Pruning of Roman pines as if naked stalk broccoli heads
Curbside grown, wild oregano,
beds
Rescue a pine cone from traffic, concealed in cigarette butts, bottle
caps, plastic bits and guano,
released annually by a eight hundred year old, resinous
Appian Way, Ponderosa
With skin like a Neil Weliver birch
White marble quarried curb, pigeon cafeteria
Nailed, crossed cedar limb,
fence lined street
Vitruvian construction,
originally assembled for crucifixion
Hundreds of swallows assume a night bound,
roosting perch
Descend now into (The Metro)
The underground
Rome’s filling and building again atop buried homes
Leaving basements of dead populations
Modern archeology’s finding of ancient yeasted loaves
Black Pirelli rubber dimples now tug at my soles
Between rail track ties, Mars black granite coals
Electric cars filled with square toed fashion,
crossing Catacombed tunnels
From Bastini to Anagnina,
via linea
Hands clutch orange accented grab poles,
subterranea
The Italian language flutters in my ears;
sonic pulsing as in the bat house at the zoo
At the crossed roads, “Tri Via”
Information now reduced to a game show agenda
We travel as destined human moles
A young Gypsy wants to share my pocket
The train exits into soft chalk, creme light
A Cy Twombly’ Appolodoro reincarnation
Immediately judged by a large blue Neapolitan Mastiff
and surrounded by dark, luminous eye sets
Temptation’s “wet lips”
Turning to avoid masses viewing the Pope’s procession
under Plexiglas protection
In a place where chariot ruts
meet kevlar fendered super bikes
Renaissance Duomo erection
Ages of true believers labor at little or no expense
Yet another Catholic shrine
Accommodated by an extra long confessional line
My newly winged ankles cross cobbles in the slipstream of a moped
Noticing a trodden dis-articulated umbrella spine,
a discarded chestnut husk
The breaking of crusty, “meaningful” rose bread
with Carabini holster white, (De Castelli) wine
Immature cuttlefish and fennel stew
Distant dogs argue
Walk bridges over rivers of dead,
From many a time having ran blood red
This now a Japanese tourist Mecca
Cobalt blue,
velvet pant, pigtails two, in Kodak spectra,
preferring Frutti di Mare pizza
Standing beneath the ubiquitous keystone arch
Remembering the leather sandaled, worldly forced march
[For the legions of Rome, Rome was off limits]
The modern necessity of work permits
Wooden shuttered balcony whispers
Expresso’s ability for heart string pulling
Golf courses roll beneath ancient aqueducts
A museum’s testament to years of wishful Alchemy
A passion for material transformation
The Pompeian mortuary
“Vulcano Eruptus”
79 A.D., history
Lime green garbage dumpsters
The now polluted, dead fish, Mediterranean Sea
The Alexandrian palm tree
The recent sealing of manholes after the finding of a dismembered limb
Modesty’s viridian green Venetian blinds
covering Hotel Excelsior’ concubines
reclining on terrazzo surfaces
Wines being “corked” with polyurethane
Mossy, terra-cotta roofs
Lire purchases
Lanky Lombardy Cypress,
exported to many a Beverly Hills address
Stand up breakfast
After lunch sleepfest
Supper excess
Tempers flare to express
Gesticulate the unrest
Fiat Mini romances
Papal prudes,
demanding underwear to be painted on Michealangelo’s nudes
The Fall of Rome,
proceeded by the “age of anxiety”
Cults, mystics and religion’s tentacles all attacked from the edges
of the Empire
All roads lead home
Barbarians equaled unwanted guests
Only one family in Rome can trace lineage exclusive of invaders
Imbibing Rosso in the back of 664 bus
with Corrigan, punctuated with profanity
“Don’t an Ugly American, be”
The bus encroaches on a little Land Rover’s turn
If looks could kill
The doors remain
open while operating
Passing a paste up billboard “American Circus arriving”
The eye settles on a young woman with a scar under hers
A classic profile with a Modigliani neck accompanied by a balletic gait
In a restaurant where cooking is done on hot stones,
a lonely chair waits
A salute to the table,
so as not to reveal hardware under coats
Appetite greedily awaits
Tempered only by an intestinal red wine moat
Braised Treviso ridicchio
with olive wood roasted goat
Mad cow disbelief
Digestivo relief
Ringing cell phone pests
Modern technologies’ cicada nests
On the Tevere, disco barges float
A young, elegant Romeo
escorts three sepia ink, dark beauties
in trailing cigarette smoke
Arm in arm in arm
Stiletto heels pounce on cobbles and tar
An after Rugby game; Irish bar
spills sardined clientele onto the Corso
Two spar
“Borrowed” Pyramides
Art collection by kleptomania
Complements handed out by two middle age Romanians
while commuting from afar
The original melting pot
Rent an mangled Moped
Annulare laps
Roadside purple chrysanthemums bloom
while asparagus shows it’s phallic head
Notice: no carrion anywhere
Wild bird, glue net traps
Short barreled, rabbit sniffing, shotguns
Italian carriage horses
Ascending vines encampment on iron barred windows
Gold dangled ear lobes
with dead mammal coats
Astro turf cafes
for mediocre pasta lovers
with garland covered, tent stays
Ornate , oak leafed, cast aluminum garbage can covers
Potted blood orange trees
Del Corso bargain hunters
Stippled concrete side walks
Fedora clad wrinkled men stare
as long shadows chase a meandering pair
Sweater covered hips sway
Back packs drift into the distant light
Sun bleached steel gates rain down with dusk
White clerical collars proliferate
The seemingly sinking Piazza
beneath the Pantheon’s weight
Hand burnished bronze door knockers
announce arrivals, late
Serpentine dolphin tails entwine
at the shoulder of Neptune’s anchor chain
behind,
a warship’s stern
Balsamic vinegar filled Amphora, urn
Littering the Sea’s bottom
as the plundered, burn
In a skull and crossbones Basilica where
catty-corner Caravagio’s are hidden,
lie multiple mahogany confessionals
full of forgotten guilt
Inside,
a rubbed raw knob for
a one way viewing door
Aperture
and a newly added electric light, “Occupied”
Exit… unburdened
Roasted rosemary potatoes and wild boar
Aluminum antenna encrusted topography
Female nude, advertising photography
Leather outerwear
The willows of Colli Albani
A sleeping shepherd mix guards a used car lot
Trastevere, a Sunday flea market hot spot
The three pea, shell game, everywhere
Winner beware,
three enforcers will discuss your health care
Used clothing, vinyl shoes, sling shots
and house ware
31 B.C. Octaviaus, Augustus in the round
Immense circular grave/mound
Upon entrance,
a song heard
A lone clementine bearded,
olive backed chickadee bird
Backup singers; Hosta emerging from the ground
Piles of hound’s turds
Sixty foot high reconstruction
for the She-Wolf symbol
in this Accordion plagued town
A Neo-Classic Picasso, American
nurses a newborn (Christopher)
Sensa sound
under an ochre fresco, wall
Beyond, marathoners run in the streets
like Tyrannosaurs
Museum halls of marble busts
all having migrated to a final resting place
Tourist lust
Eons of faces
“in your facia”
with stone carved lace
Overhead candelabras drip
Under, milky flesh hangs over the back
collar of a plaid polyester jacket
A chorus of multi-lingual racket
Long glossy haired,
shoulder’s bared, mouse eared
other
with a pink ostrich scarfed, thin lipped,
mini-skirted, brown swede booted
lover
Music muted
Grissini crunches
A frizzy haired pair (with hands shading brows)
peer in through a back lit window’s glare
The Trattoria fills
with cardiganed, combed over bald,
bearded and bespeckled uomo
accompanied by lipsticked youngers
Ultra thin cigarettes flare
Table cloths stain
Sienna’s time is slow
Through narrowed streets
movement restricted
Leather covered feet
An annual horse race
on an imported dirt course
through piazzas strewn with populous
The supercross of equis
Tartuffo inhalation
Foraged by pigs, dogs
and old world knowledge
with an eye for ground
settled on by flies
Buzzing bloodhounds
Electronic church bells “ring”
The religious parafinalia, wooden crossbows
and bolts of Assisi
Another forgotten Da Vinci
military (mother of) invention
Walled city in the round
A submerged fecal river
cleanses the medieval fortress
All did eliminate into stone carved orifices
Florentine bookmakers; leather bound
pages
The binding of papyrus,
instantaneous information acceleration
Techno-sages
Ornate fountains recirculate
The wet pervades
Orange silted, thousand year old marinade
Jules Verne underwater spotlighted, coin tossed,
shirt sleeve polished basin
Bernini’s static procession
of nude animation, sessile
under the guard of a shoulder slung, automatic weapon
Slash and burn the Adriatic shore
An entrapanurial eye sore
with olive orchards for future
generations to pour
Dining at Mussolini’s beloved hunting camp
having entertained Hitler’s choice of game
Contributing to Appia’s continuity of fame
Painted burlap covered surfaces
Sound insulation rendered by sixty years of stigmatism
Voices engulfed in the forno al legno
Human door knockers of diminishing vocalization
In Rome, step down the twig laden, porous marble
levels to the river’s edge, bare
Meter high grasses encroach
High pressure sodium’s yellow halo’s glow
over brown tinted rapids
Peaks high lighted by the full moon’s cool glare
Hospital isola splits the river’s flow
Quarantine fore thought?
Under lit bridge expansion
Rat packs scamper
Overhead, strolling across Ponte Garibaldi
from a worm’s eye, homeless outpost
An up the skirt view
out of sight of most
Water’s fall
here since time began
Civilization’s white noise drown out, hidden
Inter tidal trodden pathways
below fescue/fern footholds in vertical walls
Wild fig trees grow from grout less masonry joints
Precarious purple flesh
requiring mountaineering skills to access
Flood tide “laundry” hangs on river sumac
Twilight’s condom landscape
accompanied by a five knot pace
Packs of dog’ paws print in the brown silica
Crimson blood filled eyes glow
Back track
On a cat tail mound
a poly tarp shack,
broken wicker chair with a lactating, sentry hound
In the background,a castle looms
Baked clay bricks covered by a lime rich crust
Ancient iron rust,
patina
Green/red speckled, leafing bronze
Hand hewn, white stone, catapult balls
Muskets the size of elm tree limbs
Labyrinthian space, halls
Courtyard mountain laurels
Sentry post, spirits call
Camp fire heated
Where cannons did maul
Hot oil showers
Dead where you fall
Twenty two foot thick walls
Black walnut cabineted room
Now inhabited by a tomb
Surrounded by
acrobatic flyers reducing spring insect populations
On a translucent wing in a city of prayer,
cutting through the cool night air
Willingness to expatriate
