Saturday, June 30, 2007

Last Night in Rome



Last Night in Rome

Thinking to tire ourselves out
and sleep like the Caesars
before tomorrow’s long flight,
we put on our walking shoes
and go down in our hotel’s elevator,
sturdy cage with an accordion-type
inner door and on every floor
heavy outer grillwork
that clanks pleasingly when closed.
We pass the café on the corner,
where white-capped guys yell
“Macchiato!” or “Cappucino!”
and bang the old grounds
out of the espresso scoop
before adding fresh coffee.
We hike down the hill, skirting
the coliseum once more
and wander the ghostly Forum
past where Julius Caesar was stabbed,
past Marmertine Prison where
St. Peter was held, and then
west across the Tiber to Travastere.
The African traders are out
for the dinner crowds, peddling
purses arrayed on bright cloths.
Arcing back to Centro Storico,
we find the Pantheon,
and our feet ache, but we push on
to Trevi Fountain, then the Spanish Steps
teeming with loungers, and by then
we’re ready for the long
trek back down Via Corso
to our hotel near the terminal.

Friday, June 29, 2007

Pisa



Pisa

It is impossible for me
to see the leaning tower
without imagining it
as a pile of pizzas
about to topple
onto the greensward.
The photos never show
the huge cathedral beside it,
majestic and serious,
or its ornate baptistery.
Instead we see only
the tower and its funny tilt,
as though it stands alone
on the Field of Miracles,
a prop for photos showing
tourists pretending to hold it up
or trying to match its angle.
Walking back to the train
through congested streets,
I buy a triangle of pizza
with round mushrooms,
oblong anchovies,
and squares of mozzarella.
As the slice leans toward
my mouth, the waitress
smiles like Mona Lisa.
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"Language for Bakhtin is a cockpit of warring forces, as each utterance finds itself occupied from within by alien significations. Every sign glances sideways at other signs, bears the traces of them within its body, and faces simultaneously towards speaker, object, context and addressee."
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Visual Journal Sites

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Manarola


Manarola

One evening before the gulls
flew to bed we saw a boat
hanging from the sky.
A giant crane snatched it
from the tiny harbor
and cranked it to the street
that drapes over the hill.
With no cars in town,
the fishing boats parallel
park in front of the shops.
Houses rise like a wall
of colored blocks.
Alleys and stairways thread
the town, fissures in bedrock.
Above it all, vineyards grip
the sky to catch the first
and last sun of the day.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Vatican


Vatican

21 May 1972 Laszlo Toth, an unemployed geologist, walked into Saint Peter's Basilica, strode up to the front altar and climbed onto Michelangelo's Pietà. While standing to the side of the work, Toth produced a hammer from underneath his coat. With the hammer Toth struck the Pietà while shouting, "I am Jesus Christ!" He hit the work 15 times before being pulled away from it by an Italian fireman and several plainclothes guards.

From “A Partial Guide to the Tools of Art Vandalism” by Steven Goss

Without knife or hammer, pistol or blow torch,
I join the early arrivals at St. Peter’s,
heading straight for the Pieta, encased
behind bullet-proof glass just inside
the door exactly thirty-five years
from the day Laszlo Toth took
a sledge hammer to Mother Mary.
She and Jesus glisten like new
behind the protective shield
near the sealed jubilee door
that opens every twenty-five years.
Morning light enters the basilica
like a heavenly revelation.
The cavernous space swallows
my footsteps. It’s large enough
to hold 95,000, old enough
to erase the memory of Laszlo Toth,
who was confined in a mental hospital
for two years before being deported
to Australia and disappearing from view.

Later I climb the 400 steps
to the top of the dome, a winding
travail as cramped as the path
to heaven itself. Then, stepping
out onto the narrow encircling balcony,
I look down on the giant keyhole
of Bernini’s piazza swarming with people.
Beyond the encircling colonnade,
the Via della Conciliazione stretches
toward the Tiber. I am as high as anyone
in Rome. I wind back down
to the souvenir shop, buy Vatican stamps
and espresso. On the crowded street
I scan the Roman faces for Laszlo.

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Reviews of Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach

Monday, June 25, 2007

Venice


Venice

And suddenly the train dumps you on the lip
of the Grand Canal and you catch the vaporetto
that follows the watery “s” to the San Giglio stop,
and you cross three bridges on your way
to the albergo, and within an hour
you see that Venice is filled with saints,
and the black gondolas glide like sleek carriages
beneath the bridges, and the gondoliers
really do wear striped shirts and sing
as they skull along, and it’s all an act,
but the city itself seems a theatrical maze,
and you’re going to get lost on your way
to St. Mark’s Square where you’ll visit
the Doge’s Palace and walk through
one of Europe’s largest rooms
and cross the Bridge of Sighs
to the cramped dungeons and scrawled-on walls
that only hint at the anguish that remains
as solid as anything in the city built on water.
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Sunday, June 24, 2007

Florence

Duomo and Bell Tower
Ponte Vecchio


Florence

When the train takes us toward Bologna,
when we leave behind Brunelleschi’s Duomo
and the sienna-tiled roofs of Florence,
after we close the door on the albergo
run by Allesio and Asumi, each day
the shopkeepers will sell diamonds
on the Ponte Vecchio, the sun will set
over Santa Trinita, and the marble
of Michelangelo’s David will glow
like new skin. His massive hand
will cradle the killing stone,
waiting for Goliath, as though
any afternoon the giant, as tall
as the cathedral bell tower,
will stride past Dante’s stone house,
moving north through narrow streets,
past pizzerias and souvenir shops,
the army of the Philistines at his back.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Bologna



Bologna

In Bologna, too early in the day
for tourists, a man and his son
hold accordions under a colonnade.
The man’s fingers skim the keys
like butterflies on “Roll Out the Barrel.”
His brow-wrinkled son grips
his too-large instrument, battered
and gray, trying to play along.
He’s got the moves, the in and out
of the bellows, the erratic foot-tap.
But his notes punch the air at random,
go off in directions all their own.
They lean toward one another
like the old towers down the street.
I toss a euro into their cup and walk
two blocks to the piazza
where Neptune’s Fountain
murmurs day and night. A constellation
of coins glistens beneath the water.
In the nearby palazzo is a stairway
wide enough for a team of horses.
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David Shumway on Rock Stars and Hip Hop
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Keeping Old Italian violins in shape