When sun on Taormina sinks
Its lull will paint the evening still
In pastel, scarlet, orchid pinks.

Far yonder star, in silence, winks
So well aware the air will chill
When sun on Taormina sinks.

The boundless vista slowly shrinks
With twilight tints at nighttide's will
In pastel, scarlet, orchid pinks.

And, all at sea, the ocean drinks
The gentle rain from off the hill
When sun on Taormina sinks.

The solar sage above re-thinks
And yields a sundown-coloured spill
In pastel, scarlet, orchid pinks.

The light of dawn here interlinks
With dark of dusk, the day to ****,
When sun on Taormina sinks
In pastel, scarlet, orchid pinks.

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not **** him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would **** him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how ******, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

Taormina, 1923

What seemed like
a long ride of
growling diesel
on a slash of road

up an
unforgiving cliff

dissipated
once we gleaned
that ours
was not to battle

but rather
refer the case  
to a higher court

and now up here
in Taormina

the sky is clearly blue
the air so sweet and light

streets are  ruled with beyond
what we thought was gold

they're platinum

and the Cannolis

are to die for

This is one of Barry Hodges "Memories" poems.

*O how I recall with sadness in my poor forsaken heart
How I lost my fat-arsed sister (though she was a silly ****);
We had just enjoyed a meal on the esplanade at Taormina
(soup, spaghetti alla vongole followed by some tasty semolina)
So we went for a digestive walk through the Sicilian hills
Not realising we were in for some awful shocks and spills.

There came a mighty roar and a dreadful smell of sulphur
(even worse than flatulence or a burp caused by little Maria's peptic ulcer)
Oh dear, oh dear, Mount Etna had just violently erupted
With lava bursting out, from the bowels of earth rudely eructed,
And with a sickening splodge a fiery lump landed on the hapless bird
Causing her to die forthwith, screaming louder than I'd ever heard.

God in his mysterious ways is supposed to show us his mighty wonders
But occasionally I do believe he quite clearly makes some ******* blunders;
And I really think it's quite unfair to cause a volcano to blow up
Especially since it looked a nice mountain for bold climbers to go up;
But it's an ill wind that blows no one any good has always been my motto
So I emptied Maria's scorched purse, went to a bar and got quite blotto.

I've found one
my own lizard

but it doesn't run
among the rocks
of the Roman Colosseum

it slithers in between
my own  magical
worn and weathered stones
of the Greek and Roman Theater
Taormina Sicily

so you can have yours back
your reptile that is

it served me well

but mine will now guide me through
the cobbled streets

haunted by ancient history
and yet blessed
by holy unions and new beginnings

Whit Howland © 2017