Full August
Lost and Found
a
glister of
church
bells
distils
itself
on
the blistering hoods,
in
polychrome
the
rare cars
trivially,
we call this Sunday
Un espresso e una grappa bianca, grazie.
somnolent tourists out there
swayed by their tram
miss a trick
that probably is not there anymore
to miss
(Passerini
Caffé – leaned on the display of assorted mini pastries under Sonia’s puzzled
eye, barmaid in gilet and red tie.)
Ash
There is a senselessness in the fire
when the same cheers up alive
the shadows swaying
underneath the trees asleep.
Pine cones crackle, shrubs twitch:
the cauldron summons this idea of comet
jumped off its swing to lend me its tail
of Sagittarius icy shards to be tempered in the fire.
There is a parallel
world in my mind where most of my secret desires breed and feed – there, in
that place which crosses from mind to physical reaction you live. D.
Friendly fragrances light on my face,
the loot of memories, the plunder of furtive
needs we stole from each other, ores
smelted
into arrowheads.
From your stony hall
of solitary tapestries, despot,
steel shut your doors, ready the pyre.
Your shivers echo through stairs and linens.
This fugitive is planning his return.
Witchery, a Pastorale
(Sardinia’s call will
reach you when you least expect it.)
Bathed in dawn, tongues of ferns chirp out wandering
my shakes anew. A rush of fur on each one,
wide-open, each viola stroke
in all its blissed stammers, my shouting blasphemies.
Ghost, the pallid shoreline oscillates,
idle entrance of gazes, happy people
out scavenging for bling to devour.
Sullen rush. O Lord, to whom shall I repent?
Rusty nouns these relics, spirited penance
rent of a backyard, red of sofa,
their typical arched hurtling posture tinted side,
whistling nylon, fennel flavour in the wilderness.
Things to do together, naked torso by the terrace garden.
A: (Near the occupied bed centre stage)
Hopeless, as has been said and written.
B: (Stands at the open window, stage right,
luminous grey sky; looks down) Apparently, some are still protesting,
wanting to know more.
A: Can’t
hear a thing.
B: It
wouldn’t be appropriate.
A: Who
would even consider scolding as the countenance of freedom? Did he? Ever?
B: (Approaching the unconscious man on the bed)
Not a chance, let me see.
A: That’s
not why we are here.
B:
Precisely what I meant.
A:
Hallucinations; and free of charge. What a disappointment. Couldn’t he find
better ways of spending his lunch hour?
B: One has
to integrate… this… racket comes with a modest salary, you know?
A: Well, it
certainly does not advertise the prospect of going around and squandering.
B: Foolish
thing in the current climate.
A: Foolish
things happen.
So what? My loot ripens
the innermost winter’s fixity of fields.
Beneath their dormant look
monophonic foundlings roam the room
sowing out care into caresses. Absence, wrap it now,
away with it,
the slow belly of a caravan taking lithely
in numberless a genesis
for this scant season. Like rocks
these icy potatoes will trundle very little mercy
(villagers left in floods).
Versuch, eine Statue zu schnitzen.
Barcarolle
I find myself
asking, What must fill his head? Lots of words, lots of moving pictures and
blushing shapes, lots and lots and lots of peaceful energy.
Everything that
hopefully I can narrate to you.
I play my part
too, just what that is now I am unsure of. What I convey to the different parts
of my life I don’t get to know. R.
Bathed
and dressed in dunes: a trail of primary threads draws over opaque skin camminando e camminando resounding spin
of her porcelain galaxy. Ambulatory in their rippling whirlpool from the sieved
sands compassionate singing of chambermaids – the woman marches to battle for
light flickered on waves and waves of fettered irons. Prime numbers I come in
search of, our exit’s up.
Let
us cosset and brush like
like
self-possessed nymphs
bent a blunder stalk
above
our quilted pond: will this
palest
ink
half-soaked,
spooked already,
tomorrow’s
horrors spillage, be
somewhat
reminiscence?
[Previous version appeared in Poetry Salzburg Review n.37]
Tender Afternoon on
Cream Crocheted Wool
(Shortcuts
were soon acknowledged to be a direful waste of time, inevitable for us boys.)
Passes
the broad hour alike,
ploughs
and breaks of cloistered land
leave
lingering portrait, little swerve,
from
pews and sermons,
glide ambitions on
dusty provincial verb.
THE
CYPRESSES
(In
swaying arms and shrillest ends, quizzing our conniving souls.)
Please through.
Through our
scented needles.
Trust; this way.
Please comrades.
So let’s, on
cloud’s rests we lie
grandly dandled by
asphalt &
cognition behind
left. To befriend
the intermitting signal of a butterfly
one bicycle wheel
wheels; adjoining trajectory, the pair
in all jittery resolve,
pencil the skies,
gyres, their
continuo decrescendo.
Our time unflawed
and nimble resumes its paddling,
rustled uneven
vacillates our vessel.
THE
DINGHY
(In
riven intentions, amidst a vegetation half parched whispered submerged.)
The barbed wire
dwindles,
The paper-cut posits
puncturing
Buried thoughts of
pursuit
High and low
behind bloodshot eyes
And beastlike
stranded pride.
[Previous version appeared in The North n.68]
Massimo Fantuzzi is a
British-Italian dual national born in Milan and living in Leicestershire. After
his degree in Education since 2001, he works in supporting SEND individuals of
all ages in schools and residential settings. Author of the collection of poems
and prose poems Marcia Gioie (Alkalea, 1999) and member of the
editorial board at Triggerfish Critical
Review, his poems have appeared in Alba, Orbis, The North, Bombay Gin, BlazeVox, Poetry Salzburg Review, The
Honest Ulsterman, Abridged, E·ratio, Berkeley Poetry Review, The
Dalhousie Review, Grey Sparrow
Journal, In Parentheses, Poetica Review, Quail Bell, Night Picnic
Press, Danse Macabre, Menacing Hedge, and elsewhere. Recently, his work has been included in the anthology
edited by Ettore Fobo, Fiori del Caos (Kipple, 2023). From his window on the
National Forest, he keeps track of the continuing proceedings among the
treetops, low clouds and other liminal frontiers. Twitter @MassimoFantuzzi
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