Five Poems by Giulio Magrini

 

DISCOVERING WE ARE EXTINCT

PUBLIC

In the remarkable aspect of time

Grotesque merges to familiar

Infiltrates the caress of phantoms

Pirouettes of lunacy

Straddle the boulevard

Overlords march in

Shrouds of patrician pink

To goose-step directives and

Pound a tempo of bureaucratic chic

I can hear them

Chanting in contentment

While they prey over me

I chirp my schedule

To the numbed associated entirety

And appreciate that

Zombies cannot explain my load

Or advise how to discretely carry it

As I continue to converse

With flattened stone

At the very brink of deluge

I am promised anaesthesia

Temporary abatement

From the beatings and slander

A kindred spirit promises

That I am alright

And whispers

I will never be alone

DISCOVERING WE ARE EXTINCT

INTIMATE

I see my rippled image

In the diluted lakes of your eyes

Where is the cleansing of salt

That intermingled between us

It has occluded inside me

Where it preserves my vitals

Crystalline and dormant

I become the focusing

Through the fog

I remember whimpering promises

Before the bruises and bleeding

But my congealed cadaver

Is displayed in disarray

In a land absent of rainbows

There is no dispensation

In a state populated by the dead

Where the only legacy

Is that the obsolete

Cannot be damaged beyond extinction

We are the undiscovered fossils

Beneath the steps of the living

Dry bleached and lifeless

The memories of our bones

Loiter under the abiding mess

Obliged that no one examines

The failure of our remains

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ADDRESSING THIS GERIATRICS ISSUE

 

 

You debate the twelve steps  

Ponder theories  

A presentation to decrepit and decaying constituents 

An exposition in dark micturition and trembling 

Soft moaning in the rows  

We have seen these eyes before 

On the face of a disobedient frightened  

Collie dog 

 

Veterans whose comrades  

Were mud blood and leeches 

Witnessed the billions  

Spent on bombers and cruisers 

Not health care 

 

You have their defenceless attention  

Prepared to explain  

Your theory of geriatrics 

 

A troubling parallel 

To your endearing memories  

When you filled the dish for Fido 

Do not neglect tick collars and chew toys  

For the purpose   

To organize nightmares with flowers 

Welcome mats and flags  

Turkey with the fixings  

Your response to custody  

Atonement for your sins 

 

Urine, canned foods 

Floors that stick 

Bingo and sobbing in the night 

 

Grave diggers calling themselves 

Senior Care Givers  

Traipse surreptitious linoleum  

And secretive confinement 

Parasites upon the vulnerable     

 

And detainees, not residents 

Realize every moment 

 

This is not a “home” 

It is the vile legacy of the elderly  

After their sacrifices 

And distillate of life 

 

This unbearable sadness  

Satiates the air  

The photos of invisible children 

Gather dust on the bureau 

With decorations from wars 

And a commemorative trinket  

From the American Legion 

 

We do it repetitively  

Waiting for this terror 

This ghastly and reluctant overtime 

To be finally done 

 

No physical no moral 

No spiritual home 

 

It is done vacated and empty 

And there is no hell to send us to 

No fitting punishment 

 

But to wait our turn

 

 

THE MYSTERY OF THE UNPREDICTABLE SQUIRT GUN 

 

It is no use to aim it 

 

The spray does not squirt as promised 

To an intended or hopeful target 

 

How can these plodding of days  

Depreciate a once satisfying constancy 

Of an older man’s micturition? 

 

It hangs with commitment and to the left 

Awaiting adjustment  

For the purpose 

 

Sequestered hair tousled snarled and obscure  

Fights against a clear and 

Righteous path  

To a porcelain home 

 

In wretchedness finds 

Linoleum  

Paint  

And dribbling against the  

Cloth du jour  

 

These elders carry their misery with them 

From the bathrooms, lavatories, and toilets 

 

Their misconduct cloaked  

In dampened and stained embrace 

Their quotidian fiasco of misguided urea  

The mystery of their largesse 

Is a distant recollection of saddened prime

NO PENANCE FOR MASTURBATORS

The forgiveness of god

Plunges wrinkled hands

Through the confessional

Screaming I am a dirty little boy

Stares at my folded hands

As I receive

The body and blood of christ

Imagines alternatives

For their placement

Observe the commotion

Of the methodical procession

And consecrated parade

Of lumpy calloused knees

As they march in obedience

To the infinite calling

Of the celebrant

And the darkened winged angel

Cavorts in his madness

To visit the high traitors of clergy

Attends this snarling collared evil

Ensconced in satin and lace

Embroidered white on white

And the hilarity of extreme unction

Past a weigh station in marble altar

And chalices of gold

We are told that it is the charge of a shepherd

To detail the passage of eternity

Though all is immediately forgotten

When distracted by a Hershey’s with nuts

Behind a boy’s zipper

What is the remedy taught in liturgy

For my wretched little soul?

The god that accepts my contrition

Is a basement god

Telling priest rabbi and minister jokes

Ordinary mortals know that

Impure thoughts and actions

Do not equal

Fondling hairless genitalia

Cloaked under vestments and a homily

POST COITUM OMINAE TRISTAE*

This compensation prevails as voyeur and witness

When the cleric’s furrowed concerned brow

Gradually smoulders and rots

Through the perfume of incense

Burning on foreskin

My authentication of ecclesiastic

And compassionate smiles

Grinning to maggots

This writhing torment

Of the benevolent clergy

My charge more complete

Than the custody of my mortal soul

Amen

*Post coitum ominae tristae is a Latin idiom meaning, “After intercourse there is always sadness”

YOU ARE MY EROTICA

 

 

*Rati is the Hindu goddess of love, carnal desire, lust, passion and sexual pleasure

 

In the quiet moments 

In front of these flickering screens 

I gaze at clandestine images in files 

They have been orchestrated and preferred 

Cuddling fetish alternatives oral, anal, congress 

And the trustworthy autosexual option 

All shrouded from prying eyes  

But candidly desiring to advertise 

The victory of release  

 

You exaggerate and enhance  

The wickedness of imagination 

 

And the blather withers and decomposes 

In a decay of shadows 

Erroneously described as decency 

 

It is imprudent to mistake  

An erection for eucharist  

A sugary clitoris pouting sympathetically   

Peeks from a consecrated tributary 

That gushes to a nondiscriminatory river 

 

The flourish of our sensual debris 

Spreads in flashing audacity  

To submit sexually malleable  

Glistening and condensed together  

 

And no, not executed in poetry 

Painted for some lyricist’s dream 

But a lover’s hallucination to embrace 

Again and again and again 

 

Embrace me dear one 

And we will hurtle through the night together 

Approaching our finest orgasms  

Experiencing life and death in passion  

We will discover Rati in each other 

And dismiss the rest as meaningless

 

Giulio Magrini started writing poetry in the early 1970’s, and takes most of his inspiration from the darker sides of human nature. He has performed at the Three Rivers Arts Festival, and many other venues in Pittsburgh. Giulio has conducted poetry workshops in alternative high schools, prisons, drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, and hosted a radio show for local poets. His book The Colour of Dirt was published September 2022 by Word Association Press. In the Afterward of his book he states, “We have put our hands in the dirt, and sanctified each other.” Magrini has always preferred the performance of his work over publishing, until now.