1 Poem by Gabriella Garofalo

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Okay, now ask yourself where your fever’s voice ended up,

As she wouldn’t leave with the days you asked in-

Oh, and why you didn’t hand her over to sistrum,

Or frantic maenads who only speak the body,

That foreign language only the sky can grasp,

A nice trick to shame blue into white,

And sure, you dabble a bit in that idiom,

But as heaven is just a teen, he’s got no clue

About your whims of lost crops, blind stares

When nestled among ancient stones

Your places keep drowsing, impervious

To skies, gales, water-

Now look, he’s yielding to wrath

While all lost words leap on food,

On barren limbs hard like mothers-

So, your last hint to her goes like this,

Stop sowing light, if heaven doesn’t care,

And dreams of a different job,

‘Cause shapes will draw near in a wink,

Good, evil, whatever, at least they’re not

Still stones from towers, arcades, or your first wish-

And may your words never sound clipped,

As if scared of the unrelenting sun, of insects going berserk,

While young suburban matrons keep musing

Over ontology issues, think being and nothingness,

And the moon is coldly staring, impatient for her night shift

To be over at last.


Bionote

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 these books “Lo sguardo di Orfeo”; “L’inverno
di vetro”; “Di altre stelle polari”; “Casa di erba”; “Blue Branches”; “A Blue Soul”.