Poetry from Gabriella Garofalo

Blue Scenes

The other lover once they called sky
A Dionysian clangour who broke limbs,
Feelings, and hard cheese if she couldn’t hide
Crashed answers, food going rotten, 
Her hunger helpless like grass, 
Her dig a blue sparsely furnished
With fringe stars, tasteless food, 
A twisted rough mind where limbs 
Shook, and squeezed in-
Don’t wonder why, answers but a dark juice
Worse than unripe currants,
Leave her alone, go on shooting snaps
As the blue rises over deep grey walls-
Maybe your flock, my shepherd of troubled souls, 
Lips scraped by honey, mayhem, deceits
Let crinkly women untangle hard secrets, 
Moon, perhaps you are a woman,
Only thingie you can do 
Is making claims, and demands,
Coming up with sorry tales 
Of children, periods, headaches,
All the way bleating you are 
Awfully sorry for being a woman-
To cap it off, first season months 
Promised us answers, and hope’s damn disguise-
No more wobbling, OK?
Ask the conjuror of light 
To quickly move his fingers, 
Their fault as ever if soul keeps starving, 
And twinges went wild like a flash 
On a summer storm.
                                    
******

To S.

Was she thinking of blue screens, or last words,
When fleeing heaven, or deserting dark thingies?
Three blue hours ago she set 
To lend each awakening his breath
While the Angel was touching waves,
And moving his hands to the source of life,
And in her dream clear, and so deceiving
She was healing, maybe getting into the green,
Sounds engraving on her mind for good-
If only she didn’t hate sudden lights,
And her infinite was different 
From a wild lava she didn’t ask for,
The rust of flowers when it clings to limbs,
A sky dodging blue fires, hers,
Her birth, her colours held back by weeds
And a smashed clingy blue-
But regret is stalking her, that cursed evergreen,
Anytime she looks at words flowing all over limbs-
Father of the first seeds, every slight feels like a danger,
So hold your waters, give your heaven 
Another look, whenever her soul whispers
That light screeches, then turns out to be 
The sister of grass, and earth,
When fields grab her if she gives her words, 
And breaths exist, the many red bruises
Already taken for granted.

*******

To M.W.
                    
Great,  the ice blue shock runs through you 
If you brush against poetry, and a dirty ambivalence 
In the morning, when blue overwhelms uneasy thoughts,
And you feel them as they twist, and even shun
Nasty questions from the sky, red whirlwinds, 
A water so fed up with lovers in short 
That at last she morphs into a large green wound, 
An end to deals, and everlasting doubts, 
But why are you so scared when the fires stay silent, 
And souls vibrant at digging words don’t care 
For fruits, honey, handfuls of pages no good 
To the skies of desertion, in a word your cave 
Where life, ever the confused noise,
Sets lips ablaze with all those endless calls to infinite-
Now it’s high time to silence the books, 
Can’t you see your mind never promised 
To give in to snarling winds, or clear breezes?
So don't side with them, as she has no honour, 
No name to protect, she doesn't care 
If they find her weird, and sometimes she laughs,
While shivering from winters, while ice blue moons
Bring back a fever never as red as you’d like,
Just  a clash of colours in short bursts, 
They never slake a season when dogs 
Keep scenting the grass, among flowers always so idle
If she looks cheerful, but maybe a bit dead.

*******

To S.

Where the hell is his strength, 
The  sea looks so dazed tonight,
While they are fighting over the silverware,
And an electric blue, maybe the birth of mourning,
Is rising in the sky, yet you can hear a farewell,
Whispered as they called for the mother of life,
Bitterness climbing the stairs to hurt 
The onlookers at the moon, 
So many bruises, like an eclipse they shine,
Among boxes all over dispersed, neglect,
A tense elegance from a light that never chills words,
If they hand blue to souls, some dodgy drugs, 
Anytime she runs high and naked
Among deceiving sounds, and a second season
Raids answers much faster than love and time-
‘Cause you 're a dream, moon, but not life
For words bracing frayed warps,
And blue roots you can’t weed out-
Many books later, lights given up for missing 
Were found, theirs was a broken idiom 
Only souls intend-
No big deal, what mothers simply can’t love 
Are unsolved children from fights 
Between their wombs, and moon,
Those chatty ladies who can’t wait
To screw up your dinners with endless tales
Of lousy sex, worry, or distress.

                                                  *******                                                                                   
                                                                    
But in the cold bleak light from the hall
You simply can’t be a goddess 
Looking for fauns or friends,
Nor a maenad uprooting trees, or enemies-
Soul, your anger is a seed, it always 
Gives birth to waste, and sour cream,
No need for the old grandma's remedies,
Hurling yourself at hectic days,
Or raising your hand against limbs-
The seed will soon rise up, 
And they won’t call you bastard,
Those good for nothing, 
Moon, father, mother,
A fibbing mist raiding your life 
Whenever you make room 
To an absurd white, 
To papers encroaching on the walls,
Books writhing on the floor, 
Maybe the winter thrust to first births?
No, just a rejected look for you to learn
How to weave time, so cut it out 
With angst, and worry,
If the lover of a lost hero gets more to weave, 
Or light can’t divert you while dogs, 
And nights wipe out passion, or lust-
Even if a party of days and blue bags shakes you up,
Listen to the voices moon is fuddling, 
Unsafe breaths, but please don’t go green-eyed on her
When she writes to heaven, so many letters lying
Among corpses, a rubble of stars,
And the absolute faith, no one can grabes first seasons, 
Or so says the maddening memory
You can see standing up against a powder blue,
Drop it, be it your model an ambivalent moon
When she dodges the dull blue of the sky, 
And those restless bored sahms, falling stars.

*******   
                                          
Adrenaline high up the sky, you shocked-
Do not bend over me, night,
No need to, you’ve got lovers, right?
Fear, fear always digging her graves, souls,
Cold, and a silence you misplaced so long ago-
Just remove the sounds words echoed
When stalked by water, 
Or fighting like no tomorrow with light-
And you, my cold, do not bite me tonight, 
No need to, as souls, and a tousled desire 
Don’t mind green, or silence-
As soon as they leave give birth
To life, and God, your last resource, 
Give the sky his own fire, but, my soul,
Don’t set yourself on fire, not your fault
If days start whirling ‘round you, 
Scalds, men, rejections, of no importance at all,
As you chose from the start colours
And plain books, certainly not love, nor limbs,
You just kept slicing shreds from renegade skies,
Dissenters, the lunatic fringe -
That’s why skies can’t grab you on the fly,
Nor can Sahara want you as a prophet-
Just an albedo of words 
Breaking through stones, and boulders-
Dunno if she feels like a mother, but you inside 
A place where they’re so keen 
To come and meet you, 
Questions, doubts, slip-ups
In a brand new creation:
A heavenly vault, foliage, that pearly white 
Set to strike back at your soul.

Born in Italy some decades ago, Gabriella fell in love with the English language at six, soon after she had started writing poems (in Italian). She has contributed to a number of national and international  magazines and anthologies, and is the author of Lo sguardo di Orfeo, L’inverno di vetro, Di altre stelle polari , Casa di erba’, and in English, A Blue Soul and Blue Branches.