Saturday, 15 March 2025

Three Poems by Giulio Magrini

 






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

 

 

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 

A 

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





WHAT WE CAN DO

 

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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Three Poems by Giulio Magrini

  A recollection o n the life and death of my sister Diane Louise Magrini who had Down Syndrome and was institutionalized for the purpose ...