A Poem for Thursday, Magpie and Carry On Tuesday Challenges....

Calabrian Garlic

In her window, a basket of garlic reaching

For the sun. She broke off one of its fat cloves

And took the knife to it, using

The flat of the blade to mash the clove open;

Then she peeled off the papery rind

And there it was, sending its quartered objections

Up into the air of the kitchen, disempowered

And redolent.

I sat back in the shadows with my love,

Her son Pepe; we sipped latte di mandorla

And watched Mama in her cooking dance

How she carefully took a beef knuckle

Out of butcher paper,

Put it in a boiling pot for stock, crushing

Fresh tomatoes for the sauce.  We kissed

And longing surged in us 

And my love's tongue was as tensile 
and searching

As the garlic’s green

Inquiring foot

And I dared not touch the tendrils

Of his desire then.

But later, spent and laughing after dinner

I kissed his garlicky mouth

And much later, we wept briny tears of rapture,

Rising to walk the edge of paradise,

The lolling Calabrian phosphor

On the Strait of Messina.

I saw something arc in the air

And he said it was the pesce spada, the swordfish

In rising-moon ardor.  I said

Within myself, with my poet’s heart,

Thinking of Homer’s stunned walk

In this very place, that is the mermaid-gorgon

Scylla herself, exulting

In the tide that forces garlic-stricken lovers

Into each other’s arms at all hours.

Soon I boarded a train away

From Momma, Papa

And the babies lolling in everyone’s arms

At dusk in the kitchen. 

Many years later, there is no trace of them,

Not even anything legible in a book of names,

As if I had conjured all of it 
From thin air, my indoctrination

Into a hard, polished love tinted

By flash in the pan anger,

Like the pink water-laved stones

One finds in the surf--– la famiglia’s

Work-weary and serene

Faces as we walked the garden. 

This is what I remember

Now, all of them cloistered 

In simplicity and resolve

Like the purposeful garlic bulb 

In the window basket--sublimely 
Permanent,

Sheathed in undaunted light.

Copyright Jenne' R. Andrews 2011

New Poem for New Week...

Dear Followers and other Cyber Voyagers, incl. One Shot Artistes--


I've been working on something like a short contemporary epic poem about the beautiful province of Calabria in Italy and the entrenchment of dark forces there.  I offer it here. I put up a post about the making of and sources for this poem today at Loquaciously Yours.  xj

Odysseus Weeps...

[I]t is the wine that leads me on, the wild wine
that sets the wisest man to sing at the top of his lungs,
laugh like a fool – it drives the man to dancing…it even
tempts him to blurt out stories better never told. -  Homer, Odyssey

“Una mattina mi son svegliato…di l'invasor

Bella ciao, ciao, ciao…”

--Canzione di la Resistenza di Calabria *

i

At dusk 

Dreaming of a distant summer

You imagine your way home

To the warm and wine-dark 

Aegean
.

To Italy and Calabria

Where black swans gather

Drifting down one by one

To the coastline
.
Tide singing the exploits

Of a wayward hero
Glittering and translucent ash

From a ship on fire

Dissolving on the night
.

On the cliff above you

Homer wakes at his campfire

From a restless sleep

Diving past in a burning

Rush of air

To cut Odysseus loose

From the mast
.

Breathing against his white neck

There on the sand

In the wavering moonlight

Bringing him to life
.
ii

.

In the mariners' cafe

A little night music

On warped 45’s

A shuffle to the concertina
.

You and the teller of tales

Swirl to the tarantella

One-up each other

With sagas of conquest 

Laughing together

In the warm waters

Off the Costa Viola
. 

You have always wanted

To live at the dawn of time

This way

But now a mourning dove

Brings you news

Of a war in the streets

Of Reggio Calabria
.

A bloodbath there

The corpses of thugs

In doorways
.

You see photographs of teenagers

In the Via Candido, with a banner

Reading Adesso Amazzatecci Tutti—

Kill Us All Then
 .

Women looking out

From behind the shutters

Of cement-block palazzi 

Crumbling

To the beach
.

The Gioa Port

Where crates of heroin

Wait for shipment to New York

 .

iii

.

In a gorse-covered meadow

In the Aspromonte

A man with grey hair 

Punctures his own wrist

Pierces a boy's wrist

Commingles their blood

.

One of us now Carlo,

He says, sotto voce:.

Tell no one-- that is our code

Of silence, Omerta

.

After the initiation

High thin voices, concertinas

And tambourines at the café’

Out in the near dark

The cigarette embers

Of those who live by vendetta

.

Homer takes your hand;

You ascend the hills

Of Reggio:

You see your lover and his family

Fallen at their doorway

Waiting for the death cart

.

Yours is a keening for the losses

Of your youth

And that of the women

Stillbirth

The plundering of dreams

The murder of sons

.

With the others

You drag a clay pitcher

Through well water

Pouring a glass for fertility

A glass for grief

.

iv

 . 

In the waters off Calabria,

Deep in a trawler’s hold

Ak47's are hidden

Beneath troths of ice

Packed with the bodies

Of the swordfish,

The pesce spada

Madonna and Child

Carried up the mountain

To the shrine at Polsi

Men in white hoods and robes

Gouge their own flesh

With small knives.

To atone

.

You look out

At thick cypress 

volunteering

To hide the  villa 

Gone to ruin

 .

A fox runs past

With a limp vole

In its mouth

.

v

  .

You who promenade there

Surrendering your dissipation

To the evening air

Do you see the fallen

Black swan

On the white sand?

.

Children march daily

In the street—

Kill us all then

They chant,

To the entrenched and ruthless

‘Ndrangheta,

. 

Thieves of joy

Cut-throat crimini in bunkers

Braggadocio

Of honor and blood

.

A mariner sails across the strait

With his spear

Impaling the pesce spada in mid air

. 

Laughter and fresh meat at the fire

No longer:

A ragged moon rises

And there is a lament

Said to be the song

Of the ghost

Of a returning hero

.

Scylla and Charybdis

Contort on the pyre

Of the burning sea

Love's body drowns

And Odysseus weeps.

.

*..one morning I was awakened

By the invaders….

Bella ciao, ciao, ciao

copyright 2010 Jenne' R. Andrews

All Rights Reserved

No reprinting of part or all of this work

without express permission of the authoress....