YOUTH
The morning has already arrived.
Youth is:
-Get up now my son. Don't be a slacker.
Get up; get handsome
That the Professor sees you beautiful.
At snack time, at recess
Eat it and don't give it to the birds.
If a partner hurts you
Go run to the teacher
Or the principal of the school.
Be careful when you tie your shoelaces
Of the shoes
Because they told me
That the religion teacher
Who is a catechist
Gets close to the boys and girls’ ass
Let's see if their panties or briefs are made of silk.
Don't go into the bathroom alone
Well, there are clever companions
What have they learned
To give up the ass
That, one day, they will become parish priests
Or state politicians.
Don't go alone down the street
Because there are criminals and wicked
That, with trompe l'oeil
They want to see if the boys and girls’ asses
Really have a seraph face.
-But, mom, if Serafin is a boy!
Whom everyone loves
Because he teaches us to jerk off
For one euro
And gives us the prick like a Chinese lantern.
-My son, don't be stupid.
Stop rubbing
That you will lose the sap of Life
And your teeth will fall out.
Go, better, to play in the street
With the skates
With that little girl friend of you "la Puri"
To which you have said more than once:
-Pretty, you still haven't given me your meat
Why do you ask me for the eggs?
And learn, coxcomb¡
-Daniel de Cu
With a trip planned to the wine country this past weekend, I couldn’t wait to get away for a few days. It was a long drive from our house at the beach in Northern California to Sonoma County, and I was in the midst of reading ETERNAL, an historical fiction novel set in the 1930’s and 40’s in Rome, Italy, written by Lisa Scottoline.
I get carsick if I read as a passenger which means I was incredibly frustrated during that 4-hour car journey. I had started the novel the night before and read about 135 pages, my eyes in the book until the last minute, digesting another 20 pages before my husband and I left the house on Friday morning.
I just didn’t want to put the book down. I like to run my fingers down the pages of a good book and because I’m a novelist myself, sometimes I make notes in the margins or bend the page corners because of something so beautifully written. I learn so much from every book I read, so I haven’t ever considered switching over to audiobooks. I sat in the car and suppressed my impatience until we arrived at our destination. At the hotel I flopped down on the cozy love seat, curled up in front of the fireplace, a glass of intoxicating Cabernet on the table before me and held ETERNAL in my hands, ready to savor every page.
The story starts out joyous, the three young protagonists as children (Elisabetta, Marco and Sandro) in Rome, hanging out together, biking the city, splashing each other at the foot of the Tiber River. The story begins with a love triangle. Best friends, Marco and Sandro are both secretly captivated by feisty Elisabetta. She favors one of the boys but loves them both in different ways for different reasons. I won’t say more about how this topsy turvy love story works out but it’s not what you’d expect and I mean that! Your heart will be turned inside out going through the ups and downs of young love.
The timeline of this novel spans decades through Mussolini’s rule of the country, the start of WW II, Italy’s unification with Hitler’s Germany, the Nazi occupation of Rome and the chaos that ensues with a barrage of anti-Semitic laws that morph into a living hell for all Italian Jews, one of whom is Sandro.
The back cover of the book describes ETERNAL as a sweeping epic and for me that’s a perfect description for this page-turning read, a heart-wrenching tale full of twists and turns.
The added bonus in this read was learning all about the craft of pasta-making! The secondary character, Nonna, the proprietor of exclusive Casa Servano, the only restaurant in Rome to serve the highest quality of home-made pasta, urges her protégé, Elisabetta, to finally take control of her young life, become independent of men, and savor everything there is to know about cooking and how to run a flourishing restaurant business.
If you enjoy a good pasta as much as I do, then you will swoon over ETERNAL’s Chapter Eight-five where Elisabetta prepares spaghetti alle vongole (spaghetti with clam sauce), complete with the fresh chopped garlic, oregano, parsley, salt and olive oil. I could actually smell the dish on the page as the narrator described the precise preparation. As soon as I read it, my meal out that night in the wine country was a plateful of linguini and clams with a robust glass of Coppola Cabernet.
One of my favorite historical novels of all time is Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale, now being made into a film. In my opinion, the intriguing characters in Scottoline’s ETERNAL, their complex relationships, the deep dive into the internal dynamics of all three families and the delicious nuggets of Italian culture sprinkled throughout, places this novel in the same league as The Nightingale. And so, I give ETERNAL the highest rating of 5 out of 5!
Linda Springhorn Gunther
Linda S. Gunther is the author of six published suspense novels: Ten Steps From The Hotel Inglaterra, Endangered Witness, Lost In The Wake, Finding Sandy Stonemeyer, Dream Beach and most recently in 2021, Death Is A Great Disguiser.
Her short stories have been featured in numerous literary publications. Linda’s passion for travel and continuous learning fuels her fire to create vivid fictional characters and unforgettable story lines.
Dreams
I want to see sweet dreams
In slumbers of calmness.
Falling and rising with the moments.
Creating world of my own.
Cloning my own fantasies.
Reality is giant mountain
Hard to digest
Making me forget
the empathetic spears.
I want to travel nowhere
Like radiant of the sun
Travels the world.
I am hungry
For progress, not for perfection
cause nobody is perfect.
My struggles are milestone
One day,
giving others to courage pursue.
Mashkhura Usmanova was born on May 16, 2006 in Gallaorol district, Jizzakh region. She has been practicing writing poetry since she was ten years old. She is a member of the international organizations “Creativity Forum for Culture, Arts and Peace” of Egypt, “AsihSasami” of Indonesia, “Iqra” of Pakistan, and “Juntospor las Letras” of Argentina.
Minerva at School
The phone rang and she picked it up, eyes still riveted on the news story she was watching about a school that was on lockdown due to an active shooting. Furious at yet another massacre and annoyed at the vibrating device, she turned away from the TV, immediately recognizing the voice on the other end.
“Mom!” it said. She heard, in the familiar voice, gut-wrenching fear and slowly, unravelling self-control. That was all she needed.
“It’s Minnie Me’s school, isn’t it?”, she questioned, coldness beginning to seep throughout her whole body and various scenarios beginning to run through her brain.
“Yes. We’re here now. Macy’s getting oxygen because she had an anxiety attack, and we just don’t know what to do. The authorities won’t give us any information. The shooter is still in there and we can’t find Gemma.” At this point, he could hold it in no longer. His hard, raspy, intakes of tortured breath were difficult to control as were the trembling shoulders and shaking hands that held the phone.
She couldn’t see any of that, but she felt it as only a mother can and so with the calming, silky, and soothing voice of a Mom but the coldest intentions of a killer, whose heart is covered in bonded steel, she said, “Sweet boy, don’t you worry one bit. I’ll take care of everything!”
Taken aback, her son exclaimed, “Mom! What do you mean, take care of everything? Mom! Mom?” but the line was already dead.
In seconds, she was out the door, having picked up her leather satchel, which contained everything she would need, disassembled repeater rifle, knives, a change of clothes, and other nasty implements of her trade. She did not bother to change from her house dress and fluffy slippers. She would need them, too. It took just a few minutes to hop into her Bentley and fly down the driveway and out to the street, speed limits be damned. About 3 blocks from the location of the shooting, she performed an expert 180 degree turn and ended up speeding to the scene, backwards. Everyone scrambled to get out of her way as she headed for the huge plate glass windowed entrance to the school.
“Sorry, sorry!” she cried to anyone who could take a moment to listen, as she ripped through wooden sawhorses and side swiped police cars. “I can’t control this car! Help!”
Bam! Boom! Screech! Then there was the tingling explosion of falling glass, but she had no time to notice the effects of the crash, the reaction of her body, or anything else. There was only the fierce hate for anyone who would endanger children, crazy or not, and her overriding anxiety for her granddaughter. If he had hurt her, he would not live. Those emotions raised her out of the damaged car easily before anyone could get to her, and into the building she ran, remembering to limp as if old age and injury had command.
She had no difficulty finding the correct room. The kids were screaming, and shots were being fired. She had her Black ops outfit on in no time, with only seconds before the SWAT team arrived.
She banged on the closed door. “Is this the hospital?” she questioned, in her best old lady voice. “My car just crashed and I’m hurt. I need a doctor. See? I’m bleeding!” and she held up a bleeding arm to the small window in the door. She continued to scream, “Help, help!” until the gunman, thinking he had another valuable hostage, turned toward the door. The bullet landed right between his eyes, and he fell to the floor with a flop.
Entering quickly, she told the kids, “Run! Run as fast as you can!” Out the door they went, clogging up the narrow hall, giving her a minute to hide her satchel and change back into her house dress and flipflops and cower in a far corner of the hallway. Now, she was screaming and crying for real, as adrenalin began to withdraw. SWAT and officers questioned her, but all she could do was respond in hiccups.
“That man pointed a gun at me! Those children were SO loud! All I wanted was to see a doctor!” and “Where am I?” The questioners gave up. It would have to wait until later. They turned her over to paramedics who took her to their ambo but soon deserted her for the more critically injured. This was the opportunity she needed to creep away, over to the waiting, black, window-tinted Suburban, just up the street. As she slid into the luxurious back seat, Darryl, her handler, looked at her as if to say, “Keep on doing this shit and your ass is cooked!”
She responded in kind, the eyes saying it all. “Mess with my family and die!” just as her phone rang.
“Mom, mom! We got her! Gemma’s fine. Macy’s happy as a clam and I am so relieved it’s over. Some old lady crashed into the building, and it was the breakthrough the cops needed to take over. Whew! Mom? What did you mean about take care of everything?"
Minerva did not answer but Darryl watched the smile of the century cross her face and the few wrinkles smooth out to reveal the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
“Wow!” He said to himself.
albeggia appena –
diventare rugiada
senza saperlo
it barely dawns –
to become dew
without knowing it
*
luce da oriente –
nel pallido cammino
un papavero
light from the east –
along the pale path
a poppy
*
campi innevati –
un nodo di silenzio
chiude i pensieri
snowy fields –
a knot of silence
blocks my thoughts
*
novembre in petto –
tocco un nuovo silenzio
di seta grigia
November in my chest –
touching a new silence
of grey silk
*
acqua che scorre –
è più dolce la luce
di fine autunno
flowing water –
the late autumn light
is gentler
*
notte d’asfalto –
nel silenzio le voci
ruggine e vento
asphalt night –
voices in the silence
rust and wind
*
erbe selvatiche
fra le crepe dei muri –
senza una madre
wild plants
growing in the wall cracks –
motherless
*
veli caduti –
tramonti negli occhi
sul muro grigio
fallen veils –
sunsets in the eyes
on a gray wall
*
finestre accese
sulle vite degli altri –
la notte intorno
windows lit
on others' lives –
night all around
*
senza più cielo –
confondono il cuore
i prati d’asfalto
no more sky –
the heart confused by
asphalt meadows
*
occhi d’autunno –
lunghe strade di pioggia
senza una voce
autumn’s eyes –
long rain roads
without a voice
*
solo una rosa –
il profumo del cielo
in un bicchiere
just a rose –
scent of heaven
in a glass
*
cielo di pece –
tutta la luce dietro
aspetta il mattino
pitch sky –
all the light behind
waits for the morning
*
piccola luce –
raccoglie nella sera
falene perse
small light –
it collects lost moths
in the evening
*
foglie gialle –
sulla panchina cadono
piccoli addii
yellow leaves –
on the bench fall
little goodbyes
*
fra l’erba secca
i corvi a due a due –
ricordi perduti
among the dry grass
crows two by two –
lost memories
Laura Marino Trotta è nata a Roma, si è poi trasferita a Firenze per frequentare la Facoltà di Agraria e, successivamente, l’Accademia di Belle Arti e la Scuola Libera del Nudo.
Varie le attività lavorative che si sono succedute negli anni, mentre costante è rimasta nel tempo la sua ricerca attraverso molteplici possibilità espressive e l’impegno nel Terzo Settore.
Laura Marino Trotta was born in Rome, she then moved to Florence to attend the Faculty of Agriculture and, subsequently, the Academy of Fine Arts and the Free School of Nude.
Various work activities have followed one another over the years, while her search across multiple expressive possibilities and her commitment in the Third Sector have remained constant over time.
sleeping rough
on his lips salty taste...
dewdrops
dusk chorus--
peeking through neighbor's fence
setting sun
hospital visit
on her meal menu
"Happy Birthday"
sleep walking...
in the microwave
her mobile phone
