Dear Spanish breeze,
You rolled up my inspirational sleeves.
You gave me a glorious sight and placed me in an inventive light.
I call you a thief in the night for robbing words out of my mouth.
You guide my fingertips and the lips of my pen
by kisses of daydreams and endless ideas.
I am a home where the sweetest poems abide in.
Ready to come out and imprint a thousand pages.
What a delight to travel through poetic time of this artistic city.

Dear Spanish sun,
You burned my lack of poetic desire.
You colored my inventiveness like you darkened my skin.
I admire the way you have inspired me to become the poetess i aspire to be.
Your ravishing art undressed the indecisive poetess in me.
So here I stand emotionally naked in front of written truth
ready to loose myself in your Catalan atmosphere.
"Rest your ears darling and let your eyes whisper poetic visuals," you say.
And i close my eyes. I travel through this dream till forever ends.

A rose in the high garden that you desire.
A wheel in the pure syntax of steel.
The mountain stripped of impressionist mist.
Greys looking out from the last balustrades.

Modern painters in their black studios,
Sever the square root's sterilized flower.
In the Seine's flood an iceberg of marble
freezes the windows and scatters the ivy.

Man treads the paved streets firmly.
Crystals hide from reflections' magic.
Government has closed the perfume shops.
The machine beats out its binary rhythm.

An absence of forests, screens and brows
Wanders the roof-tiles of ancient houses.
The air polishes its prism on the sea
and the horizon looms like a vast aqueduct.

Marines ignorant of wine and half-light,
decapitate sirens on seas of lead.
Night, black statue of prudence, holds
the moon's round mirror in her hand.

A desire for form and limit conquers us.
Here comes the man who sees with a yellow ruler.
Venus is a white still life
and the butterfly collectors flee.

Cadaqués, the fulcrum of water and hill,
lifts flights of steps and hides seashells.
Wooden flutes pacify the air.
An old god of the woods gives children fruit.

Her fishermen slumber, dreamless, on sand.
On the deep, a rose serves as their compass.
The ****** horizon of wounded hankerchiefs,
unties the vast crystals of fish and moon.

A hard diadem of white brigantines
wreathes bitter brows and hair of sand.
The sirens convince, but fail to beguile,
and appear if we show a glass of fresh water.

Oh Salvador Dalí, of the olive voice!
I don't praise your imperfect adolescent brush
or your pigments that circle those of your age,
I salute your yearning for bounded eternity.

Healthy soul, you live on fresh marble.
You flee the dark wood of improbable forms.
Your fantasy reaches as far as your hands,
and you savor the sea's sonnet at your window.

The world holds dull half-light and disorder,
in the foreground humanity frequents.
But now the stars, concealing landscapes,
mark out the perfect scheme of their courses.

The flow of time forms pools, gains order,
in the measured forms of age upon age.
And conquered Death, trembling, takes refuge
in the straightended circle of the present moment.

Taking your palette, its wing holds a bullet-hole,
you summon the light that revives the olive-tree.
Broad light of Minverva, builder of scaffolding,
with no room for dream and its inexact flower.

You summon the light that rests on the brow,
not reaching the mouth or the heart of man.
Light feared by the trailing vines of Bacchus,
and the blind force driving the falling water.

You do well to place warning flags
on the dark frontier that shines with night.
As a painter you don't wish your forms softened
by the shifting cotton of unforeseen  clouds.

The fish in its bowl and the bird in its cage.
You refuse to invent them in sea or in air.
You stylize or copy once you have seen,
with your honest eyes, their smal agile bodies.

You love a matter defined and exact,
where the lichen cannot set up its camp.
You love architecture built on the absent,
admitting the banner merely in jest.

The steel compass speaks its short flexible verse.
Now unknown islands deny the sphere.
The straight line speaks of its upward fight
and learned crystals sing their geometry.

Yet the rose too in the garden where you live.
Ever the rose, ever, our north and south!
Calm, intense like an eyeless staute,
blind to the underground struggle it causes.

Pure rose that frees from artifice, sketches,
and opens for us the slight wings of a smile
(Pinned butterfly that muses in flight.)
Rose of pure balance not seeking pain.
Ever the rose!

Oh Salvador Dalí of the olive voice!
I speak of what you and your paintings tell me.
I don't praise your imperfect adolescent brush,
but I sing the firm aim of your arrows.

I sing your sweet battle of Catalan lights,
you love of what might be explained.
I sing your heart astronomical, tender,
a deck of French cards, and never wounded.

I sing longing for statues, sought without rest,
your fear of emotions that wait in the street.
I sing the tiny sea-siren who sings to you
riding a bicycle of corals and conches.

But above all I sing a shared thought
that joins us in the dark and the golden hours.
It is not Art, this light that blinds our eyes.
Rather it is love, friendship, the clashing of swords.

Rather than the picture you patiently trace,
it's the breast of Theresa, she of insomniac skin,
the tight curls of Mathilde the ungrateful,
our friendship a board-game brightly painted.

May the tracks of fingers in blood on gld
stripe the heart of eternal Catalonia.
May stars like fists without falcons shine on you,
while your art and your life burst into flower.

Don't watch the water-clock with membranous wings,
nor the harsh scythe of the allegories.
Forever clothe and bare your brush in the air
before the sea peopled with boats and sailors.

You smell like rain
kissing dry earth. Your
magnificent torso rises
over buttocks I want
to sculpt. Your skin is softer
than cocoa butter and I am

lost. In your eyes, I see
stories. In your taste, I forget.
The rhythm of your heartbeat
lulls me to safety. But
will you stay to steep
the tea? Or halve my pills?

Everywhere is mulch and moss.
And fog and despair. But I come
back to the smell of rain.
And wait
for the sun to shine.

You could have been my Catalan queen.
Such a pocket-sized delight,
Like the one sung by Jack White,
But more of a fun and friendly scene.

You studied graphic design,
And looked after my Spanish group,
And made me want to always stoop
To embrace you for all time.

I'd have given the world to see that smile,
See your beauty one more time,
Sit down with a glass of wine,
Or beer, sangria for a little while.

The offer was open, disguised by others,
And I strongly felt that you were keen,
But, alas, the student's disco scene
Would prevent us from being lovers.

And so I sit, alone with pen,
And mourn what was never meant to be -
It breaks my heart that it is likely
That we will never meet again.

Within the four walls of this library
sit three walls packed into the corner;
shelves, stuffed full of books with dog-eared pages
and slip-disc’d spines and fraying edges,
and a big white sign, which dangles from the ceiling
like a megabat hung on a cave mouth, sleeping and dreaming,
the word “NONFICTION” is inscribed on its countenance,
adjacent to signs shouting “MYSTERY” and “SCIENCE
FICTION” and “FANTASY” and “ROMANCE”
and a thousand other sorts of words
for myth and fabrication. But in this corner
live the rest, the et ceteras, the miscellaneous,
the kingdom of protists; for instance, care for some ethics?
Marx’s manifesto is stacked lazily beside a heap of essays by Rand;
you can practically see the two of them, shaking hands
uneasily, the will to never understand already forming
in their brains, and others yet remain;
Capote and the Clutters share shelf space
with the Mansons, hiding helter skelter behind
gnostic gospels and silent springs and a thousand
dreams for Freud to interpret (translated
from German for your convenience); nearby,
Orwell sings war songs in Catalan, accompanied
by the universe’s most elegant superstrings,
and the caged birds, singing of freedom,
harmonizing a melodious cacophony with the song
of the executioner. Butler criticizes his performance,
and she probably would have anyway, but Friedan thinks
he has a certain sort of mystique and Dawkins offers his own critique,
going on about genes and memes, extinction and delusion, but
not hallucinations—Sacks makes the distinction; let us continue
to praise famous men, and their children after them,
these naked apes, with minds so ***** that
they’re riddled with the emperors of all maladies; oh, Morris
Kinsey and Mukherjee could tell you all about these things,
maybe over lunch with Schlosser or dinner with Pollan,
minglings with Machiavelli over affairs of the state,
or affairs of space and a brief history of time; but,
if you're feeling too full to eat, or to pray, or to love,
ask Frankl what to do, let him change your life
with words from decades yore as he keeps on
his search for meaning just like every man before, at least
that's the case when these boys’ lives weren’t preoccupied
by artful war or bright and shining lies. And here,
by the holy bookend, lies some old and antiquated glossary
which lost most of its “glossy” many years ago,
for one flip through the pages will catalogue the changes
between what we thought we knew about the stars
and our bodies and doomsday as recently
as your last birthday, and all the things that everyone says
we now know that we know; speak,
memory, remember all you can
about this endless, sundry cosmos, and
the microcosms that it boasts; bury my heart,
if not at Wounded Knee, then maybe at this
library, where comprehension and speculation
find themselves in coexistence, packed into a single
point resembling the genesis, and fear and hope
take dueling forms, those of fact and mystery;
and now all that’s left to do is read,
until the end of history.

Trois Poèmes sur l’été en Corse et Letia
L’été Corse

L'été est la saison bleue
tant attendue, tant espérée
quand le froid de l'hiver vous glace,
quand le printemps pleure à grands eaux.
L'été s'installe quand le soleil
brule, hardi, de tous ses feux,
que la lumière devient reine de jour
et que les soirs s'étirent et se prélassent
Les fleurs et plantes du Maquis
ne sont pas encoure roussies
et forment comme un tapis bariolé de couleurs.
Les senteurs nous embaument
de leurs sucs capiteux
et nous nous croirons presque
dans une vaste parfumerie à ciel ouvert.
La mer parfois ridée de mousse blanche
devient parfois turquoise, émeraude ou bleu outre-mer.
Mais le soir venu le soleil se plonge
dans des rougeoiements varies
qui irritent et bariolent l'horizon.
Alors que s'assombrit ces curieuses tours génoises trapues ou rondes qui faisaient mine de protéger les anciens.
Et sont autant de rappels des périls barbaresques durant les temps médiévaux et modernes



                                                      *
Le café de Letia Saint Roch

Il est dans ce gracieux village de Letia, à flanc de Rocher, un endroit ayant résisté à la disparition des commerces. C'est le café de Toussaint Rossi, placé au cœur du village et tenant lieu de salle commune. Ce centre de vies, de rires et de joie comporte un antique et majestueux poêle en fonte, et des décors muraux faits de multiples coupes d'anciennes victoires aux tournois de boules et de foot et chargé des espoirs à venir. Surtout, les murs sont décorés de gravures austères de Sanpiero Corsu et de Pascal Paoli, attestant de l'attachement des villageois aux temps forts de l'histoire Corse. L'hospitalité est depuis bien longtemps assurée par l'excellent Toussaint Rossi, lequel fait aussi le partenaire des parties de belotes contrées. Maintenant sa nièce Emmanuelle apporte aujourd'hui, à ce café,  son dynamisme souriant et son sourire enjôleur. A l'occasion de la Saint-Roch et du tournoi de boules, «Vincent Battesti»,  la salle prend des airs de café-concert et cousins, amis et villageois entonnent le répertoire des chants «nustrale», lequel dure parfois **** dans la nuit quand scintille un peu l'Esprit du village. Aux anciennes chansons de nos parents : «la boudeuse» et «Il pescatore dell'onda» s’ajoutent les succès nouveaux comme «Amerindianu» et l'admirable chant du Catalan, Lluis Llach,  «l'Estaca», traduit en langue Corse. Les voix s'accordent et les chœurs vibrent à l'unisson, sur ce répertoire commun qui arrive à élever le sentiment d'unité et à souder les valeurs des êtres.

                                                               *

Le pont de l’embouchure du Liamone,

Sous la fausse apparence d'une large rivière tranquille se perdant dans les sables,
Le «Liamone», prenant sa source sur les montagnes de Letia peut se révéler torrent furieux.
Cependant il se jette mollement dans le grand bleu en s’infiltrant par un mole de sable.
Cet endroit est magique car il mêle, mer et rivière, poissons d'eau douce et de mer,
La plaine alluviale qui l'entoure est large et propice aux cultures,
ce qui est rare dans cette partie de la Corse aux côtes déchiquetés.
Il annonce les vastes plages de Sagone dont la plus belle,
mais non la moins dangereuse fait face à l'hôtel «Santana».
Le nouveau pont du Liamone a des formes de grand oiseau bleu,
Et déploie des deux ailes blanches sur les eaux vertes de la rivière.
Cet endroit peu hospitalier aux nageurs car l’on à pied que peu de temps sur de fins galets tranchants
Il l'est en revanche très agréable aux poissons et aux pêcheurs,
car il mêle les eaux et le plancton
C’est aussi un endroit magique pour celles et ceux qui goûtent par-dessus tout,
La Liberté sans contrainte, le soleil, une vaste étendue de sable et les points de vue,
car plusieurs promontoires ou collines inspirées sont encore coiffées de vestiges de tour,
et le regard porte **** comme pour surveiller et protéger les populations des antiques razzias barbaresques.

Paul Arrighi.

I won't write a letter to some president
Whoever they may be
Because if they ever truly wanted freedom
They would tear down the fences
And make the White House a shelter for the  homeless  
Or they would fill all the empty houses on my street
And every other empty house on every other street with empty houses
If there is something I've learned from 21 years
Is that its the common people who make the real change in this world
It's the common people who build the world for all to life in
For me this started at Peekskill
When 20 thousand men and women
formed a wall so Paul Robeson could sing safe from harm
Then I learned of Spain in the 30s
From the Asturian miners to the Catalan anarchists
The guns that protected Madrid and thousands of voices singing A Las Barricadas and No Pasarán
And some nights I whisper a curse for every bomb that struck Guernica
Meanwhile in West Virginia common people fought for equality at Harper's Ferry and for the rights of the workers at Blair Mountain
And even today in southern Mexico, it's the common people who are creating Zapata's great dream of a world where land belongs to those who work it
The people of this world are capable of such beautiful things
All the dollars in all the banks can't buy out the human spirit
And all the bullets in all the guns can't lessen the strength of us all standing together
And just as a wise man once said:
"We carry a new world here, in our hearts. That world is growing in this minute."