Sherbet morning sky
orange juice sun glare
squeezes out
a flavour spectrum
of gelato delight
a sky to slowly **** upon.

© M.L.Emmett

A dark moonless night,
Envelopes and hides the field.
The puddles upon the ground,
Have lost their crimson hue.
The twisted stiffened bodies,
Hidden in long deep shadows.

His perch atop the Bell Tower
A lofty lonely isle amid,
A sea of waste and death.
His filthy hands still griping
His instrument of war,
His eye straining at the glass
Searching for movement
In the silent depths below,
Finger on the trigger,
Sweat upon his brow

Three days have come and gone,
Since he climbed those stairs
And took his place among
The pigeons’ and the bells.
He had been a mere boy of
Seventeen three long days ago.
Now he felt a hundred sick,
And tired years old.
And even the pigeons had
Deserted him and flown,
Or been shot to pieces,
From the troops below.

His fingers took inventory,
Only sixteen rounds remained.
He had fired his weapon
Over ninety times and
Never once, had he missed.
Haunting ****** pictures,
Of their devastation continuously
Replayed in his head.

An hour ago he heard
Its treads and engine
Churning in the dark.
The tank had come for him,
Would **** him at first light.

Strangely he felt no fear,
Resigned and willing,
To make of this,
A final, fitting end.
Grown to a man and dead,
All within four days span.

I catch the rapido train from Milano and edge slowly westward through the stops and starts of frozen points and village stations. The heating fails and an offer of warmer seats in another compartment. I decide to stay here. I put on my coat, scarf, hat and gloves and sit alone. In my grieving time, I feel closer to the cold world outside as it moves past me, intermittently. Falling snow in window-framed landscapes.            

Sky gun metal grey
shot through
with sunset ribbons.
                                                                                                          
Dusk eases into black-cornered night. After Maghera, the train seems to race to the sea. It rumbles onto the Ponte della Ferrovia, stretching out across the Laguna Veneta. Suddenly, a jonquil circle moon pulls the winter clouds back and shines a lemony silver torch across the inky waters. Crazed and cracked sheets of ice lie across the depthless lagoon. The train slows again and slides into Santa Lucia. I walk into the night.                                                                                               
Bleak midwinter      
sea-iced night wind
bites bitter.
                                                                                                      
No. 2 Diretto winding down the Canal Grande.  The foggy night muffles the guttural throb of the engine and turns mundane sounds into mysteries. Through the window of the vaporetto stop, the lights of Piazza San Marco are an empty auditorium of an opera house. Walking to Corte Barozzi, I hear the doleful tolling of midnight bells; the slapping of water and the *****-***** of the gondolas’ mooring chains. Faraway a busker sings Orfeo lamenting his lost Eurydice, left in Hades.
I wake to La Serenissima, bejewelled.                                                                                                                           
Weak winter sunshine
Istrian stone walls
flushed rosy.
                                                                                                          
Rooftops glowing. Sun streaming golden between the neck and wings of the masted Lion. Mist has lifted, the sky cloudless; I look across the sparkling Guidecca canal and beyond to the shimmering horizon.          
Molten mud
bittersweetness demi-tasse
Florian’s hot chocolate                    

I walk the maze of streets, squares and bridges; passing marble well-heads and fountains, places of assignation. I walk on stones sculpted by hands, feet and the breath of the sea. Secrets and melancholy are cast in these stones.                                                                  

At Fondamente Nuove, I take Vaporetto no.41 to Cimitero. We chug across the laguna, arriving at  the western wall of San Michele.  I thread through the dead, along pathways and between gravestones. At the furthest end of the Cemetery island, Vera and Igor Stravinsky lie in parallel graves like two single beds in an hotel room. Names at the head, a simple cross at the foot of the white stone slab. Nearby, his flamboyant mentor Serge Diaghalev. His grave, a gothic birdbath for ravens, has a Russian inscription; straggly pink carnations, a red votive candle and a pair of ragged ballet shoes with flounces of black and aquamarine tulle tied to their the ribbons. So many dead in mausoleums; demure plots; curious walled filing cabinets, marble drawer ossuaries.
                                                                                                      
Bare, whispering Poplars
swaying swirling shadows
graves rest beneath          

I walk to the other end of the island and frame Venezia in the central arch of the Byzantine gateway.  I see that sketchy horizontal strip of rusty brick, with strong verticals of campaniles and domes. It is here, before 4 o’clock closing time, I throw your ashes to the sea and run to catch the last boat.                                                                                          

Beacon light orange
glittering ripples
on the dove grey lagoon.

© M.L.Emmett
First published in New Poets 14: Snatching Time, 2007, Wakefield Press, Kent Town SA.
To view with Images: Poems for Poodles https://magicpoet01.wordpress.com

Idyllic love poems wander the hills
with a pining goat herd playing his pipe
and singing mournful song
echoing down the quartz sculpted gorge
beneath waterfalls
where alabaster-skinned Naiads
lithe and languorous
bathed in crystal brooks.

Romantic poems lounge on sofas breathless  
wearing corsets and crinolines
desperate
and untouched
*******
strands of hair

   John Donne’s love poems
are wet
  with wit.

I want to sleep and take my evening slow
Each night is full of thoughts I need to fear
I learn to let the shadows slowly go

I feel by thinking all we need to know
I listen to the blood pulse in our ear
I want to sleep and take my evening slow

There’s steady breath and warmth in touching you
Curled round your curves I nestle softly there
I learn to let the shadows slowly go

Awake in moonlit silence tell me how
I walk the landing climb the winding stair
I want to sleep and take my evening slow

My head is filled with things I have to do
Let’s go and breathe the jasmine scented air
I’m learning how to make the shadows go

I’m uncertain I can ever hope to know
A way for sleep to rest with death so near
I want to sleep and take my evening slow
I learned to let the shadows slip and go


© M.L. Emmett

The white bleached corpse of day is fast
- reddened, bloodied -
torn to scarlet shreds of evening
slashed by wild and fiery crimsons.

Light leaching and passing westward
from bridge to bridge
garlands of mist drift up the river

Shadows dart, shelter and linger
blackness creeps and claws
the shades of night

Darkness spills down docks and ditches
fingers through the strands of light
by midnight every dock is still

Moon hangs full, naked and weary
slow stiching silver threads
through tall ships rigging
in the dim and dreary night

A yapping dog disturbs the quiet
more insistent than the stars.


© M.L.Emmett

Blood punching hard through every vein
White thunder drums with fists of rain
Lightning’s whip cracks flashing white
Ships heave and seem to leap in light

Sea spins and swirls staccato pace
Engulfing waves rush strong embrace
Blood pounds the human heart with fear
Just spume and brine with no-one near

Cold wind is whining overhead
Its roaring sound could raise the dead
The strafing power of Nature’s might
On this shuddering dark, bleak night.


© M.L.Emmett