blue sky
yet forbidden for me
would eventually close

in my man’s palm I lay my tired ear
and it’s like I can enter there completely
sleeping eyes opened a wise child’s nap
my primer book on my knees

he draws the curtains slowly
to prevent sunburns on my front
wipes a bead of sweat with his fingers
I simply don’t think at all

because all that I ever asked him
was just that round and small bed inside his left palm
where all my dreams could die
for real

this man is not alive
only his palm touches my temple my ankle my hip
he draws them in broken lines while I’m still asleep
eyes opened

the sky is heavy the eyes of the dolls are murky…
here are too many horror masks
clowns grinning washing their makeup
in the same laundry basin
one last love dies
under the glass turned upside down like an hourglass
over the ill back of the world
and how beautiful it was in the beginning
so spoke the Sybils with crystal voices  


I clasp my fists because of pain and she mounts up my heart
breaks my brain as if half of a nut
steals me beyond my chastity belt
and everyone says they still want
another stain on the bride’s dress
another drop of red wine on the shroud
another icon smeared with wax and locked in gold frame
my God why did you allow all this…


in the secret garden a nobody’s child
bites from a bitter cherry
he wanted to grow up to go round the earth
but the lily wreaths dried up too early
because only death isn’t for free we will disappear
I too and my white bird too