Unfold the map of the world and trace
a kaleidoscopic boot-shaped country
rising from the waters lavished by Atlantic
in a multicultural basin at the heart

of a flat globe. The Mediterranean birthed
by the Zanclean deluge, witness of myriad
exoduses intertwining genes to encompass
peninsular cradles of early civilisations,

a medley of ethnicities trading goods
discoveries and ideas on sailing caravels.

Two thousand years later the remnants of
the Roman Empire vote, the democracy
they had co-founded two thousand years
before, on philosophies of justice, equality

and human rights. Power to the people,
lost in the process of history making,
populaces disillusioned and frustrated
at millenary successions of failed rulings

corroborated by corruption and personal
greed of those chosen to represent them.

Today Italians vote anti-establishment
thereby at long last rejecting ideologies
of the past, too old to bare credibility
electing a party set outside the box,

no left right nor centre, victory of populism,
communism and capitalism burned
at stake for their crippling sins albeit
international cold-war renaissance attempts.

Marking the end of the twentieth century
the twenty-first bets on the refreshing breezes
of new tantalising illusions, cuts to public debt,
income of citizenship, youth employment,

tax reductions campaigned to allegedly increase
family spending, for whatever we do we are
all bound by a unique reigning doctrine under
the unified global empire, of consumerism.

I touched water yesterday white and cold,
purposely hardened by pugnaciously low
temperatures fighting to withhold
the solid fluid against a thieving star, roaring

sweltering rays to melt, moulded men
made of snow, as the girl grew disappointed
expecting whipped cream texture, lack of softness,
digging deep with fingers covered in gloves,

to make ***** to throw at others who will smile
at the jovial play, insensitive to the endeavours
of the eroded mountain modelled by many million
years of scorching suns, blistering winds,

blizzards freezing falls as they cascade, sculptures
made by nature crossed by bridges, so heavenward
drivers succumb to overwhelming giddiness
before entering an endless claustrophobic tunnel,

where science laboratories hide secrets
of the universe under a three thousand meter
elevated rock. The Great Rock of Italy an immense
park, where protected species graze unscathed,

farmers’ labours engender culinary delights
for an imprisoned dictator, while
physicists discover neutrinos beating light
at a dashing race, and Ladyhawke mutates to fly

over a nocturnal vagabonding wolf. I touched
water yesterday, white and cold, and I could
only imagine the enthralling moment when
spring will come and all shall liquesce

to replenish rivers and lakes, irrigating soils
for centenary trees to blossom once again
granting life to living creatures witnessing
the grand spectacle of perfectly attuned cycles.

I remember a dog with matted fur lounging in the shade
of a collapsed arch, staring in a way that animals sometime
stare that makes me wonder if the beliefs of Kantianism are
nothing more than old wives’ tales spun from smoke and cinder.

I remember the faint smell of sulfur mixed with seawater
in the shadow of the volcano that poured out its wrath
by the bowlful, the golden urns of the gods spilling
fire and magma from the very cradle of hell.

I remember the empty bathhouses, the villas with
half-painted frescoes, the expensive red paints made from
crushed beetle shells, the overturned tables and chairs,
the uneven stone streets carved by horse-drawn cart wheels.

I remember the skeletons huddled in boathouses,
unearthed from their ash-spun graves for prying eyes,
for the rapid shutter of camera lenses, for the proof
of their existence, as if to leer at the living and say,

“We are all nothing but carbon and bone.”

I know no home
no more.
Clouds on window panes
are forgotten
at night
through the shutters.

Moutains rest on the calm water
bringing flavours of snow.

Flies,  
unwanted company, dozed and silent
walk on the door frames
and die.

She was beginning her annual  journey; full of hope and excitement, back to what had become her saviour, her second home.
Years she'd spent within Italy's familiar arms, flooding her senses with summers past.

Could it really have been over a year since she last bathed in its beauty?
An entire year since her heart had been snatched away, and hidden behind her walls?

How that time had been good to her, and how strong she had grown.

Someone once told her that self knowledge was only ever accompanied by heartache and pain.
How wrong they had been.
Self knowledge had saved her life.
Self love had brought her back from loneliness.
How can that have been wrong?

Now she'd returned to the welcoming warm breeze, and the streets laced with a beauty that could release the most shackled of hearts.

A country where lovers are found wrapped tightly around one another.
Bound together with love.
Draped over statues from ancient Gods; their limbs intertwined revealing no beginning and no end. Just one heart made whole from two separate souls.

A country where street buses and cars, choreograph their way through the melody that the sunshine orchestrates.

A humidity that brings with it a yearning she hasn't felt in a million kisses. Her Senses re-awakened, a longing to be touched.
Finally freed from her self made cage.

She finds interest and delight in every withered portrait, and in the faces of every chess game, within the laziness its players boastfully adopt.

She soaks up the sticky sweet aroma like a honey bee to the morning dew.
And she is at home.

As night falls, the crickets gently rock her to sleep as she drifts away, into tomorrow's dreams of the awaiting breath taking sights and cuisines.

She falls deep into her bed.
Italy has her in its trusting arms.

She is at peace once again.

You are the roads in Venice
Getting lost in your voice
Like getting lost in those streets
So hard to find my way out
But maybe I don’t want to
Maybe I want to wander these streets
And eat pasta and pizza
And dream of a life with you
You say you need to go
But your eyes plead
For a reason to stay
In your eyes I see Venice
And the people in the town center
Enjoying their gorgeous city
You ask me if I love you
And I lean in to kiss you
And whisper how much I love you
But you were never there

The house so full of symmetry
light in every window in every
angle, 360º view around the bend
walls beginning to break from loneliness
the light awash in so many colors
on the canvas of the walls
the hill behind still wet with the sun's light
freshly painted themselves
Purples, Oranges, Blues
empty and yet so settled into the land
the house on the hill

An eternal, infernally short second as the car ride
shakes my hand and my impressions blur.

i. once upon a time, there were old gods and new gods. under crumbling archways the divine and the cursed share cigarettes, lighters cupped in their hands. rain pours relentlessly from the heavens, falling to the uneven cobblestone in a sheen of silver spears and smoke. this time, nothing but prayers are shed.

ii. this is their communion: an errant hand brushes against the marbled form of Hades, rowboats rock harmlessly to the temple of Asclepius, feet shuffle across the white line and into the holy land. it is in these moments that solitude begets peace.

iii. angels tuck in their tired wings, roosting on bridges and cathedrals and alleyway corners spun with ivy. amongst themselves they count the crowds that take shelter in their shadows. every day, the numbers swell until even the loneliest of the celestial feel a warmth in their gilded chests.

iv. these same seneschals pour life through golden urns, as they had done eons before the she-wolf who nursed the founders of Roma was ever born. water flows steadily from all four rivers and through the eagle-face spics that dot the roads, blessed by frail, rosary-stained hands. even the Tiber, full of harsh currents and deep embankments, softens under the touch of a child at a fountain. life flourishes. the gods smile.

v. once upon a time, i met these cursed and divine and celestial beings. all lived together in a city as old as time itself, in a city born from clay, then wrought with brick, and finished in marble. and in this place of impossibilities, i found my heart.
.
.

i found my home