Showing posts with label fabrizio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fabrizio. Show all posts

10/25/2011

Sulla sua cattiva strada

I was working on the railroad, I was toasted by the fire, like a marshmallow man, sitting on a toothpick. Out and out we shouted, we wanted more motions, less thought. We need another round of whiskey to numb last night's gut rot. Why not sit and swig with us? Why not crash and stay? I know, you could never act that way.

Overboard I fell, overlong we dwelled. I was lifted up in the arms of that strong one, lifted up into his cape, too tired to thank the man, I spent a month harvesting his grapes. When he let me play with his children, when he let me sit at his table, I gained a position, small bit of dignity in the household a go to child when a salesperson dropped in from town. "Please sir sit down and let me pour you green tea." Please sir, I would think to myself, can you tell me what happens in town? I was thirteen and heard of the glass fountains in the main square, covered with lights in spring evenings.

8/04/2004

Ecco il mio amore

(song for De Andre)

I met you in January, four years
after you died
-it was cancer of the liver-
the two of us in my father’s country;
you would have been 63.

I heard you soft, lilting
singing in my father’s tongue, before
I finally learned to speak it;
my timing wasn’t right
but yours was always perfect.

I was only three when
you asked me “where,”
“where is your love?” and
“when did your heart die?”
but I never answered, I was just a child.

21 years flew, and
“they’re coming to ask about our love”
for once I did not hesitate;
we sang of Marinella
and the king who kissed a prostitute.

And they kidnapped you; locked you in a cave
that’s where love, red love, got you
-to the Mountaintop Hotel-
how you forgave those bastards
I’ll never understand.

Then, you fell; to me, it mattered
you’re far away, that matters too
so I play a record for you
a candle song to you
wishing I had met you.

But I swear, that afternoon on
the church steps, in the porticoed city
a guitar and young man made music
-such human, wistful sound-
he was you, Fabrizio; he was you, and I was found.