A recollection on the life and death of my sister Diane Louise Magrini who had Down Syndrome and was institutionalized for the purpose around 1951. She died 10/18/72 and was 21 years old. In those days many children stayed at such institutions.
Selinsgrove
DARK
Again and again
Only for the children
The kids the little ones
The
DARKNESS
In the eyes of the nurses
The pockets of the doctors
DARK
In the policy
Of the administrative staff
DARKNESS
Clings to the braces the crutches
The amazing patience of the therapists
DARK
In the comfort of eternal linoleum
Plotting the
DARK
Paths down the wells
DARKNESS
In the strokes
Of the washer woman’s mop
The
DARK
Predators in her bucket
The faded clowns and giraffes
The
DARKNESS
Of the broken blond doll
In the crayon box and
DARKNESS too
In play
TIME
And supper
TIME
And nap
TIME
DARKNESS
Fading
Fading
DARKNESS
In the wasting away
Of hide and go seek Joey
And Annie
With the almond eyes
DARKNESS
In the parade
Of mommies and daddies
Stepping politely through the urine
Why
My daughter
Why me
Why
My son
Why me
And the money
Piles and piles
DARKNESS
Every year
Every
Year
DARKNESS
It comes
Oh it comes
Diane
Don’t go
And Selinsgrove
DARK
Is
BLACK now
As
BLACK
As
BLACK
As
BLACK
As
Sssssssssssssssshhhh…
(As a lullabye)
Bye-lo baby
Bye-lo baby
Bye-lo baby
Bye-lo baby bye
Mommy still loves you
Mommy still loves you
Mommy still loves you
Though you’ve gone away
SAYING NO TO THE PASSION AND DEATH OF FRANKIE TREMÉ
The pain of conversions
Puncture your crown
Dripping red tears
Stream down sallow cheeks
Burgundy tributaries
Remain as ticker tapes
Markers of the devotees
Of your burden
You are the bleating lamb
Bearing the weight
The anticipation of eternity
Gethsemane floats in your eyes
As you scrutinize your eager flock
And wonder amusedly
Are they beautiful
because they are perishable
Then die?
Admitting the paradox
That some of these
Carry more eternity than others
You turn to the
Ravishing Magdalene and grin
A promenade down the enchantment aisle
Yields smoke scapular and medals
To protect you from demons
These heavenly choirs
Continue their unsolicited
Mysterious exhortations
To your bruised bumped
And bleeding followers
This is your obligatory ordeal
For future compensation
Penance like virus
Must be endured
Ping-pong tribulations
Are the sport of sanctification
Your perfect future
Is what is promised
This continuing mettle
Without a bouquet
At the end of polluted rainbows
Encourages our solitary hearts
To reach to each other
Without external
Unseen consecration
We nakedly extend our hearts to strangers
Lacking intimidation persuasion
Or a basket of fruit
Responsibility for every action and experience
Is terminated in flashing caprice
With the end of body
There is no disillusionment
No trumpet blast
Or proclamation
To the people in the street
You are and will be
The distillate of
Stuff to perpetuity
This is the eternal anerobic mess
Of our perpetual substance
Cut to the corner of Bienville and Basin Street
Just outside the Quarter on the periphery of Tremé
Sitting on a jazz curb imagining answers
From Being and Nothingness
Slow and Tipitina easy baby
You hear the pleasure and sorrow of the life we know
Sounding sweetly accurate
On the concrete pavement
Thinking that this
RIGHT HERE
Is eternity
There is nothing we can do
To the overlords preying over us
Nothing we can do
To the governments that suffocate us
Nothing nothing
And more nothing to be done
Our friends sabotage us
We return to our families
Failing to sooth us in our pain
They shower
Combustibles of assurance
Deluged in opened sores
Explosions burning cruelty
And it becomes worse than nothing
Unconsumed fiery apathy
Fiends lurk in every direction
They blind us
And I believe I hear them scream
They bludgeon and prod us
And try to devour our remains
In a blood red wave of engorgement
They are more than hungry
They are malnourished
Hollow fangs hidden behind their lips
We are beaten at their festivals
They are purified by our screams
There is no need for air or future
Because there is nothing
And nothing to be done about it
Our destruction
In screams and lamentation
Coexists with
Their sweetest contentment
The defamation of our existence
Shaping their paramount joy
Until we are eventually slaughtered
There is nothing we can do
In the remaining void
That is the distillate evil nothing
Not even the smacking of corrupt lips
Heard quietly in the background
There is something we can do
To march forward
Smile at the human hearts
Beating hopefully and in syncopation
On the streets and subways
Tables and beds
And we touch the hands
Of the curious depraved lonely and weeping
There is something we can do
To carry the silence with us
And take it to every being in chaos
Or bring those two hours before dawn
Or any other hour
For no other reason than
They were sleeping and that time
Should be shared by everyone
Together in the moment
Laughing walking and if necessary
Fists clenched and fighting as one
In the battle for righteousness
Because we are told by the highest authority
Our individual human spirit
That this is what we must do
To live to continue
To love
And to die
So that this place and these people
Become better
Or to allow access
To the ones not yet here
There is something we can do
There is
Something we must do
We are beautiful
We are the consummate dawn and dusk
And the life in between
The emergence of mud to the gods and back
In the cycle and the circle of creation
And we are the things that must do
What must be done
To continue to grow
To love and to share the inner grace
And everything else
Giulio Magrini has performed at Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Arts Festival numerous times, and many other venues in the city. He has conducted poetry workshops at alternative high schools, prisons, drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, and hosted a radio show for local poets. The Color of Dirt is an anthology of his poetry and flash fiction, and availability is through the usual internet vendors, but the poet prefers you contact him by email and request the book for a personalized copy with bookmark. As Giulio Magrini tells us, “We have put our hands in the dirt and sanctified each other.”
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