five poems
by Salvatore Difalco
Solomon Dreaming in London
Solomon dreaming on the one hand.
A shallow space refulging on the other.
God materializes amid a swirl of clouds
and feathers, bestowing heavenly light
on the hapless sap, arm shielding eyes.
A range of tables and chairs then appear—
planes of vermillion and emerald green.
What device transferred the design
to the glossy leaves of this doorstop?
The lamb exemplifies wooly patience
in the face of thundering histrionics.
If only we could sit and eat a plate
of black sausage and cheese, or drink
a pint of India pale. Would we reach
the end of the railway room and find
Minerva, the goddess of knowledge
showing off her ivory shoulders?
And if so would we ask her if she
understood this impious mishmash
masquerading as oneiric utterance?
Translate This
I’m looking for a new way to talk to you.
I see two clocks standing side by side
in some imaginary art book. Page before
that one is a tranquil Moscow street scene,
a woman in elegant black walking out
of the picture. A frozen moment in time,
not really. It took more time than not
to crystallize the scene in muted squares
and circles, to brush in that forlorn air.
Inevitably the clocks fall out of sync
and my experiment runs into a wall
of doubt and doubters wearing gloves,
leaning in and questioning technique.
Please, keep your hands off the work,
its textures mean to simulate reality
from a distance, not to showcase grit.
Love and loss defy the ticking clocks,
much like the Russian dame in black
has not quite made her gloomy way
to the emptiness beyond the frame,
where I am twisting in a mental wind
and trying to justify this thing I do.
A Dude With Questions
Everything is giving me
pause
these days, like nobody’s business.
What a complication all this
unrequested bonus material.
Early snow has freighted
the chipper trees.
Before we began this journey
most of this stuff was free.
Anyway, you give me
feelings
in the pit of me that make
it all worthwhile, this stretching,
this beetroot reaching.
The world is a cloister
for some of us.
See us out when you come back
from the jungle of your dreams.
Or else it makes the music
easier
to dismiss as synthetic or
lacking the thing of old tunes,
that ineffable something no
nonhuman can fathom.
Whatever
it is that makes this drum drum
I’m there for it, come hell or blackwater.
Tiny Violin
The fog of morning peeks into my room.
The dog in my throat coughs and growls.
Why finger my burning eyes with weak
grey light? It summons me to porcelain
white and cool, with profane expurgation.
It trembles my limbs and drips icy sweat
from my brow and the ends of my fingers.
A hitman in black with a revolver pointed
at my head would be asked to finish this
sad business before the moment passed.
The mirror reflects excremental brown
irises of self-loathing and regret, a red
and bloated mugshot of a man unworthy
of empathy, likely guilty of criminal
or unethical activity. How did I become
this caricature? Didn’t happen overnight.
Alone as a monk in my mildewy mew,
I entertain no thought of entertaining
other humans. Hair of the dog is my
favourite pet, and rancid orange juice
with a shot of cheap vodka lightens
the anvil copulating with my skull,
puts a simper on the brute of my face.
I need answer to no one—my excuse
and my remedy for self-abnegation.
But I’m not one who toots his horn
when everyone is out of earshot.
I desire zero audience at this time.
I don’t know why I penned this thing
with my eyes falling out of my head
and my head threatening to burst.
This is what I do, I guess, report
the messy nothing that my life is.
Eek, Eyck
No green swell this evening
will detach me from my hat.
No hand held out gingerly
will bend my frozen elbow.
Next door, the goldfinch
on the box turns and chirps.
Hounds outside hunt fox
or men who play God.
My face is not as pale
as yours and yet so pale.
Tell me, is your green
dress of cotton or of wool?
If wool you must beware
of wolves mistaking you.
The little dog on the floor
looks like furry slippers.
Fruit on the window sill
looks ripe enough to eat.
Yet your rosary hangs from
a rusty nail like a noose.
No swell is mine to claim.
My name will not be signed.
Withdraw your pallid hand.
The hounds are at the door.
Photo of Salvatore Difalco
BIO: Salvatore Difalco sends greetings from Toronto Canada.