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Tessa F Mar 2013
The community St. Florian, protector
From fires, lit
One inside
Me.
Maggie Emmett Sep 2014
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
I wanted to write a Haibun (seasonal journey poem interspersed with haiku). I love Venezia but only in Winter.
Vice D Krashdif Apr 2014
Standing within stone walls of a church
A cross in front of him.
A cross around his neck.
It’s silver cold on his bare skin
The only reminder he allows himself to keep.
Of a past life he wishes to forget.
The hole grows larger each day.
And he is close to giving up.
The memory of why he has it..
The only thing that stops him.
But it is not the cross that he sees
The final night but that of his guardian angel.
He decides it is best to live without the cross
But rather with what he saw
Can he just let his past go like that?
By just giving it away.
And replacing it with what he saw.
His past promises his future his life
Ryan Nyberg May 2017
I love my heart to the bone
Awaking my sadness
To it's dying song.

I cry my eyes to the skull
So much so even when I am joyous
My smile is dull.

I walk my feet till they bleed;
Water and cherish ache
And all it seeds;

I loved my heart to the core
To the back of my spine
Digging wounds always sore;
And I'll never stop cradling the faith
One day you will love me til death..
Ryan Nyberg May 2017
Fairytales aren't meant to come true;
They are engraved into books' pages
There is no way for them to flee
From hundred thousand cages.

Many great writers burnt the scripts
To love that's never ending
Trying to make them come to life
But what's the use pretending?

I let it slip my sanity and honest,
I thought something is different in the world of  mine.
Alas the only difference between me and century long fairytales
Is lack of time.
Donall Dempsey Oct 2020
THE VOICE OF ENERGY - In memory of Florian Schneider

"The people who understand music understand silence."
                                 David Hockney


1975 or thereabouts and
my father is infected with

Radio-Aktivität
I lost in it

Kraftwerk's latest
offering.

It emerges from its inner
white sleeve

with a slight shhhhhh
tuck

shucking off its black
'Deutscher Kleinempfänger' cover.

Alien as anything
we have heard

straight from
Kling Klang studios.

Enjoying the fun
of its hyphenated pun.

Fizzing with radioactive decay
conflated with radio communication.

The album spinning
a black pool of sound

mesmerising the mind
as the needle picked up fluff

advancing from track
to track

finally arriving at
"Ohm Sweet Ohm."

"Dónall son...what on earth
is that!"  my father winces.

The da da dit bit
eating into my father's brain

spelling out its name
in Morse of course.

"Aghhh I can't stand it!"
he blurts out.

"Sorry Da!" I say.
Turn it off 'til he goes away.

But a mere day later he
hums as he saws

wood to make
a window.

"Radio-Aktivität
Fur dich und mich in All entsteht!"

Contaminated with it now
he even sings the Morse Code bit.

"Radio -Aktivität
Strahlt Wellen zum Empfangsgerat
Radioaktivität
Fur dich und mich in All entsteht
Radioaktivität
Strahlt Wellen zum Empfangsgerat

Radioaktivität
Wenn's um unsere zukunft geht
Radioaktivität
Fur dich und mich in All entsteht

radioactivity
For you and me in space arises
radioactivity
Radiates waves to the receiving device

radioactivity
When it comes to our future
radioactivity
For you and me in space arises

— The End —