FRANCA COLOZZO

 

 

Divine Nuptials

 

Drops of ambrosia fall amid Gods’ nuptials

On mosaics veiled by oblivion,

Among hollows of water and debris,

Entrusted to the breath of fate.

 

Here Odysseus made his landfall,

Left a name upon the shore.

Here Aeneas raised a tomb

For his nurse Cajeta.

All else is marble scored by history.

 

The coasts are silent:

Circe lies a bowed shadow,

Her voice a rustle of seaweed.

Ulysses will not return.

Absence is stone, bereft of memory.

 

The headland arches in the vapor,

A flash of marine wrath

Stirs the drowned gods.

Daughters of Nereus and of Doris

Rise back to the surface,

Nereids with a marble cry.

 

Cassandra still sighs.

A word not believed,

Among armless statues

And rocks scorched and strewn by the sun.

 

Thus the air seethes with mist,

Yet nothing now is fulfilled:

Only wave-pierced cliffs,

And a sea that looms with swelling tides.

 

Over ancestral sites history slides,

Guardian of memories and myths.

Circe, fertile in enchantments,

Slumbering sorceress,

Tightens the coil of Ulysses’ memory,

Yet grants him no pardon for escape.

 

Cassandra, mute, sighs without end,

Between Laocoön and his sons.

I feel the baleful wrath boil over landings,

Pillars, rocks, and ancient hollows.

 

Written And Translated By Franca Colozzo

 

At The Mercy Of The Tides

 

 

Vestal of hallowed flame,

In love’s fierce pyre I waste away;

Ignis fatuus or flame immortal,

Ever I walk upon the trembling scale.

 

Thus is kindled passion’s spark,

That tortur’d seeketh reason’s throne

For this rebellious mind of mine,

For heat that stealeth ‘beneath the skin,

In the’ wavering poise, betwixt stillness and surge,

In verse and meeting tangled, lost,

As dreams, like phantoms, faintly fade

While on my love’s each gesture do I gaze.

Exiled comfort, trembling as the sea,

Even so my thought is tossed,

Yet clasped within the golden arms of Phoebus’ rays.

 

There lie I, languorous leaf,

Or storm-borne twig,

At the mercy of the tides.

 

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|