Three Poems by Giulio Magrini

 

THE PITTSBURGHER 

 

A memorial for Richard Caliguiri, Mayor of Pittsburgh 1977-1988 

 

(Mayor Caliguiri would at times go home to shave his father, and have lunch)

 

 

Behind the glass of sky 

 

Layers of wet 

Glisten and descend 

From the clouds over 

Lawrenceville 

Morningside 

and East Liberty 

 

The morning rain  

Tenderly coats 

Metal rails 

Embedded in cobblestone 

 

Along the banks of the rivers 

Steel mills 

Become fossils 

And a watery clacking of heels  

Is heard on North Millvale Street 

 

The calm 

 

Is upon us 

 

The spirit of Richard Caliguiri 

Continues 

Without pause 

In this  

Pittsburgh Pennsylvania 

 

 

The heavens of neighbourhoods 

Fill the guardian stars 

With tenderness 

 

And we feel it 

 

In the corners of his mouth 

The light in his eyes 

Or as he shaved his father 

 

Io amo questa cittá papa 

 

I love this city papa 

 

The earth grows soft tonight 

Stardust coats the alley-ways 

Rivers and bridges 

 

We are able to see the 

Potential of humanity 

In the life of 

This Pittsburgher 

 

The bells toll 

 

Songs to the eternal 

Fill the churches 

And it is said 

 

Blessed are the pure in heart 

For they shall see God 

And we know…

BETRAYAL

 

Squeezing blood from my heart 

Extracts drop by drop 

Defective coagulation leaking presentation of emptiness  

Exists in my chest 

Your recurrent battering 

Abuse accidental damages uniform 

Lives happily confirmed  

With insincere promise of affection 

 

Beloved smiles continually exposed  

Now a mask hiding ugliness and sin  

Alfresco external decoration  

Flaunting a parade of Christianity  

Afterlife certainty through chiseller faith  

Frauds promised in fog 

Produce an unrequited plea for reciprocity  

 

Unseen dampness oozes 

From a moist catalogue of depravities 

Descends in unconsecrated droplets  

Sinking hypocritical tributaries 

Flowing polluted consciousness  

And desecration  

 

And in these remaining days 

These last numbered fading flashes 

I search in vain for the answer 

For that promised love now vanished 

By the one who vowed 

Then betrayed and acquainted me  

With disappointment and vacancy 

Now recoiling from the smiling parasite  

Feeding slowly inside my heart

Have a nice day with anyone you love 

 

WE ARE HERE

 

I am he and I will always remember 

We are harmony unlearned 

Our essence  

The epitome of world 

These indistinguishable connections  

As we ponder the discoveries  

Beyond it 

  

Our caresses are never enough 

We consume the earth 

By engaging each other 

Everything is the beginning and the middle 

We are one white enduring iris 

We develop in language and music 

We speak the unspoken 

And we hear  

The unheard 

 

The right hand of sharing 

And the left hand of uncertainty  

Converge upon us  

We travel through visions together 

Treachery beckons 

Certainty shuns us  

Truth cannot be trusted 

And we are glad 

We embrace the unfinished  

And so turn upon ourselves  

To doubt to question to stay the course 

 

What mechanism isn’t this? 

There was never a destination 

But the cues of the infinite  

Batter and multiply 

 

And it is whispered  

It is no use to continue 

 

We turn our distracted gratitude  

To each other and  

Alter and compound devotion 

To the extremities of wonder 

 

We live in our distorted continuing 

And the mystery of us 

 

We are here  

We have always been here 

And we will be here after we have gone

Giulio Magrini has performed and published his work for over fifty years, and is from Pittsburgh PA. His anthology The Color of Dirt is available on the internet or preferably from him personally at giulio27@verizon.net. He has been nominated for the Pushcart prize and Best of the Net. Giulio tells us “We have put our hands in the dirt and sanctified each other”.