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  • Another Museum

    Over the Museum of Deportation, six Young violinists and two cellists play A waltz of Strauss, while German tourists dance. Why not? It's fin de siècle France, And having grown middle-aged and tired, you Can live with their Jawohls! for, at least, tonight. Behind you, students lick colorful sorbets, Lovers dance drunkenly, stumble to the…

  • Harold Bloom

    Too conscious of our need for pillows, he rises from bed to walk the street. No need, he thinks, for underwear or other gauze to dress his soul. Because he is alone this late at night we can forgive his need for walking out beyond his robe. He is that near to seeing himself as…

  • Stresa–The Borromeo Islands

    Since you read Stendhal, Flaubert, De Musset, Isola Bella seemed a hazy dream: Ramparts of gardens rising out of water, Water nymphs stunned into statuary, Grottos where walls of pebbles and mortar Formed sea shells and sea creatures, Rooms with mandolins and violas d'amores, Balustrades where assignations were made With a nod, a wink, the…

  • Little Stabs of Happiness

    The night Sam Cooke was shot, I ran out into the backyard and shouted, “Suck my dick, God!” My father slapped my face, said if he ever heard me say anything like that again, I could forget about driving, ever— I'd be in my own house with my own kids and he'd show up to…

  • Un Poeta/A Poet

    Poco filo mi resta, ma spero che avrò modo di dedicare al prossimo tiranno i miei poveri carmi. Non mi dirà di svenarmi come Nerone a Lucano. Vorrà una lode spontanea scaturita da un cuore riconoscente e ne avrà ad abbondanza. Potrò egualmente lasciare orma durevole. In poesia quello che conta non è il contenuto…

  • Gravedona

    Lost in Gravedona without a map, You ask directions in handicap Italian of a stout old woman. She laughs, “Stop struggling, come in, And whilst I think them out, I'll make us tea And, if you don't mind, have a chat with me For I'm half-Welsh, half-Genovese.” Her father built this house, planted trees “That…

  • Round Trip

    Pappy died, I flew home, sat on the same old couch holding my mother's head to my breast, the skull for later beneath the frizzy perm: haunch of a starving lamb. No hole, no stone: smoke, a few words for the assembled testimonial few, too much bourbon not enough dry turkey then backwards in the…

  • Sera di Pasqua/Easter Evening

    Alla televisione Cristo in croce cantava come un tenore colto da un'improvvisa colica pop. Era stato tentato poco prima dal diavolo vestito da donna nuda. Questa è la religione del ventesimo secolo. Probabilmente la notte di San Bartolomeo o la coda troncata di una lucertola hanno lo stesso peso nell'Economia dello Spirito fondata sul principio…