MEMORIES
(To Vali)

And now that your body's pure wind
blows over my distant horizons,
a perfume of faraway skies
brings back gooseflesh on old bones
remembrance of loves, dews of blood,
rain timeless of joy and bright tears
and songs in the whorls of my ears.

(2006)

WHEN I SAW THE WILD CANYON FROM THE SEA

When I saw the wild canyon from the sea,
like a lost bird flying
over the ever restless waves,
it was the awesome conch shell
of my own heart, open wide
to blue horizons, echoing
with the profound silence
of sirens breathing pure wind.
My heart! A throne of awful cliffs
A Savage of No Man's Land
that cried out deep inside me,
"Oh, fly back to my darkness!"
I yearn for its infinites solitude,
my wings were aflame with desire,
when I saw my wild canyon from the sea.

(2006)

ANIMAL MEMORIES

Once more, like the moon, you have vanished
but I find your scent in the lair
where we've drunk heaven on earth,
timeless animal memories.
Astray in a jungle of perfumes
and deserts after the rain
paradise lost and regained
body and soul as one
wild wedding of pure feelings,
back in the golden age
when beasts and human creatures
had the same dreams.

WE STOLE THE FIRE

Moaning the restless abandon
we wore each other's skins,
we stole the fire from heaven
springs from the underworld
and plumes from the birds of the bush.

THE POETRY TOUR

The lights blinked out in the summer storm
Then Marty Matz at 2 or 3 a.m.
scratching matches
to see his way
crawled down the flights
of lightless stairs

to the bar in the hotel
at Vallambrosa
in the hills above Florence

to find a bottle of cognac
& a candelabra too!
which he lit and walked
cognac in one

lit candles in the other
back up the stairs
       to his room

2/9/08 About a poetry tour through Italia summer 2000