INAUGURATION DAY

 

The day the fascists took Wash-

ington, it was night

in Rome, where I hid

in a rented house in Tras-

tevere, certain rooms locked—

because I could never afford

it all. I ran into Rosanna

,a good egg, and we didn’t speak

of the end of the world as the hope

,fighting against all odds for eight

complacent years, took two steps

back in five minutes. For

“No man’s fuck is holy

because man’s work is most war.”

                        Is good really so relative

its works can be blown away

in an instant in the winds of wrong?

                        I guess wrong knows

all the tricks—from open carry

to concealed weapon.

                        And right

is the bells ringing across Rome

this morning, signaling the loss

,again, of a good man gone down.

                        1/20-21/2017

                        Rome

CATHOLIC WILL: A Perfect Roman Poem

Roman Fortune (innately
Mannerist) smites a curb-
    side tournament, its turn-
    stiles timed to mimic
land mines, whilst tragic
fame, mitred in disguise,
prizes suicidal maidens and
allows demijohns decisions—
                                  to decant tanks, for favor,
                                  to take arms against
                                                  a sea of turbines,

                                    which
by all rights should have been
shed by Fortinbras' cat,
                                    whilst
hopping over Roman bric-a-brac.

                           However,
                           tout court, our tongue
had strangled all our firm intent
and lent its charge to chance
    (said Cheshire to the waif)
of interactions all, both small and large.
Therefore, onward friction's
shoulders!      Bearing the boss
across the bridge of bad
humor (angels!)      to Papal precipices
'n' grumbling, placated
    Tritons & Britons
in the rain, we trod on.

And just like that!
A spat!
Between perfect strangers.



1/6/2010
Rome-Florence, in transit

"Velvet wet precaution..."

Velvet wet precaution, a savior

salivating over dampened greens and golds

and soggy grey, grounded olives past

passengers far, far away in hopeful

sleep.

            Those ravines dividing Tuscan sun

From Latian solarity, the revelation

that there is no particular one, no center,

despite Peter’s rock and/or Orpheus’ egg.

The circular line of expiational time

expands, mocking clocks, drenching benches

and presiding over all—‘though there are no—

second chances. The gist of arable fields,

fallow shoals soaking up the thunder

of another era, a Roman sojourn

                                                 surrenders

to the thought that becomes this velvet

wet precaution: that you might get caught

in the rain.

                        8/29/2012

                        Florence-Rome

INBETWEEN --5 chapters

I

All that winter they were ripping up the streets of Europe, the streets of Paris and Florence, the streets of Rome. Scaffolding circles churches, hides triumphal arches, strips of green nylon tarpaulin stretched across its planks and frames. Streets have been uprooted, cobblestones stacked against the walls of black buildings. They're turning hotels into museums, letting the steam out of the sewers, putting statues behind glass; policemen are looking on, machine guns slung over their shoulders. In Rome they don't have any portable electric lights; instead they use little pots of fire that look like the old-fashioned anarchist's bombs in silent movies to warn cars of the edges, where the streets drop off into dusty pits. 

He looks across a muddy hole filled with heavy machinery at a museum. Closed for renovation, the sign says. 

A whole street in the center of Florence has been ripped up; the exclusive shops face each other across a dank pit of reddish earth, and the walls of green-shuttered windows seem to close in on you as you look up. A little rain slips into the narrow streets as Persey hurries home carrying groceries. Other Americans and the well-to-do Florentines pass slowly, laden with colorful brand-name shopping bags. In Paris, between snow flurries, he watches them pouring out cement sidewalks in long strips down the Boulevard St. Michael; they were laying out the streets of Europe that winter. People pass in a hurry, nobody watching the police frisking some Arabs up against a wall.