4 Poems by Frank Polizzi

FROM THE SEA

                                                Exotic freighters
                                                slick into the bay
                                                with unshaven bows,
                                                while a symphony of ships
                                                plays to the still harbor
                                                filling up with greyness.

                                                lone lights flash red with
                                                staccato beats of iron men
                                                and waves clash a dirge.
                                                Then eyes of the cane-led spy
                                                a sole gull, swooping, surging,
                                                and plucking from the sea.





THE SOFT-CHILLED SNOW

                                                During winter’s first storm
                                                I ran to my loft
                                                where you can’t feel
                                                the soft-chilled snow,
                                                but before the last flake
                                                laid next to
                                                the pine windows, within
                                                I was
                                                       smothering until
                                                       I cut loose
                                                from my burial.




UNMELTING

                                                The unmelting masses may
                                                 huddle together
                                                 under her lamp,
                                                 but too quickly
                                                 they seek their own kind.
                                                 Some thaw,
                                                 most are petrified,
                                                 living in hyphenation
                                                 on the grey cement stoops
                                                 of New York City.





MEMORABILIA

                                                In my angular attic
                                                the spiders have been weaving
                                                for the past fifty years.
                                                I came across
                                                some yellowed letters
                                                hidden at the bottom of a drawer,
                                                stashed away long ago
                                                in my memory banks.
                                                lost images flipped thru
                                                like an old movie calendar,
                                                following the script in front of me.
                                                I put the notes down
                                                and a claddagh ring fell out
                                                from one of the envelopes,
                                                turning in errant directions,
                                                hitting the grey floor.
                                                I picked the ring up,
                                                held it up to the vanishing light
                                                and placed it on the oak piece,
                                                looking straight ahead.
                                                Seeing a much older face
                                                in a mirror of corroded silver
                                                above the chest,
                                                I could sense the sundown
                                                edge outside my window.


Binote

Frank Polizzi is listed with Poets & Writers as a poet and fiction writer.  His poems and stories have appeared in The Archer, Electric Acorn, Mudfish, Paterson Literary Review, Wired Art and others. In April 2009,the Guild of Italian American Actors (GIAA) conducted a reading of his one-act play, By the Light of a Barber Pole. In March 2011, Finishing Line Press published a chapbook of his poems, All Around Town, centering on his experiences in NYC and Sicilian American roots. Several chapter/stories were published from his first novel, A Pity Beyond All Telling, and one of them was short-listed for the Fish Prize in Ireland. Frank is currently seeking a publisher for his second novel, Somewhere in the Stars.  He is also the editor of Feile-Festa, an online, literary arts journal ( http://www.medcelt.org/feile-festa/ ).