Days Slip Away
On orthodoxy
You exhale tragedies
Seal doors of diversity
To basic black and a simple blouse
Embellished with hair and lunch appointments
Under the equivalence and certainty
Of being saved
Droning compartmentalized
Satellites
Encircle your frenetic schedule
Supply your honey-less buzz
To the barren and desiccated flowers
That exaggerate your proper geometric garden
Oblivious that the days slip away
You carry the privilege of a woman’s burden
Support the nest
And mutter your continuing inventory
Of snide remarks about your vacant ex
Your children have secured and frittered
Socially acceptable professional men
That have given you progeny
We hear bulletins of children
In the background
A droning siren’s song
In anxious and damaged pitch
You notice your daughters
Have taken to strange behaviour
Which will disappear if ignored
They exhale tersely that
The medication was specialist prescribed
It is your mission to understand your role
To imprint the necessary values to the bloodline
Which was written long ago
By bearded dead white men
In an old book you trust
The brown the unsaved
The children of marginals
Do not factor in your agenda
You cannot hear the cries of alternative children
Because you do not see alternative children
Their hunger does not exist
You cocoon in your comfort zone
A small room of your design
The volume not turned up
The colours inoffensive
The nutrients unseasoned
You live with the value
Of the invisible Jesus
And your friends who believe
In the invisible Jesus
And the insurance policy
The invisible Jesus markets
On main street near the Starbucks
And the other Starbucks
You forward emails
About the deterioration of America
And the attacks from the evil others
You are the Christian white
And the conservative right
Sin is a product of the misdirected
You have not wondered about the time
As the days slip away
There is a fight song, colours
And a flag to salute
And you are very fortunate
To know the cues
To interpret them to others
Who have not seen the light
You know what must be done
To march in the parade
Of the veritable cause
To lay the bricks of the one road
That will lead us in victory
To the destination
That has been sanctified
And consecrated
By the invisible Jesus
You lust for the
Blood of the enemy
You can guarantee it with guns
You are privileged to have by law
Your bouquet of gun powder encircles you
And mutes the weeping from the eyes
Of those unable to see sons and daughters
Buried by your rights
And the products of your greater mission
Gunshots, explosions, rioting, starvation
And the most terrible weapon of all
The unsubtle deprivation of education
You are able to survey the destruction
From the top of your polluted pyramid
And you have not wondered about the time
As the days slip away
And you are not aware
If you are right about the invisible Jesus
He will for a nominal sum
Prepare you for a cell
In your whimsical heaven
Where the pedestrian oblivious
Putrefy in detached spirit
Do not fret
He will not condemn or punish you
Punish you
Punish you
Your life of ignorance and sensory deprivation
Has earned you the comfortable rewards
Of blunted stones
No pain will touch you
No pleasure did
Your remembrances of neutral
Will comfort you
You will live in a death map
Where all is outlined
And no chances are taken
No alternatives no colours
No opinions
Just the disinterested promise
Of your disharmonious life
Where your mortal days have finished
And you live in the eternity
Of the distillate of your constraint
Disregarding The Suicide Of
Gray Birds
In the former days
Before cavalcades of upgrades avatars
Graven images in statuettes and hanging idols
Gray birds soared under clouds
To the limbs to the nests
In continuity and steady flight
Their melodies enchanted the heavens
Introducing the sky
To the imperfect firmament below
In partnership we witnessed
Elegance grace
Accepted their generosity
In song purpose and passion
Those were rare days
Of secluded memories
When pure and effortless song
Glorified the air
Soared in the skies
With contentment born of harmony
Uplifted in the certainty
Of colours
Luminescent in the heavens
The rain fell
Like any other day
Through the feathers shining
In spontaneous passages
No one noticed
The threatening clouds
Rising over the slate gray sky
When a murky haze suffocated the air
Monotony and predictability
Were projected in our firmaments
Obscured by noise
In the dreary desolate
Days and shadows
Unconditional structure
Replaced renewal of song
Flight became tedious
And there was frightening decadence
Through the widening abyss
Passing in the air
Without vision
Familiarity or understanding
And the suffering of only one
Is not the prerequisite limitation
Of this terrible day
But developed and shared
In violent abandonment
These were the pages
From the chronicle
Of the suicide of gray birds
And the slander of nature
We assess the vacancies
Of discord before us
That have invaded our clouds
Darkened our world
And become the authors
And witnesses
Of our devastation
Observe these charcoaled
Twisted flights of whim
The futility of conflict
Assaults our susceptible spirits
And suggests we concede
To surrender in futility
This unbearable constriction
Attacking our vulnerable hearts
Do not despair my friends
Inside my gray feathers
And yours
Are brilliant sparkling colors
That dwell within our spirits
Bequests from those gray birds of old
Whose legacy was passion in time
And growth to lift us
Beyond our grasp
We know the multi-coloured song
And we will sing it
Even if we are the only
Birds in the woods
Finding Someone To Impress
INDIVIDUAL
And he hadn’t thought of
Boink-ing Krisi with a K
The images of her face
Were irrational here
And this sandy geography
Had redirected DNA
To another period
Where all things
That went before
No longer applied
Before his rapture
He embraced duty
Realizing he is unknown
To home and to those
Who believe they remember him
And the world of allegiance
Swathed in blood
And choking tears
He kept repeating
Please god please
Get me outta here
The name of his savior
Closed his lips that morning
UNIVERSAL
These ordinary men and women
Firebirds in blood
Whistling through the air
They cannot resurrect
The honor of a nation
Or themselves
When soldiers lay
They lay quietly forever
Warriors do not fade to black on a soundstage
But devolve in pieces in VA hospitals
Heed the howling of gladiators
Witness their opaque stares inside sanitariums
Amongst tubes and disinfectant
Death disbursed on the installment plan
It should be written somewhere
That only one horror per person
Is allowable or will be tolerated
Whose duty imprisoned him
To a sandy oven in Iraq
We offer this request in pace
For the soldiers of valour freed under a grassy
hill
In a cemetery outside Sharpsburg Pennsylvania
The medals of generals
Sparkle in the sun
And reflect on the sepulchres of the dead
Their rigid salute and the three volleys
Shatter the numbed mourners
And we are assured that honour never dies
Our dead populate rolling hills
And feed eternal flames
The bouquets of sweet-smelling flowers
Caress the crosses and monuments
The romance will never be over
Can the tears quench us?
We know the best way
To honour our dead
Is not to have them killed
But we sustain the administration of war
And we keep the glory that is left
In small boxes and picture albums
To sleep with us
In the darkness of the night
And provide light in the sinister avenues
Of oblivion
GIULIO MAGRINI
GIULIO MAGRINI started writing
poetry in the early 1970’s. He has performed at Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Arts
Festival numerous times, and many other venues in the city. Giulio has
conducted poetry workshops at alternative high schools, prisons, drug and
alcohol rehabilitation centers, and hosted a radio show for local poets. He was
asked to perform his poem, The Pittsburgher, with the Pittsburgh Symphony at
Point State Park before a 4th of July crowd of over 100,000 people. The poem is
an elegy honoring the City’s late mayor Richard Caliguiri. That poem is now
archived in the Heinz History Museum. Giulio occasionally writes in Italian for
performances. He instructs his audiences to listen to the sounds of the Italian
language and remember them as he translates to English. Magrini has always
preferred performing his work over publishing--until now. The Color of Dirt is
an anthology of his poetry and flash fiction, and availability are from the
usual online booksellers, but preferably through the author himself, for a
personalized copy through email at: giulio27@verizon.net As Giulio Magrini tells us, “We have put our
hands in the dirt and sanctified each other.”
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