Henry Ariemma was born in Los Angeles in 1971 and currently lives in Rome. His compositions have appeared in magazines and specialized litblogs. Previous works include the poetry collections Aruspice nelle viscere (2016) and Arimane (2017) published by Ladolfi.
compositions, on the green windowed train
that you speak of light,
the permission of my
words between easily measured
mountains not wanting
right, nothing to pretend
-lost gold, blinded perus
sun at the orvieto duomo-
in the paths stopped at cultivated
fields silence among the trees
– unspoken castles at the peak,
blossoms – to know of what was
never said and never given the only condition
to remove returns and departures:
in the end the last voice
to a solitude friend.
With the mountains on the horizon
-of that blue that is mistaken with the sky-
you ask: “come to the window, look!…” tapping
on my shoulders at the embrasure with the basil in bloom…
You admonish as if I were to blame:
“do you see the flag down there?…
past the soccer field,
the one at the barracks that flutters
behind the trees where it hides?
I see it, I say, distracted by the kites
and the actions of the fliers…” So you see it?”, you insist.
Yes, I also remember the fanfare for that flag…
With a friendly manner, you say: “no one will take you past
that flag! No father…And remember that because it’s true!
…
For a collection of prestige
the heart gazes at the missing hands
as far away as possible…
I do not understand why,
but with those mountains
I felt less alone…
The embrace provided support
and female friends seen closely
removed a brotherly
need for the best
friend silence.
In those lands the sea
is a faraway destination,
signified roads
at the summed-up brand
of silenced echoes.
The sea speaks for each one of us,
wets the ground from sailor silence
on these stretched out houses the color of boats
and it does not puff out its chest with pride of having all,
deafly repeating the line that moves the wave
as large as the island if you want or the world
until it’s contained as wanted:
The brackish aroma brands inside
a wind pushing sons, marked gazes
little action in the empty streets, buried
city squares screamed in excess. And the steps are not the today,
suspended without music nor books opened of the rites…
This earthly god threatens masses of water
much closer than the dark universe his lights…
Lighthouses, nearby land, and this silence are the dock.
Everything abandons to full thoughts while undertaking
solitudes filled lives, depraved out of a sense of beast
possession. The lost harmony of the many to the perpetual
forgetting everything she is not yours my friend.
© Translation from Italian to English by Emily Martolini
Published with the permission of Henry Ariemma