Walking down the streets of Rome,
I saw a curious sight.
There, sitting at an expensive
street side cafe was a gentleman
distinguished in age,
surrounded by beautiful women,
but seated next to a tiny,
30 centimeter tall ******,
who was obviously crazy,
or as you might say in Italian,
a pazzo.

My fascination overcame shyness,
and I approached the man
to introduce myself.
To my surprise, he invited me to sit,
and enjoy coffee with him.

He already knew my coy curiosity,
and when latte arrived
he began to tell me
his strange tale of wandering
on the sands of Arabia.

On a starry, Gethsemanean night,
after supper with friends,
he wandered into the acrid sands
and stumbled upon an ancient
lamp.

He picked it up beneath the moonlight sky,
and in a jestful mood rubbed it
hoping to find a miracle to ease
his troubles.

To his surprise, a green-hue jinn,
sprang forth from the ancient
lips of a forgotten lamp,
to grant him three wishes.

Gathering wit, and wonder
he pondered good fortunate
short and long, before asking
his wishes:

"Please, mighty jinn with the light
green hair, grant me
fortune, so I may live the rest of my life
in comfort."
In a swirl of misty memories
he was transported to ancient Rome
and watched as random events
were tilted in his favor until
he sat at this cafe a powerful and rich man.

Pleased with himself,
he stared into twinkling jade eyes,
and said:
"I lounge in carefree wealth, but
I cannot not buy true Beauty. Please, powerful jinn,
let beautiful women surround me and tend to my needs."
Once again, back to Christmas past
he watched all the beautiful women
of his desire being collected,
and bound to one single ring
of power, to serve, obey, and
grant all his carnal desires.

I envied him there sitting in
Armani suit, with twelve pairs of sensuous
legs longingly waiting upon his
every wish.

My fantasy of an exchanged life
ended quickly with cold champagne.
That crazy, diminutive pazzo,
had in lunacy decided to wet everyone's dreams
with real spurts of fizzy Prosecco.

I turned to my host to beg
a question, but he had the answer
already. In tired voice, he responded,
"you wonder why I keep a 30 centimeter Pazzo
with me at all times?"
"That was a misunderstanding he said,
but you can only wish upon a jinn once."
"Che cazzo!"

Oh my bella Signora why you wanna break my poor heart
Dino he tells me quietly, he saw you with that grande Signore
Tells me you make the **** eyes and **** laugh ooh lika that
But which for me you don't smile **** like that, maybe I bore
Dino says, Signore pretend and ask why you laugh like that
Bella Signora, why can't you see for you I have more amore

Oh my bella signora, Sofia says that Signore has grosso cazzo
Now I wonder if our friendship is beyond Via della Conciliazione
I make for you good coffee and don't rope you in with any lasso
Play as you like, I will bring you roses in rosa at Palazzo Torlonia
Don't leave to go drinking with that Signore at  Campo Marzio
I'm sad because alcune donne says Signore has good testimonial

Oh my bella Signora if you break my heart I will run away to Haiti
People they say, you play with quattro corteggiatore or pretendenti
I say to Marcello, pretend as in English is more like it, go tell tutti
I know window dressing when I see it, know you are too faulty
You like rosa, yes! you like *****, maybe Martini or a cool Chianti
But I worry maybe that Signore turn your head with Royal Treaty

This very dawn is just a white breath,
an obscene pain: a semblance
of you hardening my veins.
And my father wakes me up: asking
for car keys, but i'll need them
to see if i am seeing you
and then we fight. This october
annoys me and is cheating,
but what i meant is good for you too
you who, with your ecstatic moods,
never listen nor care, ever: as if
on certain days water comes even from the sun
and in mirror shop windows i’m all blue.
And there’s nothing like a ****
that can liberate from the future,
from the multitude of folds
and parts above, over which i identify,
as, on the other hand, all do. So i’m
seeking those private holy parts
and i immediately see yours, that you
reckon so distinguishable. That semblance
of yours, and its vessels, are as red as
bootyless burglars or amphorae,
turned to chamber pots
or spittoons. And
my mum shows up doing the math
about the month that’s not coming ; and yet she knows
that our rhythms are not alike .
Not that i’m feeling supportive gender empathy; rather,
i would not wish daughters like her. I’ll withdraw
if i hear them trot me out, in the room
that i want inadequate and warm; i’ll be
alone or with someone: i’ll disclose you
tomorrow on the phone, without telling you.
-----------------------------------------------------------
­Italian version, written in 1995

turbe vascolari

l’alba proprio bianca è un alito,
un dolore osceno: una parvenza
di te che indurisce le vene.
e mio padre mi sveglia: chiede
le chiavi della macchina, ma la macchina
mi serve per vedere se ti vedo
e litighiamo. quest’ottobre
disturba e mi tradisce,
ma quello che ** deciso è un bene anche per te
che non stai, con una certa tua aria estatica,
ad ascoltare né a sentire, mai: come
in certi giorni l’acqua viene anche dal sole
e nelle vetrine a specchio sono tutta azzurra.
e non c’è niente come un cazzo
che possa liberare dal futuro,
da questa moltitudine di pieghe
e parti sotto, sopra cui mi riconosco,
come, d’altra parte tutti. la cerco dunque
questa parte, privata e benedetta,
e penso subito alla tua, che credi che
si conosca cosí bene. quella sua
parvenza, e i vasi, sono rossi co-
me le vergogne di ladri senza refur-
tiva o anfore, a far pitali
o sputacchiere. e
mia madre arriva e fa di conto
sul mese che non torna; eppure sa
che i nostri ritmi sono differenti.
non che senta, io, solidale complicità di genere; anzi,
non vorrei figlie come lei. mi ritirerò se
li sentirò tirarmi in  ballo, nella stanza
che mi piace scarna e riscaldata; starò
da sola o con qualcuno: te lo telefono
domani, senza dirti niente.

ink or coffee blotches - most certainly creases:
chicken scratching for hand gesticulating
weaving together letters...

is this some sine qua non when romancing /
breaking into an effort:

name man, any man: as gallop -
           or tire calling him: frivolously extending
the whips of Xerxes -
some lesser creature would cost less
to hinder - ordeals of turtles and of rocks -
creatures of disproportionate sizing
with beards that attained
                              an eye's focus for waterfalls...

om - which ended as an omlette -
                          or aum -
                        and no (indefinite),
    not (definite) - aubergine -
   at best outlandish -
   for all this prepositional
   and conjunctional juggling:
  as if this, already wasn't...
               a joke of imitating convo.

                   - not by candlelight -
or by the itching glare of electric insomnia,
as bothersome as: the horizon and
London, just "there" might be...
              
    fiat voluntas tua!                (albeit...)
                                         sub rosa...

                                  as ever: what's new
or could possibly be?

                       - a question that does not desire
an answer: but what to observe?
    throw as much latin into the cauldron...
  heap upon heap of it...
latin like butter, red kidney and / or cannellini
beans all bloated -
       in a sauce thickened by
potatoes...

                     better than latin then...
a live tongue - a slimy fish of a tongue -
   so zazzi - some singing zing -
                  some amore lazio...
                       some pippa: bara-bing
para-bling...
                        and the pope's p'oo'ooh oops:
poops and not the chimera: pops!

  lingo moderno - linguaggio
  moderna lingo - bagaggio -
  dodging: gergo...

nove mesi a la puzza:
                             poi er tormento de la scola,
la cacca a la ssediola...
     er governo, lo spedale, li debbiti, la fica...

ciliegie e uva
          rafano e sedano rapa...
mare e cielo
              marrone di tutto:
                           soprattutto cazzo...            

zoom-zoom zours: russhin'o cap'oh
snare:                    pi-ц-a                  oh: eee...  

somehow i can only add:
thank god this isn't music...
           i bid - as much fun frustrations as:
i came to have...
mit herr watt - or rather:
                      mit watt und herr knott.

"IF YOU TICKLE US..."

The moon intently listens
to the open air

production of
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

- in Venice

this delicious summer’s night
(hemmed in by houses)

where we discover that

“The quality of mercy
is not
strained...”

as a couple upstairs
come home and proceed to make
long loud passionate love

“...it droppeth like.. “

another couple scream and fight
as windows smash and plates crash

“... the gentle rain from Heaven...”

“Agghhh! ”
“Cazzo in culo! ”

and throws his clothes out
the now broken window

“...upon the earth below...”

as a gondola ghosts by in mist
with an atrocious tourist version of
“O Sole Mio! ”

as another window
lights up
and a telly bellows
a dubbed in gangster shoot out.

“Aggggh!
“Va fancip! ”

We are enthralled with
(delighted and enraptured)

not only with
the splendour that is Shakespeare

but also with
the real life drama

of this gentle Italian night
and of how we got

our “pound of flesh.”

The Phantom of Genoa

Along the docks of Genoa, a man with bent shoulder walks
he is thin and pale like he hides under his winter coat
it can be very cold in Genoa, for him the winter is everlasting.
Few people recognize him, those who do to avoid him
of this huddled figure of cowardice; they see in him themselves
the humiliation of weakness buried deep within their soul.
Once he had been a popular captain on a cruise liner, he
failed, shamed by his nation and worst of all himself.
“Vada a Bordo Cazzo.” Rings in his ears.
Shouted in his whenever he appears in public.
Unforgiven he walks the street night street; he is our ghost.

"IF YOU TICKLE US. . ."

moon intently
listens
to the open air

production of
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
- in Venice

this delicious summer’s night
(hemmed in by houses)
where we discover that

“The quality of mercy
is not
strained...”

as a couple upstairs
come home and proceed to make
long loud passionate lust

“...it droppeth like.. “
another couple scream and fight
as windows smash and plates crash

“... the gentle rain from Heaven...”
“Agghhh! ”
“Cazzo in culo! ”

and throws his clothes out
the now broken window
“...upon the earth below...”

as a gondola ghosts by in mist
with an atrocious tourist version of
“O Sole Mio! ”

as another window
lights up
and a telly bellows

a dubbed in gangster shoot out.
“Aggggh!
"Fongool”

we are enthralled
(delighted and enraptured)
not only with

the splendour that is
Shakespeare
but also

the real life drama
of this gentle
Italian night

and of how
we got
our “pound of flesh."

THE REST OF THE STORY


The dried up lake contrived to look both
surprised & embarrassed

like a lady in a bad dream wearing no clothes
whilst singing in church or doing the supermarket shop.

When I say 'lake' I mean the body of water
that lived up in the old quarry.

It always gave us kids nightmares.

Our parents always warned us not to
go there ...but go there

we always did 'cos it was dangerous.

And that was its attraction.
Danger barely tamed and still feral.

It would give us the creeps just looking at it in sunlight.

The police tape looked real pretty
fluttering in the slight breeze like an art installation

that everyone who was someone
deemed important without knowing its meaning

or if it had one.

But hey what do I know?

The lake wore its dead body
like a cheap glass ring pretending it was diamond.

When I say dead body I mean skeleton.

The skeleton wore concrete shoes
as if it had stepped straight from a corny gangster movie

riddled with cliché.

It just grinned at the police
flash photography as if it were a celebrity

famous for being a celebrity.

He still wore a heavy gold crucifix
on a thick chain around its neck

that shone in the sun.

The sun smiled down as if it were smiling down
on a picnic or an ordinary walk in the park

as if it were innocent of the things it seen.

'Hey, I'm Summer being Summer...! ' it seemed to say
'Dead guy eh...what a ******! '

The dead guy was alive in his death
as if he were soaking up being the centre of attention.

And yeah sure it was just another ordinary Summer
when I was 9 or ten or something like that

but this was just the beginning of the story...
...the rest of the story was somewhere else.


*


Guy told me this in Harry's Bar in Venice and all this just added up to how he came to finally live in Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. I was fascinated by the pre-story and his way of telling the story by interrupting his telling by a quirky "...when I say....I mean...." It was worth buying him a drink just to get drunk on that story.

The story was fuel'd by many a Bellini. The guy was a blend between Orson and Ernest as if they had both reincarnated at the same time and simultaneously tried to claim the one body. His name was Sinclair...I had never met anyone with the first name Sinclair before...he was better than a book. È tutto pepe indeed! Wot a guy! Che figata! Che figata!

He was highly energetic in both body and mind and telling stories about their times of being 4 or 7 and 11. This story came forth from man who at 90 was full of zip and zest. I only picked up bits here and there and never found out where his there was.

I was enjoying his speech movements and characteristic tics with that defining "When I say....I mean..." The story went by at a hundred miles ah hour but totally enthralled me and 50 years later still lives on in my mind.

I wish I could have captured his essence and this is only a pale imitation of how wonderful  he was. All the imagery is his too and I merely a Boswell to his Johnson.

Once saw THE MERCHANT OF VENICE...in Venice. It bobbed along with several different languages taking up the tale and done in a Commedia dell'Arte style. If that wasn't enough...gondolas glided by with their sixpence worth of kitsch touristy songs whilst a gangster movie blared out of a window and two floors up from that a couple made mad passionate ***....everything blended with everything else....real life and Shakespeare all sharing the same outdoor stage.

The best bit was when she( of the mad passionate *** bit )threw all his clothes outta de window and told him to 'cazzo nel culo!' The real life bit I'm afraid by then was beginning to eclipse the Shakespeare bit( sorry Will ). It was almost as unforgettable as Sinclair's rambling tale of "how we came to live in Bet-LE-ham!"

Venice was almost too luscious for words but Sinclair and his tale of how we got from here to there and then "that" production of TMOV was all just too much for this tiny little mind.

Went back again but nothing as spectacular as "that" ever happened again....guess I was in the right place at just the right on time. The mind going "Heeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

This be an experimental prose poem letting the prose ramble on in the voice and characteristic stops and starts of the speaker. The whole point of the poem is that you are going to get the whole prelude to the story and then not be told the story!

The danger is indeed very real....the adults know that...the kids know that....even the dead guy knows that! There was a broken worn down sign that you had to get near enough to read and possibly fall in! So the danger could be feral and turn on you with one little mistake or missed step. Hence the barely tamed! The narrator is very fallible!