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Gabriella Garofalo

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Listening to comets, aren’t you?
Yet you are deaf, deaf to the voice of riotous angels,
Deaf to the green solitude that heaves at you
While my sad place gathers
A blue ambivalence, or missing lives
Who dreamt of choosing between raw and hard light:
These are sidereal places,
Where fire can’t decrypt your hunger,
Where you can’t give light a nice welcome,
That’s why you need only
A womb insensitive to breathing light,
Here, among your furniture,
And crumpled souls at night who hiss
You won’t come back to the fields,
Nor will you reach the water,
Only exiled limbs hassling with the slant of demise,
The blue light you silence as undeserving
Of your hunger: is it a matter of voices, limbs,
And pewter skies?
Great, so please shape your light in mixed shades,
That will do, and bring me not flowers, nor toys,
As I saw too many at the children’s bedside-
Please bring me seedy cafes where men
Stare at an empty half-light,
Where women all clad in blue go unnoticed
‘Cause blue was the left hand of God
When he made me and no,
I didn’t want all the hours you hurled at me,
Time and demise, as I was dying for a wind, a fire,
A wind to dishevel my hair, to grab from me my souls,
A fire to run wild, and disperse my words
So scary of an ambush, as I was dying for being
A shore waves endlessly strike-
Waves? Of course I mean loving limbs,
Well, cry me a river, waves, limbs, who cares?
By me everything fine:
The dirty blonde who’s got scabs on her legs,
But plays the drums great,
Kharon thriving on hunger and hunted skies,
Who smiles, thanks the fight against words,
Maybe the envy the moon feels for exiled limbs,
When lovers and fathers go radio silence
And you bet she’ll end up without light.


***


Mother? No way,
You knew the names from the womb
And its dark blaze wore you out, danger -
Meanwhile she hobbles along life
Just to look the part,
Among deceits, frayed comets, halls,
Meanwhile strange rumours are going around
‘A wonderful haven for desire’ -
Forget it, not in the right mood for gropes
When she’ll show up: naked and blue,
Just like soul, yes, just like soul,
And see if they care, kids and teens
Locked up in the attic,
The grass cuts and runs,
She knows best, only books walls and trees
Can stalk light, hold her still,
Yet you stay alive, soul, you rise again
Among cars shooting out from Cerberus’ maw -
Got it, ok, the town that cheats and craves
Goes on with a life where scribes bend truth, papers,
Light colours give way to blue, neurotic sounds
Creep over your thirst deep down -
Say no to that ghastly muse
Who always wears mauve -
Well, to be honest, soul, you also wear mauve -
Maybe to get what writers try to say:
That you lost sight of heaven.

Born in Italy some decades ago, Gabriella Garofalo fell in love with the English language at six, started writing poems (in Italian) at six and is the author of “Lo sguardo di Orfeo”; “L’inverno di vetro”; “Di altre stelle polari”; “Blue branches”, “ A Blue Soul”.

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