A Sudden Blue
by Gabriella Garofalo (November 2022)
1
Got it? It’s a dirty job, a foul play
When fear digs into her soul,
Who knows, an act of kindness maybe,
When stalked by water words madly fight
With her to see the light,
While you stare at the reeds
So averse at welcoming water—
And where’s the heaven in all that scrape?
A red orange idiom that set ablaze
Lovers and baskets to weave?
Say,do you really think light
The rawness of a freshly mown grass?
Do you really call garden
A constellation of constraint, and dissent,
Do you really think clouds wild maenads
Shaking the sistrum all over orgasms and skies?
Foul play, sure, but only by birth
Grass can see the life,
And an acrylic moon can’t stand out:
Hills and heights deceive,
No mercy from the girdling grass
As trees and bonds grow older—
My snaky disease, I know
Mornings are your pawns,
What can get your eyes if you win?
No need to silence the soul,
No need to drain the sounds,
So, stop faking you are torn
About which road to walk,
When you know only too well
All the debris of the sky gather in a womb—
Mothers or births?
But who plans the route,
Who designs hurdles, and labyrinths,
Maybe creatures who dodge them
To hurl themselves
At limbs that catch, grab, grasp—
It’s too late I’m afraid,
Only when water floods you realise at last
Heaven needs births, and mothers,
To enjoy a life of pure white,
You here? —
Free from creatures, and limbs,
Only good for starving and whining,
Only too hungry for a stony life.
2
Hey, we are in September, right?
Then how come the sky is sulking pitch dark,
And his sis, the moon, looks like
A Halloween pumpkin, so orange, spooky, ginormous?
Strange stuff’s happening,
Migrant souls wander off in mass exodus,
As you dash into delirious eyes from cathedrals,
And starve for some glass, transfixed with hunger,
The only food you snatch being a lively debate
About hues, shades, with wannabe artists
And who bloody cares if against all odds
Your hunger turns blind—
Now it might do to ask her to fire skewed answers,
But first thing first she should say sorry
For staring at the sky when he smells
Of a sharp life born from the missing,
And prophecies—
In your shelter, where winds and fathers run a little green—
Yet lonesome candles ask for a bit of light
While you, greedy seed of mine, carry on
Giving birth to blue, percussive, natural
Summer shots ready to KO grass or folks—
But why do you crash them when young, my love?
Maybe the lust for a lost age, the sap flowing
Through blades of grass, the sour taste of scars?
So, my soul, don’t look to a light who acts so sweet,
In winter she’ll rise up, a blue renegade
All spasms and cramps to forward to Father
Your birth in heaven—
And let them free to throw the curtains to the wolves,
In other doubts she’ll shine, say, are red apples
Really that charming?
As they know no answer, they shun red,
And grab you in that scattered grass,
That shelter of silence you joined in,
But births will wolf down your primary colours, my soul,
Comets and skies will desert—
No need to fret, grab the first joint,
Limbs and words helpless against snarling dogs,
Chilling eyes, maybe a woman, hope,
Twists and warps if impervious to breaths, and light,
Disdain wipes out green deals:
No need to join fields, prophets, daffs, water,
You can’t even steer for her desert,
Among them all, you see, only the one
Is just a soundless unsayable name—
‘Cause they don’t care.
3
Ever fancy to smash stars under your feet
In a freakish farce of a reel?
They’re so useless after all, can’t even heat up
A freezing mind, and so late you realised
Slackness heats up, blunders, and slips—
On the background, meanwhile, women
Bare their backs, they can’t wait to hold summer back,
But she left just a sec before the god
Set to make something else, different from you,
As different looks the womb from a seed,
When fear, the aghast mother, shames you
Into scaring away moon, children, winos, and tramps,
Let him take care of dregs—
But no food nor water has got the sky,
He ’s really cut up, his quilt icy
With snubs from his stars, and yours,
Since fathers died along your first sky.
Even worse, no wild light for you,
No daring to shoot to shadows
Cleaving to a cheerful mind stretching
To a blue flame, and anxious for a life
All thrilled for the house-warming—
No place for you, keep burning when they celebrate,
One clean shot, double lock, shut off the unwanted
So that a thin enamel of mould invades rooms,
And covers your food,
How the green beguiles you, how lovely
It blends with the green undergrowth,
Or the green of a cop-out,
Yet green must wait for water, and rebirths—
Her answer’s missing—
Surely, you heard it on the grapevine,
The answer from a soul he desperately
Wants to steal name, and identity—
The whole shebang, and cheap blue trinkets.
4
My soul usually hangs out
With misbehaving seas, and impassionate skies,
The only mates she’s got, as he’s ever so busy
Looking back on a messy life where they crash losers,
And written words exude a nasty scent—
Bless you, fear, why can’t you show up in her dreams?
Why can’t you feel her limbs only at nighttime?
Watch out as the mobs are up in arms,
Ready for action, and mysteries eye
Your silence with bad intent, while hissing
Only when the wind freezes limbs
Words can rise from the fields—
But other are the voices hounding you,
They play, they bet on your words lost in maze, and craze,
Who knows, maybe she’ll get another life,
The one you never wrote—
‘Cause the harvest is a heap of chilly stars,
Sure, and the birth of wombs comes
From depths of a wild stuff,
Yet the soul is an impervious ground:
Over there the seed dissolves, slightly worn out,
Yet incandescent when the hands of ancient ghouls
Rise by candlelight—
So back at base, and drop the noise,
That greedy moon that sets you up
With an Angel holding blazing splinters of light—
Where? In claustrophobic rooms, of course,
The innards of desire.
Born in Italy some decades ago, Gabriella Garofalo fell in love with the English language at an early age. She started writing poems (in Italian) at six. She is the author of Lo sguardo di Orfeo, L’inverno di vetro, Di altre stelle polari, Casa di erba, Blue Branches, and A Blue Soul.
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