Poetry

Clouds Over London

/ Salvatore Ala / 1 Comment

... neither God nor No-God
Louis MacNeice

Not clouds but burkas naked on clotheslines,
Hawksmoor gloom with Horus eye,
Warzone Luftwaffe left-over thunder,
Lions’ heads on building tops,
Quorum of the heavens… London fog
And a neighborhood in London fog,
The ghost of Hitchcock at the window
Of his house gave the shadow of a doubt.
Nothing was real, not buildings or streets.
Only a waking sleep from cab to cab
And a destination from which you depart.
Not clouds but statues wet in flesh
And veil, as in “The Winter’s Tale,”
Or the dead likeness of a changing guard.
North of the city an explosion; south, a beheading.
Astride the block a shadow slumps.
The head of God, a cloud in a basket.

I Found a Severed Hand

/ Salvatore Ala / 1 Comment

I found your hand, Susana Chávez Castillo,
It was crawling north, somewhere in Arizona.
Right away I knew it was your hand,
It was clutching at a page of poetry.
It was writing in blood on a thirsty desert.
The names of your murderers appeared
Long enough to be recorded by the stars.
No one escapes the justice of the universe.
No one escapes the god of the black spaces.
I found your hand, Susana Chávez Castillo.
I buried your hand in the desert
And it bloomed with thorns, like a cactus.

Journey of Life

/ Salvatore Ala / 1 Comment

You want balance, but this abandoned bicycle
In Amsterdam borders on paralysis.
It is Chaplin pretending to be the Fuhrer.
It is whoever survives, whoever escapes…
It is a flower cart that flowers in the same spot.
It is modern art, the unraveling of modes,
Picasso’s “Bull’s Head” reconstituted,
A bicycle trellis in European horticulture,
An instrument for the music of rarest days.
Someone left this bicycle and didn’t return.
Someone locked this bicycle here and died,
Or moved, or moved away and died,
Or became a novelist, like Michel Houellebecq.
It’s a sacrificial lamb, a contract with loopholes,
A love letter from the bicycle crazes.
The wheels of the sky ripen among vines.
The pedals are powered by the sun,
And with wind, deep-rooted to the spot,
The lock is slowly unlocking, like space.

Firebird Sunset

/ Salvatore Ala / 1 Comment

That’s the Phoenix! That’s the myth!
That’s what the storybooks
Have been trying to tell me. The firebird
Nests in the searing winds of time.
It migrates to the forests of the sun.
It lives in the drop of fire behind the eyes
And perches on the volcano in the ribs.
You’ll know the firebird by its ashes,
By how the sunset beats its wings
And flames out like a cosmic fire.
Better to start living , to start loving,
Better to be consumed with joy
Than live another day without rebirth,
Without music that catches fire
Or words that cast a burning shadow.