FRANCA COLOZZO

 

 

Europe's Tears

 

In this cold month of January

Numb and weary from the lashes

Of frost and sirocco winds

A wave of despair rises within me

As I gaze out at the sea in the distance.

 

A pale ghost on the horizon

The islet of S. Stefano appears

Hidden behind Ventotene:

A sailing ship suspended, observing

The Manifesto of Europe,

Now a vile champion of armies.

 

And yet, loquacious Spring will soon

Arrive to reawaken the barren clods

Petrified by the cold and pain

Of people without homes,

Continuous hostages of War.

 

I cry neither sorrowful appeal

Only weapons reign supreme.

Servile Europe, bow your head

And do not seek the paths of peace!

Where weapons speak, reason is silent.

 

From isolated fascist captivity

Comes the cry of the Founding Fathers

To Europe, which ignores the lesson

That history has always taught.

 

A dark dream now appears to me

The year has flown by, hoping

The war in the heart of Europe

Was only a distant ghost

 

Let armies not rage again

Amidst general indifference

Where reason seems lost.

Europe weeps and sadly moves

Towards the dreaded apocalypse

As the conflict intensifies

Only armies indifferent

To useless human suffering speak

Bloodied by marauders

The sellers of cannons reap their harvest.

© Franca Colozzo  

 

 Divine Nuptials

 

Ambrosial drops descend on nuptial ground,

Where gods once joined in rites now lost to time,

On mute mosaics, deep in dark unbound,

Through watery vaults and wreckage worn with brine,

Consigned to Fate’s invisible, slow rhyme.

 

Here first Odysseus touched the patient sand,

And gave his name unto the waiting shore.

Here Aeneas, guided by command,

Raised Caieta’s tomb, in grief once more.

The rest is marble scarred by History’s lore.

 

The coasts keep silence. Circe bends in shade,

Her voice but kelp’s soft murmur on the tide.

No homeward path for him the Fates delayed;

Ulysses comes no more, his oars denied.

Memory turns to stone where he once cried.

 

The headland lifts its brow through steaming air;

A flash of ocean wrath the deep awakens,

And drowned gods stir from stillness and despair.

From Nereus’ and Doris’ daughters taken,

The Nereids rise, their marble anguish shaken.

 

Cassandra yet exhales prophetic pain,

Her truth untrusted, drifting into loss,

Among armless forms where echoes reign,

And sunburnt rocks the centuries emboss,

Mute witnesses of fate’s unyielding cross.

 

Thus mist-thick air in restless tumult swells,

Yet nothing now is brought to final birth:

Only the cliffs pierced through by waves’ harsh spells,

And seas that loom, oppressive in their girth,

Press down the fragile boundaries of earth.

 

Across ancestral sites does History glide,

Stern keeper of remembrance, myth, and wound.

Circe, with spells once fertile, now denied,

A drowsed enchantress in her power entombed,

Twines fast Ulysses’ memory, tightly wound;

His flight she seals, forgiveness not resumed.

 

Cassandra, mute, forever sighs between

Laocoön and sons in sculpted strife.

I feel the fatal fury surge unseen

On shores and pillars, rocks and caves of life,

Where ancient wrath still sharpens Time’s dull knife.

© Franca Colozzo  

 

 

 FRANCA COLOZZO

 

Dr. Arch. FRANCA COLOZZO (ITALY): Member of  UIA - UNION OF INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTS | former Teacher of Drawing and History of Art  also abroad, in Istanbul (TURKEY), on behalf of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (M.A.E.) | Poet | Artist | Writer | multilingual author| recipient of n°4 honorary  PhD  | highly internationally awarded | freelancer | UN SDGs & UN DESA Blogger | former Member  of UN ECOSOC  (CSW67) | GGAF (USA), Italian Chapter | WEF - Lifelong Honorary Member | Ambassador of Peace on behalf of several NGOs from Pakistan (former CEO of IHC- INTERNATIONAL HARMONY COUNCIL,  a sister of INSPAD (Islamabad - PAKISTAN);  from  INDIA (MERLE REBIRTH); Italy Chapter  on behalf of WIP – WORLD INSTITUTE for PEACE (NIGERIA), etc. |  Executive Director  for Sustainability & Climate Change and  contact person  for the Transparency Register of the European Commission and Parliament,  on behalf of GPLT - GLOBAL PEACE LET’S TALK (London, UK),  founded and chaired by Dr. Nikki De Pina  | Member of the INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY of  ETHICS, founded and presided over by Dr. Jernail S Anaand  (INDIA) | CEO/Executive Director of RRM3 - RINASCIMENTO RENAISSANCE - Millennium III, founded and presided over by Prof. George Onsy (Cairo, EGYPT) | Founder of many groups on social media|