last moon

sabato 13 aprile 2024

The Dreamer - 3

 



Chapter 3




My remembering was interrupted by a discreet touch at the door. Mr Winningoes entered holding a tray in a hand on which there was a stumpy teapot in porcelain and three handless cups, decorated with Chinese ideograms.


«I apologize for leaving you alone for such a long time »he said happily–«but to make tea is a very serious matter that requires time and skill. Help yourselves please».

I filled the three cups with a lot of attention. George, taking one on his hand, gazed at its outside and the inside for a long time. He seemed particularly interested in the small yellowish petals that floated on the surface.


«They are jasmine's flowers» said the old man. «I get this tea directly from China. It is delicious, isn't it?» he added, turning to me, while I was trying to sip it slowly, in order not to burn me.

«Yes, certain. It is very tasty. Do you also like Chinese cuisine?», I returned him on time.
«Oh, yes, for sure! I do it so much!» , he answered with a light flash on his face .«I remember when my son Adam was still alive…»

But suddenly we saw that flash of light illuminating his face transformed into a dark and sad countenance.


«My son Adam…»– he echoed bitterly himself, with a smile of self-pity on the pale lips.

We observed a respectful silence for the pain of that man who appeared at times a proud lion, full of projects for his future, to become instead afterward, a man tired of striving, bent by disgraces and by the time.


I wished I had mastered a better English to show him my solidarity and tell him that I didn't even know he had had some children, not even he had gotten married, forming a proper family; apart, of course, his father and mother, whom he had spoken of to us for long time throughout his story.


But who was really that strange man? Was it enough to know him well, what he had told us himself rightly on that same day? I made an effort to collect my ideas recalling the story in his own words.







 

 

 

 

giovedì 11 aprile 2024

The dreamer - 2

 



Chapter 2


In order to relax I recalled the preceding events, starting from the moment I had firstly met my friend George.

I had known him early in the summer of 1979, in a little snack bar of the center, at the beginning of my London stay. A snack-cafe not so far from Piccadilly Circus, where they made a slightly drinkable coffee. I used to go there, because it was the only place where the coffee was served in the small, classical, Italian cups, and even if it was served with no cream, was still better than that watered black soap that almost all barmen sell off for coffee in England. The bar was housed in a large rectangular room. On the right of the entry there was the counter with the coffee-machine, while both on the left and the opposite wall, in front of the entry-door, there was a wood bench, lined in plastics of brown color, and, straight above, lined in the identical way, a same long but narrow shelf, plenty of sugar-bowls and ashtrays.

The left wall, for the whole length of the bench, beginning from the shelf and finishing to the originally white-painted ceiling, was made of a thick transparent glass that, giving brightness to the place, allowed the visitors to enjoy a wide outside sight where, just in front, it was well visible the entrance of a theatre with an ample and luxurious atrium.

It was there that George seemed to stare up at his look, over the round glasses (like John Lennon’s, I had thought). His olive complexion, the chestnut hair and the black moustaches didn't make him certainly look like a probable Queen’s subject, but I questioned him, this not less, in English. After all, we were in London: what kind of idiom was I supposed to speak?

He burst into laughter, hearing my question. Not immediately, but after turning his head to look at me, with a funny expression on his face, while with my hands I repeated my request for fire, rubbing, at the same time, my right forefinger on the palm of the left hand.


Lighting his own cigarette, as I stood close and steady, much more interdict than angry, because of his crazy laughing, he told me in a strongly stressed, though smooth, Italian language:

«Sorry for laughing, but Italian people do make notice of them, when they speak English. You come from Rome, don’t you?», he suddenly added, smiling with satisfaction to my affirmative answer.

The place, beside the two of us and a girl sitting on the other side of the bench, was empty.

The barkeeper, behind the counter, was preparing a great copy of sandwiches, with cheese and tomatoes, lettuce and meats and a few others with all four ingredients together, according to the best English taste.

«And you, where do you come from?», I asked him in some annoyed tone for that reference to the Italian’s accent and particularly to that of the Romans, whose noble descendants I am still proud to belong.

« I am not Italian» he answered me with a peaceful voice «but I have lived quite a lot of years in Italy. I know so your customs quite well, and also your accent», concluded laughing again. This time his laughing, however, didn't upset me at all. Those few words had been enough to make my anger fade away; or maybe I was just only glad to talk to someone without squeezing my brain to translate my thoughts from Italian into English language.

to be continued...





 

 

sabato 6 aprile 2024

The Dreamer - A romance of madness and love

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CQH817Z8

First Part

Chapter 1

 

«I will soon be back, make yourselves at home, please» said the man going out. We looked at each other, George and I. It had only been from the morning that we didn’t have a chance to stay on our own.


«That’s a real story of madness! » he burst out taking a seat in one of the four wood armchairs that were around a circular table in the center of the small room. «This man must be crazy! Let's put him off as soon as is back and let's escape from here, until we are in time», he added while I was taking a seat in front of him.

«Just a moment, George, maybe it will seem strange to you, but I don't feel afraid of this man! He inspires a sort of trust in me, despite his strangeness».


«But do you realize what you are talking about? Have you gone out of sense too? This man must have some extraordinary powers: hasn't he hypnotized us just slightly before? Have you also heard him talk of super-races and brain's experiments or have I dreamed of it?», George attacked me nervously.


«Be quiet, please, George», I told him in a calm voice. «First of all, I don't believe he has hypnotized us, just before. Secondly, if he is really so powerful as you say, what could be his reaction, when we try to immobilize him? Make a point on it:  when we arrived here, we were both sleepy. If he wanted therefore to use us as guinea-pigs, two punctures were enough for him to knock us down!  I have not seen yet neither cats resembling mice, nor men with a square brain!

 

 Who can be sure that the old man is not inventing everything? It would not surprise me if this story derived from the imagination of some fantastical writer. I want to go to the end of all these circumstances. Don’t you also want to know what kind of job's proposal Mr Winningoes is going to make for us?»


George gazed for a long time into my eyes, thoughtfully. Then, without answering, he relaxed on the back of the chair, releasing the muscles and breathing deeply.


He stood with half open eyes crossing at once the feet and the hands softly on the womb, with the right hand covering the palm of the left one. He seemed to me almost slept, while only the breath animated his body. Won by all those unexpected and subsequent emotions, I also imitated him doing my best on sitting comfortably on the wood ancient chair.

 

 

 

 

martedì 2 aprile 2024

Echoes from a sad soul - 8

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C9R3YJRP

The new day

(in death of my brother Mauritius

Now the veils of Maya have fallen

And no longer covers your body

The armor of the Syrian Naaman

I see on your face again

Shining the ancient light

Of our childhood games

When hopes

were all to come

And the misleading curtain

Which hardens the hearts

Had not yet come between us

Run now

On your nimble legs

Wait for me in the sunny lands

Where the sun never sets down.

sabato 30 marzo 2024

Echoes from a sad soul - 7

 




Just let them

I

Let them pass

Come on! Laissez faire, laissez passer!

Today is not time

To shoot people anymore!

Don’t you know is November the 9th 1989?

Today there is not time

To stop goods anymore!

Come on! Only one thousand dollars

Will cost you a plenty full track!

At 9 past 21 p.m.

The wall is falling down!

Laissez faire, laissez passer!

There are bound to be changes

For our lives further on!

It’s crashing down

Together with our illusions

Their false promises

The wrong secular hope!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Come on!

The wall is not hiding anymore

The totems of progress!

Let’s go worshipping

The glittering gods

Bounding ahead!!

II

Let them celebrate

Let them celebrate

the end of your world,

they want to celebrate:

the American dream is over;

they are celebrating

money growing over nothing;

let them celebrate

discovering your rootless brushes;

they need to celebrate

the burial ceremony

of criminal capitalism;

they 'got celebrate

the funeral

of greed octopus

which scrounges their people!

Let them celebrate

the dawn of new distribution

of richness of earth!

Let them celebrate

the end of your world.

III

Let them walk

Let them walk! They are marching for freedom.

Let them walk! They are not hiding anymore!

When people go out their homes,

it means they need to go

and show they are alive!

We need to be poor together

or to be rich together!

You, one per cent,

you can't stop them anymore!

Richness is to be shared

while you keep the other ninetynine per cent

out of goods.

You priests of the profit,

criminals of finance,

embezzler of money,

cheaters of ever,

trappers of men!

Stop your police

and let them walk!

IV

Let them sing

Let them sing, all over the Country,

 let them sing!

Let them sing,

 they are the real voice of the Country!

Let them sing, in the name of liberty,

let them sing in the name of dignity!

Let them sing against speculation,

Let them sing against criminal finance!

Let them sing for the world is their world,

Let them sing for their sons,

for their daughters!

Let them with the voice of the sixties!

Let them sing remembering flowers!

Let them sing for a new world to come!

 

Submitted to Armarolla in the 1st of November 2017

domenica 24 marzo 2024

Echoes from a sad soul - 6

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C99HPDG9

Please tell me Lord, for you know it

Tell me Lord, because You know,

if still are living our fathers

and where lie their spirits?

Where are the loves and the sighs

The bright ideas

The shaking power

of the nations in the world?

And where are the pleasures of flesh

And the wealth of the globe?

Where the ancient, human wisdom

boundless and eternal?

Where is now that mother

who tender spent herself

on her children?

And that strong father

Who seemed omnipotent?


Where are those games away,

Where age carefree

And the long-awaited youth dreams?

It cannot finish all

During our short life

And all disappear into Nothingness!

venerdì 22 marzo 2024

Echoes from a sad soul - 5

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C91ZWNT2

Don’t ask me please

 

Don’t ask me please

If I like you

You know I do

But only a platonic love

We can live together

O My Elem

Nobody can build

Any love’s happiness

On the rubble

Of someone else’s   love.

Eventually we both know

There is no rust

In the day

Of the everlasting dawn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There we’ll finally join

Our souls

For the eternal

never ending love.