Roma

Roma

READ ONLY MEMORY AGAIN

       the wakeup phone anticipated, watching third floor the crowd weave

when will the Italians (read, Europeans) ever perfect the shower nozzle?

       tiny hotel soap pops from the wax wrap to the tiles

let alone the tap, a great dial off a ship’s bridge

       nonetheless unconscious harmonies subside, the blur dream goes down the cracks

blue squares inside white some broken, the water under surface sound

       at windows, in place again, the old forms of the world

a puff of Tuscany stings and softens, a deodorant smooths mysteriously

       reassurances against a multitude of noses cleaving their censorious daily expectations

footloose in Padua then dragged through Arezzo backwards, we are here

       one day in a million or this time around or both

dumb facts of marble glossy underfoot waken cranial memories of home

       in this mountain city, the mountains brought to the river plain

home is wherever we stand? is where foot arch fits, spreads?

       outside the early roar asks no questions, this is the centre

papers report suicide increase, a fact of life here like encyclicals

       but birds waddle on shelves of stone like there’s no tomorrow

high tail and down pour and crumb chase and wing shutter

       downstairs over acrid orange juice we learn who else is staying

shy Copenhagens, a prepossessing Lyonnais, motormouth Chicago couples, the artful Londoner

       what on Earth was really going on then, we ask ourselves

before we know, the perimeter sky lifts up its oval breadth

       the whole stadium before our tootsies comes late in the story

tend to forget, but we all forget in our voracity, vivacity

       a pulley system is hoisting a wheelbarrow to a vacant doorway

in the highest deck of dreck, repairs continue year after year

       though how far we go with a ruin is another matter

is it anymore a ruin or a reconstituted relic? resurrected wreck?

       power being the simple answer, power was expression and expressed casualties

imagine Grand Final crowds yelling for the thrill of more blood

       lions being gutted, leopard gore soiling the fresh sand, elephants terrified

dark continents it took their minds centuries to contend with, uselessly

       we take photos for American students standing with their thumbs down

Michigan State, Harvard or Yale, Notre Dame they’re all the same

       convinced of a secret an imperium can bestow in its own

the crumblies of Vespasian don’t change, only our theories about them

       like, this was the funnel for World Beater’s own tortured failures

this was the real Fall, never a way forward or back

       people are amazing, everyone else talking to the cat, sunning himself

across brickwork he stretches on his serpentine back to four corners

       that woman in purple goes and pokes him with her umbrella

why would someone do that, just so, in front of everybody?

       you say your annoyance, her meanness, its gratuitousness, then we circumnavigate

nimbly traipse over rocky Bay 13 the hirsute heavies left behind

       outside, two centurions open a hansom for dodgy doges in time-freeze

if once you say you don’t belong you feel you do

       a bag lady arrives with her box of Whiskas and offcuts

cats fixate, they pick their way through mint and millennial paving

       giving being a means to life, like taking, like hunting down

while Vespas’ whiney circuits charm us back to the postwar renaissance

       on a clammy wall at Colosseo Metro posters pasted fullscale oxidise

omaggio a Balthus Accademia Valentino Piazza Mignanelli 23, nymphet with cat

       missing are the cushiony accordions of Paris, London’s rastas busking reggae

humidity increases, accretion, grime awaits the next hose down, blood sample

       “I got me some horses to ride on, to ride on …”

you sing Tori Amos, “they say your demons …,” on Ottaviani underground

       split level sixties sleazy low water dribbling from the concrete rivets

“can’t go there, so I got me some horses to ride …”

       we review how locals maintain perfect interiors and perfect-issimi dress sense

underground faces the world over, same expressionless heads bent or turned

       staring at the blasted rock, will they come back to light?

waiting for a hand, Virgil’s, to lead them from infernal thoughts

       up the escalator of hope, through the turnstile of redemption, uscita

eating, smoking, begging, all vietato on Spanish Steps these days, Frenchkissing?

       a big red line through everything, like a Picasso sexual pun

fearful to sit down and get the white-belt police making gestures

       we notice how lazy Lazios leave exteriors to fend for themselves

we swear off visiting the Vatican money-changers and their exorbitant rates

       fluoro white fingers restored, the man who never knew a woman

at the Exchange you rearrange your midriff and come up trumps

       we chuckle at the lines of lire zeroes, like self-made millionaires

rows of mouths laughing at the theatre starring umpteen arlecchino republics

       analysis and appraisal ends up with the same colonnades, doing U-ies

Pincio ascended, we crunch over carrara gravel, buckled cans, gooey condoms

       dead summer’s impressions, bone pavement, broken  limestone (click) the pine shadows

chestnuts fill the gutters, rain has passed but everything still gleams

       teenagers’ graven text(a)s left on heads of civilization, networking their sigla

you collect passing forms in a camera to recall pinnacles, crests

       potential limitations (click) tackled by giant earthworks to mend privet paths

dreamily we order coffee and almond cakes in the glass pavilion

       level of interest plateaus, always something impossibly original through the trees

midmorning conversation’s the best, emperors and junkies and waiters and pontiffs

       plenty of time, with no conjunctions, for friends’ amours, co-workers’ concatenations

marchesa Iris Origo (my book) and Nuala Ni Dhomnaill (your book)

       doubts went on under those white domes you wouldn’t read about

remuneration was a house, the woods, the sky, exile from feeling

       while the skullcap of St Peter’s contains circuitry engaged in self-affirmation

conclusion is orange walls, peeling cones, flounced grass where lovers hid

       Roma? aroma, rumour, Room A, rheum, trauma, vrooma-vrooma, rammer, rhymer, reams

every day’s a good day to be born, said John twenty-three

       every day’s a good day to die, or just have coffee

coming down via Veneto, at handbag shop number 8 you finally choose

       humming, but at least it’s not Torrid Aimless, of course Björk

this leather jacket is just the ticket, hidden pockets, foldaway studs

       on mezzanine railings geraniums are sprayed by a smiling hotel porter

we stop at un bar, the buzzing ceiling harbour to passions

       mozzarella carozza, the sweet egg, the bitter crust, the ripe filling

come all this way to learn perfection’s no substitute for simplicity

       hard to believe a world food summit’s on in this city

till inevitably bookshops, the decline and fall of the roaming inspired

       and what’s this? Joyce’s Ulisse (“…voglio Sì”), darned Miss Emily’s compacts

Io non sono nessuno! Tu chi sei? Anche tu – sei – nessuno?

       spend the plastic on Leopardi the friendless hunchback, Zanzotto’s zizzy semantics

then we happen upon Piazza Mignanelli and elect to go upstairs

       you wonder why the mirror is held up to her face

what does she see? the mirror is not held toward us

       nor do we see her reflection bending away in lovely extreme

Tiber temptresses spend more time at the register browsing expensive art books

       like Piero della Francesca’s formal arrangement where something’s about to happen

or has happened, like his graces who read in chairs, the secret?

       Rousseau is there, forceful naïveté that is adult escapism, events eluded

the drawings we like emphatically the least, thank you, shadows only

       the hand is there but this is not Degas, Géricault

after the overview we are back with the main ten paintings

       what is this thing anyway with nubile girls stretched on couches?

watched by a feline ready to play, there for the symmetry

       celestial summers when far off intemperate cicadas suggest lovemaking through siesta

or simply a page turning, the scratch of a conté pencil

       absorbed in that silence found in Esquilino after locking three doors

summertime, or autumn in the alps after the snowline and before

      we gazed for hours through the first snows, descending to Padua

indoors, but here domesticity is put to the test, secrets upended

       dregs, when the bottle is lain sideways, go to the head

the Ancients said what was sacred and profane, not the same

       peace under the grape trellis, lust that turns humans into animals

somewhere, most vulnerable place of submission, the sofa in the afternoon

       the profound earhole, the twitchy nostril, the infinite eyesocket, eating sensuousness

so far so good insofar as good is soh fah ti

       a dreamer’s beginning, a child’s escape and recollection, trained for life

everything you said dear person, the train through Arezzo and before

       how would it sound put on its back and remarked upon?

legs of the couch hold up the whole body of experience

       then we were in Emerald one gloomy winter, a red maple

or reclined on the back seat laughing over the family foibles

       in French, the divan: divine divider, diviner of dividends, devious design

these nubiles by contrast are given a moment of intimate knowing

       if either of us said what they knew, it’s our secret

us looking, not that there’s anywhere to sit in this gallery

       jelly legs before pictures of enigmas supine with book or mirror

you wanting to go while daylight still hangs on Flaminio trees

       stepping into the stream of traffic once, we step out wiser

being here with you makes it different, now is the moment

       we “set the wine down amongst the living”, quoting the line

amatriciana makes us homesick for Lygon or a quiet casalinga meal

       warm olives, beads of onion, bucatini, the tastebuds luxuriating in chianti

you will never cross Roman streets again, you protest vainly, while

       for me it’s hilarious how everyone must stop in a whirlpool

you are full now of the other world, friends, family postcards

       jotting you sing Frozen Orange Juice with the words all wrong

have we trodden the proper Jamesian path? it would seem not

       privately a pigeon walks like a bishop across the pockmarked portico

you observe how it bows reverently to a grain of wheat

       this version of Frozen Orange Juice is better than the original

at the dark apex of Piazza Navona clouds are black forest

       the clear half of sky shines with half a moon

fountain contortions of time hardly register with gelati slurpers, humbly preoccupied

       tomorrow the extended day of days and nights of time zones

you, who know your Latin better than I, simply enjoy nonverbally

       red lights flashing at Kuala Lumpur, exercising ankles in transit lounges

there is no hurry, the tesserae tell us bodies are warmer

       solidly doors fold into grooves, shutters fit shut into one another

luminous Palladian frontispieces, scrubbed whiter than the moon with laser technology

       to keep on gazing as if it were saying, these facts

why do they become memory? one day we may complain, strain

       to remember, plead for these fresh facts to come to us

fresh as now, where sway of bodies around bodies is home

       the day will finish when it is finished, take your time

this year’s colour is orange, camicia, scarpe, I mean bright orange

       our self-appointed guide called this Hadrian’s quarter, smiled at my Italian

it only made him talk the more, of Hadrian the fortress

       Hadrian the godsend, before his cashmere presence vanished up an alley

they were greedy for possession, generations constructing marble memories of snowlines

       but for us, autumn beauty of figures crossing the long square

in the clanky lift we kiss again, princes of infinite space

       remainders scanned, one page of each but nought catches fire, rest

capillaries aglow in the slumberous slow down, nerves retracting their sun grip

       nineteenth November nineteen ninety-six, what was and what we have seen

solenne e paffuto means solemn and overweight, not stately and plump

       there’s calcio, movie dubs, carpet ads, forty stations, nothing to watch

Richard Gere sounds like Marcello Mastroianni and Jodie Foster, Ornella Muti

       every day might be like this, this alone the one day

domani, first train start, the Smart world of thoughtless airport couches

       buy Colosseum tee-shirts to change into mid-flight, sweat glands constantly adapting

over millions of rooftops that will never know these area codes

       tonight wind pulls the cloudy black trees, paper slips and cavorts

gone to bed the birds, their mania retraced by acrobatic leaves

       the old churches, Maria Maggiore, are cold and black as mountains

a line of moonlight on their pediments could be first snow

       inside the hotel, you might say you’ve done this all before

designer couch like a medieval throne, best for shelving distended Joyce

       but this only makes Sevenhill more familiar, more impervious, more impossible

if you say you do belong you suddenly feel you don’t

       it’s our world that’s safe that includes Rome on the itinerary

you are in your world of sprinkling and puffing and coathangering

       we embrace, I kiss your temple, the mulberry silk of Padua

immersed in zen time you set the wakeup figure for domani

       naked I stand in the dark, watching trees half an hour

unworldly orange halogen beams let me analyse every steady turning leaf

[This poem is one in a continuing series using as the prime origin of inspiration towns and cities of Italy. Other of these poems have been published in Scripsi, Meanjin, and other Australian literary journals.]