I said, “Why ever move, Red?” Bitterest foul-rooted mind: closeted Red all-voiced deep, black searching breast. He dreams raw widely, washed in field melancholy. Did I? Boy eighteen recognizes flame with power born to sweep. I scorned joy stars but my smiling pleased dawn’s greening fields. Flame glory silences, as it used the warmth we lived. Eyes return studies. It all fires itself. Ah I have altered the self-flame taken of me, all truths changeable with mine. Red pleased that dialogue buried in us. Deep black eyes searched earth itself allowed no fugitive wander-glance to light up any face of the vile flame. Fear disturbed the bright virgin image I held. Red waved & waved, the lake may have stirred a light breeze. I regret fully freighted days that weighed the spirit, that changed past stings while shame’s harsh bite had little power. I dream grey spirits, Red— a low fire burns, pure, unblemished. Yet I draw no delight dream that buoys me.
Spillway 1 Fragrant deserts arid slopes destroyed or not, flower adorns a scatter. I’ve seen empty places, stems circling the City silent aspiring witnesses reminding the passers of light of lost empires, electric spheres that lit the world with faithless hostility. These fields barren ash solid trash resound underfoot as we snake & twist familiar. 2 Golden corn mirrors low cattle garden places, retreating powerful torrents & fiery mouths all in ruin. We root gentle flowers, commiserate loss, send a perfume-fragranced ram desert praise on existing visits— these slopes fully denatured light-flamed green they estimate. Harsh nurse-lights move the units, obliterate part hands we fear it a little less gentle than depicted.
Aeolian Blues The ferry chuffed with a lyrical rhythm but I found myself blowing chunks off starboard into churning green and gray. The islands looked like donkeys in the distance and then like elephants as we drew closer. My mouth tasted of squid and a lemon Lifesaver I popped before departure. The ironies never escaped me, even as a tourist with no tolerance for turbulence. A man with a face by Tintoretto told me that his feet were cold and that he wondered would I trade my shoes for his. Nord Americano, he said, pointing at my green-piped black Nike Jokers. I glanced at his delicate maroon scarpini and scoffed. His resulting anger dissipated quickly when a second generation of nausea prompted another seizure of puking. Meanwhile the islands were dinosaurs now. And rain had started falling, difficult to capture as the ferry steamed ahead; but the gray waters dimpled and mist glazed the envelope of our continuum. The Tintoretto man draped a blue plastic sheet over his head and slumped against the port rail—a pricked magic bubble ball. I staggered and wove to the latrines where men stood like statues around a gushing trough, holding their equipment. I am not well, friends. I say it plainly. I mentally compose this as we approach the islands—the small one, the big one, and the one between them where giants reputedly once ruled though the search for their artifacts has never yielded anything and yet has never ceased, despite its futility. But the same can be said of all searches, all voyages and all yearning for something solid and still to rest your head upon.
Infinity Contrast the park, a carpet of green splotched with red, yellow, black— & a spatial concept in monochrome blue. What does it mean? The former portrays insufferable delicacy. To stay there too long jitters the mind. The latter shouts at the viewer. What are you? it is asked & it answers with tautness. Tautness & release, the slash-vents fluttering. The little girl in the park in red who stops you to show the cat she holds with her pale green worm hands. The cat looks hypnotized, staring nowhere; the girl exudes a baleful, knowing air. What is she pondering? Does she present an immediate danger? Does the cat? Off she looks into the high blue canopy of the sky. Is she reaching out to her people telepathically? Is she merely contemplating the marvelous expanse? Ah yes, space is as important as time. But time must be respected. Time to say goodbye to speculation, knowing less than we knew before.
Pink As A Storm The way blew out before the whale began descent into the bluest part of earth. How we doing with time? Okay, I’ll hurry— I know how tight you get when things don’t go your way or when you think they don’t, though it makes no hay of difference. No way to rake the dead leaves off your personality. That season ended & now we wait for snow but after the snow you are free to have at it. Nobody talks that way to me, just saying, I have no idea if this is a form of talking or thinking, but it can only be a representation of thinking, because who thinks like this? I don’t even think like this,. my mind moves in strawberry jelly. And I’d like to think you have something on me or you wouldn’t be grinning like you have something on me.
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Salvatore Difalco is a Sicilian Canadian poet and short story writer. He lives in Toronto.
