Last fall after I had spent several weeks coming to terms with southern Italy’s recent history since my visit in 1973, I finished an epic of sorts. I first posted this at La Parola Vivace but am reposting it here. Enjoy. xJenne’
Odysseus Weeps…
[I]t is the wine that leads me on, the wild wine
that sets the wisest man to sing at the top of his lungs,
laugh like a fool – it drives the man to dancing…it even
tempts him to blurt out stories better never told. – Homer, Odyssey
“Una mattina mi son svegliato…di l’invasor
Bella ciao, ciao, ciao…”
–Canzione di la Resistenza di Calabria *
i
At dusk
Dreaming of a distant summer
You imagine your way home
To the warm and wine-dark
Aegean
.
To Italy and Calabria
Where black swans gather
Drifting down one by one
To the coastline
.
Tide singing the exploits
Of a wayward hero
Glittering and translucent ash
From a ship on fire
Dissolving on the night
.
On the cliff above you
Homer wakes at his campfire
From a restless sleep
Diving past in a burning
Rush of air
To cut Odysseus loose
From the mast
.
Breathing against his white neck
There on the sand
In the wavering moonlight
Bringing him to life
.
ii
.
In the mariners’ cafe
A little night music
On warped 45’s
A shuffle to the concertina
.
You and the teller of tales
Swirl to the tarantella
One-up each other
With sagas of conquest
Laughing together
In the warm waters
Off the Costa Viola
.
You have always wanted
To live at the dawn of time
This way
But now a mourning dove
Brings you news
Of a war in the streets
Of Reggio Calabria
.
A bloodbath there
The corpses of thugs
In doorways
.
You see photographs of teenagers
In the Via Candido, with a banner
Reading Adesso Amazzatecci Tutti—
Kill Us All Then
.
Women looking out
From behind the shutters
Of cement-block palazzi
Crumbling
To the beach
.
The Gioa Port
Where crates of heroin
Wait for shipment to New York
.
iii
.
In a gorse-covered meadow
In the Aspromonte
A man with grey hair
Punctures his own wrist
Pierces a boy’s wrist
Commingles their blood
.
One of us now Carlo,
He says, sotto voce:.
Tell no one– that is our code
Of silence, Omerta
.
After the initiation
High thin voices, concertinas
And tambourines at the café’
Out in the near dark
The cigarette embers
Of those who live by vendetta
.
Homer takes your hand;
You ascend the hills
Of Reggio:
You see your lover and his family
Fallen at their doorway
Waiting for the death cart
.
Yours is a keening for the losses
Of your youth
And that of the women
Stillbirth
The plundering of dreams
The murder of sons
.
With the others
You drag a clay pitcher
Through well water
Pouring a glass for fertility
A glass for grief
.
iv
.
In the waters off Calabria,
Deep in a trawler’s hold
Ak47’s are hidden
Beneath troths of ice
Packed with the bodies
Of the swordfish,
The pesce spada
Madonna and Child
Carried up the mountain
To the shrine at Polsi
Men in white hoods and robes
Gouge their own flesh
With small knives.
To atone
.
You look out
At thick cypress
volunteering
To hide the villa
Gone to ruin
.A fox passes
belly-low to the earth
With a limp vole
In her mouth
.
v
.
You who promenade there
Surrendering your dissipation
To the evening air
Do you see the fallen
Black swan
On the white sand?
.
Children march daily
In the street—
Kill us all then
They chant,
To the entrenched and ruthless
‘Ndrangheta,
.
Thieves of joy
Cut-throat crimini in bunkers
Braggadocio
Of honor and blood
.
A mariner sails across the strait
With his spear
Impaling the pesce spada in mid air
.
Laughter and fresh meat at the fire
No longer:
A ragged moon rises
And there is a lament
Said to belong to the ghost
Of a returning hero
.
Scylla and Charybdis
Contort on the pyre
Of the burning sea
Love’s body drowns
And Odysseus weeps.
.
*..one morning I was awakened
By the invaders….
Bella ciao, ciao, ciao
copyright Jenne’ R. Andrews 2010
All Rights Reserved.
copyright 2010 Jenne’ R. Andrews
All Rights Reserved
No reprinting of part or all of this work
without express permission of the authoress….
