è questo il natale

regali, pacchetti, traffico, librerie, centro commerciale, luci per le strade, noci, baccalà, pesce, frittelle di baccalà, salmone affumicato, anguilla marinata, toast di Calda con le salsette, servizio buono, centrotavola che non serve a un cazzo, tavolo dei negri, "è pronto?", rutti, scoppole, barzellette sporche, inveite sulla sinistra, cazzate della destra, canzoni degli anni '60, strufoli, mousse, vino passito, "Matteo non bere", rumori di regali dentro le scatole, alberi di natale con palle ancora nuove che risalgono al '92, presepi allestiti in posti impensabili, "ma non è ancora mezzanotte!", pigiami, calze, mutande, libri, cappelli, vestiti, 50,000 lire (purtroppo non più), tortellini, lotterie della noce moscata (purtroppo non più), Allegri Mattacchioni, storie interminabili del Venezuela (purtroppo non più), stronzate mostruose di pinocchietti assortiti, bulle, rudi, agnelli scottanti, patate croccanti, cellulari che non prendono, camini ardenti, avanzi del 25, avanzi del 26 mattina quando torni dai pub pieni di gente che conosci ma della quale non ti ricordi il nome, mercanti in fiera, birre coi Manoli, luci nei vecchi licei, pandori al microonde, incertezze sulla fine del nuovo anno e incertezze sul nuovo anno, neve sulle montagne, sole in città, "ma quando rinevicherà?", natale, natale e natale.

Central Saint Sylvester

Settle up. Take a minute, find a center, radially look to where you've been and where you are. This time don't shake your fears and admit to them. The year is over.

Mettevi comodi, prendetevi del tempo. Trovate un centro e pensate intorno a dove siete stati e dove siete. Non liberatevi della vostra paura, e ammettete. L'anno è finito.

Open letter to the unevenness of wanting

there is a line
between what you can ask
and what you can get

but it's never there
when you try to divide
what can
and what cannot be said.

grey grey

light
rooms
of grey grey
light
will dagger
their way into smoky
silences and hypocritical lines
from the best actors you'll
see off stage

then, you get insecurity
masked as companionship
and thievery masked as seduction

in the end you're a ghost
dressed in black and yellow.
and it's the happiest thing,
you hover motionless yet moving
silently, incredibly making the most imperceptible noise
while
your limbs glide over the washed streets
and leave no prints

then you're between 5 walls
with a repeating song,
fallow
and overgrown
undecided and
left alone
because too pertinent
too sensitive and way
way
way
way
too
delusional.

blank lines

we are like blank lines
waiting forever to be a pause
in a speech
at least we'd be complete, in being what we are
and we wouldn't have to wait
for someone, something else to fill
the tallest x height
with characters we don't really understand
but we appreciate
for what they are
black
on
white
or white on black

Dear ____________. (Please fill your name)

Hello.
I saw you last Saturday last
And again for a while, tonight.

And there's many ways and many eyes
that have touched your life.
But I only have this, please don't think more
of what it is.

Just letters all together celebrating
the underwater red of your lips
the angle of your eyes, of your fingers
while I wait for many more planets and cosmic objects
to line up.

smsms– that's a fake palindrome.

when grass reaches from the roots to the air
its symmetry reveals
between steady brown and little green
-
then it's clear because 1221, isn't as boring as twelve and twenty
when the origin of pleasures stands still
so do our desires.
whether we understand them
or not.

Rules of conduct

one) keep a steady pace
two) ignore anyone
three) fall in love with sidewalk cracks and mercury lights
four) wake up with the birds
five) sleep at three pm, afternoons are a lot more boring than mornings
six) go to bed knowing, that any choices you didn't choose now don't exist.

forever, the eternal concept of human interaction fused with perspective.

a book is forever. maybe it's the only thing that's forever.

Walk through open thoughts

Helen. Or Everybody I've ever known

Scenes from a rooftop explosion

If a drop seeps through

We are this tall,
we are ticking away at half an inch
yet there's limits

there's barges and ruins
around which to flow

what we underestimate
usually seeps through,
unseen and unknown
until
the barrier falls.

Run with fire

Sunday or the Desolation of the End

It's hidden but it can be found

when september hits
halfway grins
of things that
were only a month before

it shows that once more
something's hidden but it can be found
it's a birthday, it's a ritual, it's a theater act, it's the newest old

when there's smiles in food
there's communication with
the past that was, and the past that will be.

again summer, again it ends.

we'll never let you go. we'll never cease or desist
to go from where we were, to somewhere we'd love to regret
then we'll be back.
but now we're here. we're here and still tired, still half alive but that has never changed.
why would it make a difference now.
we'd look closer if we could, but it wouldn't make too much of a difference.

A Russian bartender

routine

laws of clear understanding

are all outdated

thinking of

the angle going from your forehead

to your nose

I try being obvious

and describe the idea of you

bringing reality a lot closer

to beauty.

I's and Y's

Mimicry

It seems to me, that
when man mimics woman
in a relationship
the complementary comes true
––
and I'd rather be alone, and be a man
than hold that stand
be still and be at home, and even so, be fried in a pan.

Grey Metal Steel

I waited fo maybe two
months
hot sticky, New England summer
months
And the day, it finally came.

We drove for miles to a place
they said, was close.

It poured, oh boy, did it come down.

but in the heavy air between the drops of rain
and outside the car window
there was this man, walking as if the rain didn't exist.
I watched the drops silhouette him as they bounced off him and into the grey.

He had legs of metal steel, this man.

Later on, my hair damp, I picked my grown-up bike.
made of silver, and grey.

Red

november is the month of limp walks
and first loans of conscience.

the games are only an excuse for fear
of not being enough for you, while your eyes slowly
interpret the mistery i should've solved long ago

nevertheless, you see, i keep my direction straight
and know that what's important –to leave
the blue line afloat: i want to be with you, the way we'll find.

i have made mistakes, i have been breaking anything i could find
i've been burning bridges. but it's always been like that, and you could call me
from another shore, with the same exact results

it's the pleasure in swimming the treacherous waters
it's the sinking undertow, that catches me helpless
against the ruthless decision you made, that all that was made cannot be unmade.

Intorno al nuovo anno

non tremate. non ridete, non cercate. non pensate
e se riuscite, non mentite.
se è fallibile l'intenzione, sarà nuova e diritta.

non chiamate, non tentate, non partite
e se riuscite, non ricominciate.
non scendete e non abbiate
persone intorno che non siano al corrente

non gridate, e se volete, non prestate
attenzione al nuovo anno che non verrà.