Suddenly in Rome

In Rome that day pressed

Between Florence and Pompeii

Just this morning

Orvieto and Signorelli

Caravaggios and Sistine

Now dashing from one

Santa Maria to another –

Bernini’s soft cumulus grace

Of Saint Teresa’s Ecstasy

To the stern Old Testament faces –

The mosaics of Basilica Maggiore

Guidebook and map in hand

The oblivious impatient tourist

I cut through a park

(More hard dirt than lawn

No flowers lovers or hedge)

And suddenly I’m a goalie

Suddenly I’m Nero the lost

Colossus among these skinny

Dusty boys – my itinerary

Momentarily irrelevant I venture

To kick the ball downfield

They laugh and cheer the giant

Never mind the Trevi Fountain

Spanish Steps or Mouth of Truth

Suddenly I’m in Rome

I’m guessing the Palatine

And Pantheon will still be there

And will wait a while

Practical

Like you, I open

My eyes each morning,

Astonished I’m alive,

Oh so exceedingly aware of

My clumsy mantra,

No, I’ll be frank, simply,

An obsessive repetition:

“Quiet mind.”

“Quiet life.”

I demand, I insist,

And so, until I am

Dead, dead, dead,

This desire remains elusive.

(You must acknowledge the

Absurd, the anxiety, the rage.)

Anyway, in all this

Chaos, this is all

Wishful thinking.

I am weary:

Try, try as I might

To play the sage –

So futile, so silly,

Laughter is likely

More practical.

It Seems Likely

Abruptly, on my usual

ramble, my heart beat

wildly, a reckless gallop

(just yesterday, the doctor

inspected its thumping).

Certain of my end,

it seemed time for reflection,

a samurai’s insistence

on an aesthetic death,

ephemeral significance:

during the night, snow,

heavy on the limbs

and at dawn, with the wind,

robins and chickadees,

a blizzard all over again

as if, only for me,

the wild cherry shed

petals too soon.

Hell no! I’m dying!

I willed my most poignant

images to the surface,

faces of wife, daughter, son,

a perfect memory

for a perfect death.

By the end of the trek,

I returned to routine,

my chest finding predictable

rhythm – so quickly,

I dismissed mortality.

When I die, will I be

preoccupied with deathly

minutia? It seems likely

and cannot be helped,

triviality the tragedy.

At Sixty Nearly

At sixty nearly

A weary old man

I was cured of any

Assumptions of integrity

Nearly fired – nearly

Escorted from the building

(Perp-walked possibly

A committee met

Union rep an idiot

A reluctant reprimand

The negotiated fix)

For landing an expletive

At the office – a quiet

Well-mannered curse

Perfectly placed commentary

On a superior’s appalling

Incompetence – profanity

Confidently justified

Wounding no one

(And solving nothing

As egos were rattled)

Where the expression

Of outrage is forbidden

I’ve learned silence

Cowardice and apathy

Are more prudent policies

My Everything

Though I’ve not auditioned

For this strut across the stage,

I must be heard,

I must be seen,

My twee narcissism

Splayed upon your tiny screen,

On our devices, our vices,

In tawdry bauble pixels,

My everything, my everything.

Ignored, I shall scream.

I desire, I insist, I decree,

To be relevant my dream,

However petty my tinselly fame.

Oh yes, I’m well aware

Of the transience; I haven’t

Forgotten this is all lost when dead.

Perfectly content with my decay,

For now, now, right now,

I simply need to be loved.

Selfish

I’m a selfish man,

But it’s mine, all mine.

Astonishing, it takes my

Breath away, not yours.

I call dibs as I’m the only

One who sees the moon

On this crisp morning,

A vivid orange orb

Against electric blue.

Everyone else along Hill Road

Is sound asleep or if

They do happen to notice,

They’ll quietly relish the moment

And keep it to themselves

As I so often do.

There, there, on the lip

Of that wide, deep shadow

(More appealing than Florida)

Is where I’ll retire,

And the neighbors will

Never notice I’ve left.

That’s fine by me;

They’ll wave from afar.

David Sapp, writer and artist, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawings titled Drawing Nirvana.

David Sapp, danieldavidart@gmail.com