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POETRY By: Louis Antonelli,
Lucia Capria Hammond,
Steven Vincent Frattali,
Maria Mazziotti
Gillan, Denise Nico Leto, Pina Piccolo, Laura Anna Stortoni, and Robert Viscusi It takes a lot of light
to make a city Out of the night that covers me comes a light that flashes bright and a hope that I’ll find what I’m looking for a faint glow, and sombre hue of a scene from the Avenue pale blue faces gazing intently at the late show playing nightly in the window of the ‘You-Name-It-We-Fix-It’ Shop a passerby cons for a quarter; a cup of coffee realized, goes well with
a doughnut, but he knows you can’t have everything he reaches for pages from yesterday’s
newspaper floating by on drifts of cool air and
mist; mist turns to rain, now a nod of thanks and he goes as he
came the blue dims and amber lamps hum, so the faces turn— and try they will to wonder if it takes a lot of light to make a city for tonight they walk away still to ponder if all of these lights are one, a reflection from the heart of a soul waiting for the morning of a new day The
Wizard of Austin Boulevard For Alex Kouvalis and the Patio Theater Chicago I know a place where there are electric
clouds overhead and twenty five cent lightbulbs
become stars with eyes I see so it must be
true, a dancer of light a silver shadow who is the
keeper of illusions yours and mine he dwells in a grand mosaic just west of Austin Boulevard as I enter I realize I’m in the company
of the wizard he shows me pictures thru a
glass twenty four times a second tonight, it’ll be Sinatra in
blacks and whites is this Heaven or just another sultan’s den
of satin green and red a devilish grin is his only
reply I pray this light won’t fade but have hope, because the
lion soon will roar so I must hurry back to the arc of the wizard in the shrine of the Magic
Lantern and the stuff dreams are made of The Black and White Face for Ida Lupino 1991 held by a
fascination, I first looked
when I was very young a child, wanting
to be held up to see over the
top it was then that I
saw a face with eyes set in a solitary
stare, alone in a corner of an
empty room the eyes looked at
me with a modern love and from that
moment I learned that
blue is a character a fixed form on a
spiral wheel as it should be part of daily
reality, and caring not who I was or where
I came but it mattered so
little the face of stark
beauty, I loved a face, not
touched or held but caressed with
purest light and wrapped in darkest shadow, as it will always
be held by a
fascination, of what lives
between the minutes an intangible
face, loved as only it can be forever seen in the camera eye view Accidental
Memories Safe, safe drive up and down your limbs through memory. Accidentally once . . . eye ran into eye, too fast the speed, not enough distance. . . . CRASH!!!!! through the window of a vegetable market. Paura paralyzed our lips into perfect little Os . . . Ricordi splattered on the store window. . . . a cop came,
Betrayal, mute and swift, he left us stranded, no
first aid. He was there to take a bum off the
street, Desire, who always asks for more. Mini-tale or Sad Song No more candles burn
in the shack of the gypsy
wedding the wounds stayed
separate the bloods didn’t
mix. In the empty shack
an altar now stands to hatred. The beauty of the
slow sensuous serpent was honored night
after night hearts primordial
drums, lips on amber, lips
on ice, lips on fire lips on burning
velvet. Hearts beating now
for the war ceremonies. The queen and the
prince have lost royalty
to each other, primitive gods sold by hands who trade in exotic
meats. Old Man in the Garden I At just past dawn
in summer when the sun Just barely shows
red in the opposite field’s trees He’s there already
working in the garden, Transplanting
peppers from the small hotbed Where they had
carefully begun to grow, With sticks and
twine, or rummaging the shed For sprinkler
nozzle or the watering can— These tools the
emblems of his waiting care That for so long
can watch and listen where Now he bends to
scoop the garden’s soil he tends With roughened
hands, his measure a hand’s span, His old hand
pressed against the cool damp ground. IN MEMORY WE ARE
WALKING In memory we are
walking single file, up
Goffle Road. We are carrying an
old red blanket and tin buckets that clang against
each other as we move. We have been
walking for more than an hour. At last, we stop,
sit for a moment on grass and drink
the lemonade my mother made
before we left home. Then, with my
mother shouting commands like a general, we
spread out the blanket under a mulberry
tree, each of us taking a corner, my
father shaking the limbs of the tree. Huge
purple fruit fall thick and
noisy as hail. We laugh and capture
mulberries until the blanket
sags with the weight. Delicately, my
mother scoops mulberries into our buckets,
gives us each some to eat. We walk along the
brook, watch the water
rush over rocks, and
follow the brook toward
home. I am ten years
old. I have seldom been
out of Paterson. The houses we
pass, squat,
middle-class bungalows, seem to be the
houses of the wealthy
when seen through my eyes,
accustomed as I am to mill-worker’s
houses. On the way back,
my brother is tired; he drags behind,
until my father puts him on his
shoulders. My legs hurt, but I do not say
it. I am happy. I do
not know that in the houses
neighboring the park people have
watched us. They hate our dark skin, our
immigrant clothes. My father tells us
that a few years before, he walked all the
way to Passaic and back, because he heard
there was a job open. He did not have
five cents for the train. When he got to
Passaic, the foreman told him there
were no jobs. The workers turned to watch
him leave, their eyes strong as
hands on his back. “You stupid Dago
bastard,” one called. “Go back where you
come from. We don’t want your
kind here.” GROWING UP ITALIAN When I was a little girl, I thought everyone was
Italian, and that was good. We visited our aunts and uncles, and they visited us, the Italian language smooth and sweet in my mouth. In kindergarten, English words
fell on me, thick and sharp as hail. I grew silent, the Italian word balanced on
the edge of my tongue and the English
word, lost during the first moment of every question. It did not take me long to
learn that olive-skinned people were
greasy and dirty. Poor children were even dirtier. To be olive-skinned and poor
was to be dirtiest of all. Almost every day Mr. Landgraf called Joey a “spaghetti bender.” I knew that was bad. I tried to hide by folding my hands neatly on my desk and being a good girl. Judy, one of the girls in my
class, had honey-blonde hair and blue
eyes. All the boys liked her. Her parents and grandparents were born in
America. They owned a local tavern. When Judy’s mother went
downtown she brought back coloring
books and candy. When my mother went downtown,
she brought back one small brown bag with a
towel or a sheet in it. The first day I wore my sister’s
hand-me-down coat, Isabelle said “That coat looks
familiar. Don’t I recognize that coat?” I
looked at the ground. When the other children
brought presents for the teacher at Christmas,
embroidered silk handkerchiefs and “Evening in
Paris” perfume, I brought dishcloths made into
a doll. I read all the magazines that
told me why blondes have more fun, described girls whose favorite
color was blue. I hoped for a miracle that
would turn my dark skin light, that would make me pale and
blonde and beautiful. So I looked for a man with blond hair and blue eyes who would blend right in, and who’d give me blond,
blue-eyed children who would blend right in and a name that could blend
right in and I would be melted down to a shape and a color that would blend right in, till one day, I guess I was 40
by then, I woke up cursing all those who taught me to hate my dark, foreign self, and I said, “Here I am— with my olive-toned skin and my Italian parents, and my old poverty, real as a scar on my forehead,” and all the toys we couldn’t
buy and all the words I didn’t
say, all the downcast eyes and folded hands and remarks I didn’t make rise up in me and explode. onto paper like firecrackers like meteors and I celebrate my Italian American self, rooted in this, my country,
where all those
black/brown/red/yellow olive-skinned people soon will raise their voices and sing this new anthem: Here I am and I’m strong and my skin is warm in the sun and my dark hair shines, and today, I take back my name and wave it in their faces like a bright, red flag. Filomena’s Cellar mysteries here a vat of grapes bottled zucchini jars with fruit swimming around dark here comfortable safe a womb a world barrels &
barrels dark musty smell deep cave fig lined & underground a room of her own purple eggplant burgundy wine black olives garlic cloves sweet husky smell thick & damp silent timeless full brimming &
cool dark round, enough Blood Lines Tall man for a sicilian 6 feet tall auburn hair green eyes what blood lurked there like fire. He stood for years in his grocery
store until one day a memory blasted through him a tiny personal
bomb going back to before & it broke
him. Not the ship over not the english not the poverty not the prejudice not the ten kids not the ugly
cities not the shattered
dreams not the humility not the struggle but a thin thread of memory weaving its way to
him from a distant
land. It tore his
stomach up blew his heart
into bits like shreds of a
lost map falling down from
the sky it took him by
surprise suddenly laying
there in the hospital in this country 50 years later. Tall man for a sicilian as he walked in his hospital
gown to the garage down the street he took a rope put it around his
neck trying to link the
memory with his own life. He left a note saying he did not want to burden the family but what a line he left broken solid good-bye Sicily bleeding ulcers, the doctors said. What’s in a Name She had no
name no name of
her own and so moved
through the world
with all edges
exposed. She could be
just about anybody. It is
dangerous not knowing
who I am, she thought, because then they take my blood for their
own. They called
her simple simply white they called
her dirty dirty good for nothin’ they called
her bright bright for an Italian they called
her olive olive oil they called
her whatever they wanted because somebody somewhere couldn’t pronounce her real name. She had no
name no name of
her own and so she
looked everywhere in libraries old photo
albums on back
street walls tree trunks between
newborn toes something
somewhere essential was
lost and so she
moved through the
world with her who entangled in
their what. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING WHAT’S THE POINT WHAT’S IN A NAME? She had no name no name of her own until the voices came at first a whisper a tiny sound in the distance she could barely hear it Oliverio the sound became louder and
clearer Oliverio and sweeter Oliverio Cavacini Spizzioni a chorus of names Andolina Pettini DeLorenzo a waterfall of names Lafatta Sacco D’Angelo a delicious lyrical feast of names Benfante Cicalo Oliverio Oliverio Oliverio She had many names she called them all her own and as her own they called. A wise man of the
theater once sat pensively by the side of the
road, considering the
changing of the wheel, a round tool that could spin on
itself, could go backwards
or forwards, even up and down, like the pulley at
the well. He sat there
wondering about his own
direction. Now that the wheel has reached its
fifth dimension, going up in the
planets, down in the abyss, bearing holes
through time elliptically, like
a drill, now that it
pulsates at the heart of
the information machine, what does
direction mean? Instead of sitting
by the side of the road, we blindly walk
the tightrope on the brink, carrying the
carcass of history on our back. Sicilian Cities for
Giuseppe Conte I remember them now— emerging from flumed valleys and parched fields hedged by prickly
pears: Cities of stone and clay against a cloudless sky Islands of walls and churches Citadels of memory rising
suddenly from semilunar gulfs (The
sea is calm in
halcyon days) I see them now: cities of light and shadow where the Scirocco whispers in Arabic streets of cobblestones climbing fast towards church-pinnacled
summits windows and doors at night like huge dark mouths fierce balconies—lion heads support
them—empty: who waters the carnations? Dried yellow moss on terracotta rooftops: ravens and swallows circle darkly above them. My cities. Cities of saints and beggars Cities of silence startled
by sudden noise Cities of Mary Magdalens—dark-veiled— furtively crossing lanes where grass grows pertinacious in cracks and crevices Was it yesterday? There,
out at sea, large
ships sailed away, pennons
rippling in the breeze, masts,
stays and rigging growing
smaller in the distance: they
all wore a cross on their sails. Crusaders
bound for Ultramar. Sicilian cities. Now we still sail away from them, for other shores, for other sorrows. But we remember them always from afar. Sicilian cities. Time appears not to touch them. The Carob-tree (Recollections of
a Sicilian Childhood) for
Philip Lamantia “We always leave a part of ourselves behind us.” I know I shall not find it; and yet I am compelled to go looking for it— for the spot where it once stood— so that my eyes will at last believe that things have changed. Time has passed, three whole lusters, since we sauntered up, as children, in the night’s silence broken only by our laughters; we climbed the hill to the huge carob-tree. We sat at its foot, on a bed of dry
grass: the tree hovered over us with its rustling arms, protecting us from the fear our own tales created. We felt like heroes who had braved Scylla and Carybdis,
intrepid explorers of the dark . . . The lights dimly shining down there in the town— belonged to those who never dared, never
climbed, never searched. We knew we were different: we were the Argonauts of a town without sea. We turned the night and the thick grass into an ocean, our bare feet into ship-bows. They tell me it no longer exists—the old carob tree— that a large house now stands instead in its place, surrounded by a cluster of smaller buildings. They say there, up the hill, it’s no longer unexplored no man’s land in the middle of imagined rough waves. The town itself has climbed up the hill, claiming it with cement. I know I shall not find it. And yet I must go see— see if it’s there. The Wanderer (Inspired by a
Pre-Socratic Fragment) Nocturnal voyages wearisome
wanderings sailing amidst tumultuous
waves Living abroad distant
from home Working and toiling to
collect what cannot
be carried home And all for what? A Borrowed Tongue Who is poorer than
I am? I can only speak
with a borrowed tongue. Words garble in my
throat and die drowned in the
sweetness of my native
sounds. Foreign woman,
foreign woman, I love you and I
hate you. When you make me
suffer I must borrow your
tongue to cry out. Who is poorer than
I am? Some people borrow
houses for a roof over
their heads. Some borrow a car to get from one
place to another. Some borrow a cup
of sugar, company in
loneliness. Some borrow a
book. Some borrow a person. Neither will ever
return. But the poorest of
them all is she who must
borrow a tongue. Storia
letteraria My
aunt said to me what are you writing? It’s
about italian americans. Another book about us?
she smiled, is there so much to say about us? She’s
afraid I’ll tell the family secret. Everything
is very quiet around
the Italian American bookshop this morning. There
was supposed to be a demonstration here today— this
is why all the aunts are laying plush carpets on the sidewalks, so
you can’t hear people coming and going. The
cash register is under a black velvet parrotcage cover, you
can’t hear it ringing. The
clerks are asleep except
for the redhead in the corner who
is actually dead. The
books sit peacefully under the snowdrifts of dust, safe
in their blister packets, no
secrets will escape today. Jesus Was Not Italian The most terrible thing about Italians that I knew when I was growing up had nothing to do with the mafia and had
nothing to do with Jesus either. It had to do with their not being generous. There is a story that Italians are generous. They open their arms and they fill the table with food. Do not be fooled. They intend to eat the food themselves and to feed it to their children who will take care of them when they are
old, they intend to feed it to their relatives who will have to feed them next week. If they feed it to you, enjoy it because when you ask them for a donation for the orphanage, they will turn on the
television, they will go for a walk or yell at the
children, and if you try to turn the subject back
to the donation they will find a way to get you out of
the house even before dessert. |