Poems in free verses

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C8YY6R71?

But I still write poems

 

I saw my brother

tired

Under the scorching sun

And I passed straight away

Without a gesture

Without a word

Just with  a thought

To share his pain.

But I still write poems!

Poems in free verses

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C91ZWNT2?

And I’m still lonely like a stone

 

And I’m still lonely

Like a stone.

When you are alone at your birth

You will live alone

Forever.

Only God

Makes me feel good!

Poems in free verses

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FQ488BSM?

All in the same time

 

And you, in Australia, 

or somewhere else in the east of my country,

have already had your diner

and you’re going to enjoy yourself

with your friends

in your free country

while someone else

in the west 

is still sleeping

may be dreaming of his best;

I can’t believe

 in this same time

that I feel free, if not happy,

people are starving down in Africa

people are banned off from web in China

widows are burned somewhere in India

women are hit everywhere in the world

All in this same time

while I’m sitting here

in front of my PC

All in one time.

Poems in free verses

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JPK5MCD

There is love and love

 

There is sibling love

There is a father’s love

There is a mother’s love

That never deceives

There is  filial love

There are lovers

Burning on passion

There is love in a  marriage

That does not imply any trouble

There is the divine love

Higher and eternal

that never fails!

Poems in free verses

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C97786DX

I do not want to write poems anymore

 

I do not want to write poetry

Made of lines that drip

Blood oozing from my heart!

 

I do not want to write poetry

wails of a denied love

Lamentations of my solitude!

 

And only the prayers

soothe

My thirst for love!

Poems in free verses

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JL32VL5?

Your power won’t last forever

Come on great men of the world

who owe the power

You have already had much money

To move on soldiers

much gold to feel stronger

luxury palaces to live comfortably safe in!

And fields, ground, soil, trees,

Rivers, lakes and seas

As far as your own eyes can get

‘Till the horizons can show!

 

But do you really think

your power will last forever?

 

Don’t you remember Ramses the Third,

Cyrus of Persia, Nebuchadnezzar,

Alexander the Great, the emperor Augustus

and all the kings from the past up to Napoleon?

You’re now inventing new richness made of nothing

You’re exploiting the soil under its surface

And even you’re searching for more in the universe

Still cheating the poor!

But don’t never forget

Whom God created the world for!

The Poetry of Giacomo Leopardi as a Guide for Poets of All Time

 

A Backward Look, from the Zibaldone to the Infinito, passing through Horace and the Operette Morali

Almost two hundred years after his death, what remains alive and relevant in Leopardi's poetry? In an age dominated by the hypertrophy of the ego, in which poetic writing often risks retreating into an intimate diary or a pure navel-gazing outburst, it is urgent to question the profound meaning of writing poetry. What is poetry if not the act of throwing our individual consciousness onto the entire cosmos?

From this perspective, the poetry of the great poet from Recanati is a window still open onto the universe, and as such, it retains its universality intact.

To restore poetry to its original stature, we must rediscover the category of "philosophical poetry": a form of poetry that does not renounce form, but transfigures it into a tool for existential, metaphysical, and cosmic inquiry. On this journey, two masters two millennia apart join hands: Quintus Horatius Flaccus and his brilliant reader and translator from Recanati, Giacomo Leopardi.

1. The Poet's Workshop: The Horatian Lesson of the Very Young Leopardi

In 1811, a not yet thirteen-year-old Leopardi, immersed in "seven years of mad and desperate study" in his father's library, embarked on a surprising undertaking: the translation of Horace's Ars Poetica into octaves. Horace is not only the poet of carpe diem; he is the theoretician of measure, of balance, of labor limae (the patient and rigorous filing of the text).

Horace's verses, revived by Leopardi, are a stern warning against facile writing. We have already seen how, for Leopardi, poetry is not an improvised outpouring, but a craft that demands artisanal discipline, labor as hard as that of a blacksmith.

But it is above all on the quality of the work that Horace and Leopardi are adamant:

"Mediocre is tolerated in some things; / not in poetry: just as in honey / a fastidious mouth does not like / an almond as bitter as gall. / How much better would it be to write in prose / for one who in verse is truly a cruel man..."

Poetry does not allow for half measures. While in other arts or professions, average quality can remain useful, in poetry mediocrity is equivalent to failure. A mediocre poem is like a bitter almond drowned in honey: it spoils the whole. Leopardi shares with Horace an almost tragic severity: those who lack the mettle or preparation to bear the weight of the prose verse form should leave the lyre to those who have the "shoulders" to support it.

And to prevent narcissistic illusion from deceiving the author, here is the famous advice of silence and critical scrutiny:

"But if ever, to gain honor and praise, / you sometimes wish to scribble / four verses, O Piso, / show them to your parent / or to a wise and good censor; / then let them be locked up for a long time / because if a man once escapes / he does not return even from the disappointed!"

Horace's "Decalogue" recommended letting the writing "rest" for nine years (nonumque prematur in annum). The written word, once published, can no longer be recalled. The authentic poet knows how to wait, knows how to let emotion settle so that only the crystalline essence of truth remains.

2. From Form to the Cosmos: The Genesis of the Operette Morali

What does this formal rigor have to do with the Operette Morali? It has a crucial role to play.

When Leopardi composed the Operette Morali between 1824 and 1825, he applied to philosophical prose the same ruthless discipline he had learned from Horace and the classics. The Operette Morali are, upon closer inspection, philosophical poetry in the form of ironic and dialogical prose. The brevity, essentiality, absence of frills, and lucidity of style are the direct result of that Horatian apprenticeship.

But there's more: in the Operette Morali, Leopardi makes the decisive leap that separates the simple versifier from the great philosopher-poet. He stops viewing his own personal misfortunes as a private matter and transforms individual suffering into a magnifying glass on the cosmic condition.

When, in the Dialogue between Nature and an Icelander, Nature responds with icy indifference to the pangs of man, or when, in the Dialogue between a Goblin and a Gnome, he shows how the Earth continues its imperturbable motion even after the disappearance of humanity, Leopardi is writing philosophical poetry. He is teaching poets of all times that the true subject of art is not our petty daily neurosis, but the tragic, sublime, and mysterious relationship between human consciousness and the immensity of the Universe.

3. A lesson for poets today and tomorrow

Meditating on these Horatian verses translated by the young Giacomo is an exercise in salutary humility for anyone today who picks up a pen or sits down at a keyboard with the ambition of writing poetry.

What do Horace and Leopardi teach us?

1. Respect for technique: Poetry is not mere instinct or an unreflective flow of consciousness. It is architecture, rhythm, measure, and precise word choice.

2. The courage of truth (the philosophical dimension): Poetry that endures is that which can question existence. It is not content to describe a fleeting feeling, but digs to the roots of pain, joy, hope, and emptiness.

3. Overcoming egocentrism: True "philosophical poetry" is not sterile encyclopedism, but the ability to connect the beat of one's heart with the beat of the cosmos. As in Ginestra, poetry becomes the place where man acknowledges his own fragility and, precisely for this reason, weaves a network of universal empathy.

Let us therefore meditate on these verses together, all of us who aspire to be poets or who love poetry. Let us remember the "ferraro," the value of silence before publication, and above all the responsibility to offer the reader not the superfluous, but a polished gem capable of illuminating, even if only for an instant, the darkness of infinity.

Poems in free verses

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FQ488BSM

Now I know what is love

 

Now I know what is love

Not the sudden passion

that turns off soon

and then rises again

Not even your eyes

May be sincere

But not eternal

Not your vain, fallacious promises

But the Word that never betrays

It’s true love!

Poems in free verses

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW1FTLMB

The wasted love

 

Along the path

Of my wasted loves

Travels my mind

Through the beams

of the night

And I realize 

now I miss

The God's  wasted love!

 

In Cagliari 2017

Poems in free verses

 

The poet’s claim

 

The lambs lie down on Westminster

sacrificed by the shot dead priest

of the nothingness faith

pushed by madness

moved by hate

sent by  pretending prophets

who now are cheering up 

for more victims

in the pantheon web

of foolishness.

 

But two faults

never can make a why,

and violence can never be justified

even if you had a reason

to be spent

 somewhere.

 

Men of power,

for the sake of the True 

Merciful God

of the whole humanity,

please, put apart any selfishness

and hear the poor poet

claiming for justice.

 

In London the 22nd of March 2017

 

 

Onky Tonk Story

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTJZ26CL?

A love triangle in London

A single Act in nine scenes

 

Dramatis Personae

 

Max Sailor:  A young man looking for his own way

Brenda Parnell: Max’s  girlfriend

 George Tender: Good friend of Max’s and Brenda’s

Jonathan Close: A good  Jewish  boy from England

Elvira Giusti: Former Jon ’s girlfriend

Hamed Farsiwill : Iranian student refugee-Escaped from Iranian Revolution

Rocìo Peròn-Mendoza: Colombian student

Francesco Soggiu: Italian Theologian  Student

Inspector Green: Head of local police

Jim Cope: Inspector’s Green first man

Roy Elther: Inspector ‘s Green Second man

Vincent and Norman: pushers from Jamaica (do not appear)

 

 (The drama is set in London  at any week-end between 1979 and 1980 in the Hampstead Max ’s parents  house)

Scene I

(Max, Brenda, George in a large bedroom)

 

Max (lying on the bed, in a dreaming voice)

-Tonight I would like to fly!!

 

Brenda (getting closer to hold the smoking pipe Max is handing to her, in a very sensual voice through the smoke she will take from the pipe)

-Why waiting tonight, my dear?

 

Max (getting up and giving the pipe Brenda is handing to George)

-Not  in that sense, Brenda! George have you got me?

 

George

-Of course I have! You would like to be some kind of flying bird, wouldn’t you?

 

Brenda (after passing the pipe George is handing to Max, miming a bird with open arms)

-Oh, yes! Let’s be a crow! Or even better, as we say with the Irish word, let’s be a

Préachàn (draws a crow’s sound from  her tongue)

 

George (also laughing  )

-I would prefer to be a dog sail!

 

Max (putting down the pipe on a bedside table)

-Great! I would also like it! A dog sail following the wake of a ship! For ever!

 

(The phone bell breaks on afterwards)

 

Max (picking up the phone)

-Hello!?

(pause)

 

Max

-Sure! It’s right today!

 

(pause again)

 

Max

-Any time you like in the afternoon!!

 

(another pause)

 

Max

-I’ll see you later, then! By, by!!

 

Brenda

-Who was it?

 

 

Max

-He was Francesco, ‘you know? The italian guy who is following our philosophy term at College….

 

Brenda

-Ah, the Jesuit priest? What did he want?

 

George

-He’s not a priest yet!

 

Max

-I had formerly invited him to the party…and he just wanted a confirmation….

 

Brenda

-He’s not a priest yet then?! That’s why he‘s joining the party!! He has told me anyway he is graduated in theological sciences or something like that…

 

Max

-Actually is doing a sort of sabbatical time before taking the final votes!

 

George

-That’s the way Jesuits are  unlisted…

 

Max

-They are supposed to experience in all things of the life before becoming a priest….

 

Brenda (laughing maliciously)

-Even going with women?

 

George

-I think they are! The things of   life also include screwing, don’t they?

 

Max (taking again the pipe in his hands)

-And also smoking I might suppose…

 

Brenda

-I expect a priest would not copulate neither smoke…

 

Max

-‘ you catholic! You’re always living among prohibitions! Is not the same for the orthodox, is it George?

 

George

-I think is not at all! As far as I know they can even get married!

 

Brenda

-As matter of fact: they have to get marry before any carnal relation!!

 

Max

-But Francesco is still a laic man!!

Brenda

-And laity are not supposed to go with any woman before they get marry with them!!

 

George

-All this matter looks like a dog trying to catch  its own tail, doesn’t it?

 

Max

-Quiet a difficult matter to face on my birthday!

 

Brenda

-Oh, by the way, did you enjoy my birthday’s present?

 

Max (watching up the pipe’s bowl and searching somewhere around)

-Where is the rest of the grass?

 

Brenda (handing him a small silver wrapping paper )

-Here you are!

 

Max (filling up the   bowl and   passing to George the lighting pipe)

-Of course I did! What about you George?

 

George (tasting a long blow and passing the pipe to Brenda)

-That’s really a special stuff! I’m stoned as hell!

 

Brenda (taking a blow)

-Why do we say ‘stoned as hell’? I actually feel stoned as heaven!

 

Max

-Do we have anymore to share with our guests?

 

Brenda

-Don’t worry about. We’ll have plenty of it!!  Vincent, my pusher, has promised to come along with a large pound of the same stuff, this afternoon, at five  o’clock; this was only a free sample (shows the empty tinfoil)

 

(A heavy sound hits the time)

 

George

-Goodness! It’s one o’clock!?!

 

Brenda (laughing and mocking a famous song)

-And time for lunch! Onky-tonky!

 

Max (laughing too)

            -And we still have to set the catering on the tables for the guests! They might be coming soon!

 

Brenda

-Let’s go upstairs then!

 

EXEUNT

to be continued...