Two Moon Matching Set

May 1, 2015 / Salvatore Ala / 1 Comment

1
Moon in Tiffany setting with gypsy lights
And girdle of gold opalescence,
But rarely like this, cupped in cloud-stone,
Out of dark velvet night
This earthshine of all beauty;
Altered stone, at the angle of incidence,
Basalt glazed and ringed in space
With a lustre priceless and enduring,
Because in minimum of magnitude
All star-points gleam alike,
And time is richer by one jeweled night.

2
Shadows at full moon are deeper than meanings.
They embody fullness, erase space,
Build mass and edifice in mind and place.
The mystery behind history, opposing peripheries,
These silhouettes of branches and trees,
A phantom nursery, lunar forest,
Buried trees swimming up from the subsoil
As though through a lake of black glass.
Earth in earth, universe in universe,
Branches rupturing the stars
And we, fortunate to walk among them.

Snail Recipe

May 1, 2015May 1, 2015 / Salvatore Ala / 1 Comment

As a boy I dreamt snails,
Dreamt my mother was mother of snails
Who nursed them with milk and honey,
Cooked pastina, sage and basil,
To cleanse and sweeten the flesh.
I dreamt snails and cringed.
At dinner, I slowly picked snails from their shells,
Savoring dark morsels, eating my dream.

Haunted Hearing

May 1, 2015May 2, 2015 / Salvatore Ala / 1 Comment

in memory of Henrietta Epstein

Abruptly Henrietta remembered it was January 7th…,
Synchronicity is a bridge over time,
Talking about John Berryman the day he died.
One minute life’s a dream, the next a song…
Henrietta was such a poetry lover
She plucked a candle from her Hanukkah menorah
To commemorate the Oklahoma-born poet.
She told of John wildly drunk in Michigan
Shouting frenzied needing her naked and now
At a party held by patrons in upscale Birmingham,
Even flinging the glass that was shrieking to marble,
Articulating an imperfect present,
Redemption is at war with time.
If eternity is freedom why suffer for life?
“The Mississippi will have its way.” John jumped in,
“More bourbon please, more Baudelaire.”
“I could use one myself,” said Henry.
“Mr. Bones got a powerful thirst.” Henry laughed.
We shivered to the otherworldly recitations,
Our tribute to a poet turned séance to his voices.

Ellis Island

May 1, 2015May 1, 2015 / Salvatore Ala / 1 Comment

Passenger ships slip time in fog,
Their displacement forever in motion.
At Ellis Island multitudes materialize
In sackcloth and ashes.
As they pass, our ancestors
Smile at us in pity and in wonder.

More Translations from the Latin Fragments of Hugo Falcandus

May 1, 2015 / Salvatore Ala / Leave a comment

In the Arab gardens of Sicily water guides you to paradise and order to hypocrisy.

Only in this sun can you weigh the shadow of a pomegranate to the ripeness within.

The Christian mosaics are the skies inside Palermo. Once there was a miracle. An evil monk was struck in the head and killed by a small piece of heaven.

Why are there so many miserable old men holding on to poetic reputations?

As for my own poems, they will return to the earth…

A King risks assassination if he doesn’t, in some instances, allow himself to appear easily persuaded.

Deeds should be the leaves of a beautiful world and words the fruits of a life worth living.

Some Lost Writings of Hugo Falcandus

May 1, 2015December 17, 2015 / Salvatore Ala / Leave a comment

Poets are interested in events “que circa curiam gesta sunt,” meaning they are concerned only with what happens in the court and among the elite.

When the tyrant Kings of Sicily wanted to vent their rage, they had poets executed, beginning with the most celebrated. This was to the credit of the Kings.

It’s true that poets suffer “Theutonicus furor,” which is the pillaging of their sensibilities through other styles.

Poets who are miserly at giving praise are generally gluttonous about receiving it.

A poem is a golden honeycomb.

The critic is he whose “culus tibi purior salillo est/ whose ass is purer than a saltcellar… (The rest has been lost).

The only way to be a poet is to kick poetry to death (or “to kick a poet to death.”) The original text has been destroyed).

Poets who publish other poets have a sense of entitlement.

It was said that at the court of William the Wicked, a Muslim poet read poetry of such beauty and depth that all eyes glistened with tears, though not a word of praise was spoken.

Haircut and Shave

April 30, 2015 / Salvatore Ala / Leave a comment

When a man in a hospital bed
Needs a haircut and shave,
The barber with his black bag
Goes humbly through the wards.

In shadow and in light,
The barber and his patient,
Seen through an open door,
A smile on the sick man’s face.

The Barber has No Place to Cry

April 30, 2015May 4, 2015 / Salvatore Ala / Leave a comment

Cutting hair at the nursing home,
My father was afraid of growing old.
The old have so few hairs
And to shave a lonely face can break your heart:
You never shave the same face twice.
Alone and sick, sickness a blessing,
There were some old people, my father said,
No one ever visited, only the barber.

Barbers

April 30, 2015 / Salvatore Ala / 1 Comment

The child I was sits trembling in a barber chair.
‘Make me a barber, ‘ I asked my father,
Barbers are men who smell like rose water,
Who gather sea foam in their hands.
In my family, scissors fly like swallows,
Straight razors never bleed.

Now mirrors have tears in their eyes,
Combs and brushes are buried in coffins.
My father is inside a mirror,
Walking in his white salon shirt,
Carrying his sad combs and scissors
Along an endless seashore

Arab Woman

April 30, 2015 / Salvatore Ala / Leave a comment

I saw a young Arab woman,
A spring wind was blowing her pale blue burqa
So that her body rippled through it like water
And the veil made her face appear.

Covered, she was transparent,
Diaphanous wavering reflection of blue iris,
Seashell in a glass pitcher,
Flower emerging from the sword,
Naked light under a lampshade.

Gracefully, her every step disrobed her,
Like a shadow on a mirror,
A palm leaf swaying at a window
Where sheer curtains are blowing.