The Last Bitter Coffee

The last bitter coffee

in Naples, the last sip

of this life I live

vicariously, a traveller’s

life, denizen of cities

lived like dreams

,one at a time,

everything in the moment,

but soon forgotten.

And, like a miracle

of San Gennaro himself,

this is the best coffee

of them all, and a fitting

postscript to the sweetest

dream I have dreamt.

O, how good it tastes,

How strong and jittery it makes me

For the train ride to come,

for tomorrow

and tomorrow

and all the tomorrows

to come.

7/24/2020

Naples

 

"The Last Romantics." Seen in Forcella, Naples.

Worse than Ozymandias

Nothing says fuck you

quite like a castle.

it stands there

daring you

to fuck with it,

to assail

its unassailable heights

,its unreachable ramparts,

but no matter

how many castellani

you manage to kill,

the castle remains.

And when it’s yours,

your own conquered

fuck you

rising from the earth or the sea

as far into the sky

as any human construction,

you’re trapped in it

until the next barbarian

comes along

,takes it from you,

and locks himself

in its dank

dungeons.

7/21/2020

Naples

 

Castel Sant'Elmo in Naples. Angevin, built around 1275.

Hymn to Partenope

Partenope, predatory

as any earthly creature

,who all must eat,

omnivorous and unable

to fish—her bird wings got in the way

of the wire—created the art

of singing. To snare a man. Any man.

Not for loving—

she sang of other matters

of poverty perhaps, or camaraderie,

or the moonlight on the turbulent sea

—anything but romance, anything but love.

For she and her two sisters

had grown tired of poking their beaks

into the dirt, of grubbing

for scraps, and the island

was too rocky to plant. Anthropologists

confirm civilization impossible

under such circumstances.

            Not even Circe’s

Resources—a hut, a stall,

or the power of magic

to protect them, the sirens

did all that they could do.

Until Odysseus undid it all.

This is how my city was born in blood

And death and singing.

7/20/2020

Naples