Luigi Marchini
Luigi Marchini was born in London but now live sin Kent where i have run a writing group for many years.
I have been published world wide (including two of your anthologies!) and i have also judged many competitions in Europe and in Asia.
I do not believe in different nations but one world. We are all equal.
ESPAÑOL:
Luigi Marchini nació en Londres, pero ahora vive sin Kent donde he dirigido un grupo de escritura durante muchos años.
He sido publicado en todo el mundo (incluyendo dos de sus antologías!) y también he juzgado muchas competiciones en Europa y en Asia.
No creo en diferentes naciones, sino en un mundo. Todos somos iguales.
Gnocchi and Barolo
I made gnocchi yesterday
It wasn’t easy, my hands more adept at
holding pens, making love than kneading
one kilogram of potatoes, five hundred
grams of plain flour together, beating,
squashing the mixture – King Kong
and the citizens of New York or me exacting
revenge on my brother via his perfectly formed blue
plasticine models of a Spitfire or the Titanic.
I made gnocchi yesterday
Later the family sat down to dinner - gnocchi
resplendent in a Bolognese sauce,
a 1998 Barolo standing guard. The gnocchi
could have been better, I admit; the dumplings
weren’t smooth, my hands not powerful
enough to do the deed; the Barolo, however, tasted like
the scent of Dolce Gabbana Light Blue
pierced by the early morning sunlight, and its
colour was red gold.
I made gnocchi yesterday
My mother cooked gnocchi on my eighth
birthday - it was a different family that sat down
to dinner then; no more can I see my grandmother
at the head of the table, smiling always - La Giaconda -
or my aunt always on my right, so close I could touch
her dreams: now there are daughters,
wives, nephews but they were not there on
my eighth birthday.
I made gnocchi yesterday
My grandmother and my aunt, did they
eat gnocchi on their eighth birthdays?
I made gnocchi yesterday
Did Garibaldi and Mazzini taste gnocchi before
they spilled blood the colour of Barolo uniting
the country that bore my grandmother,
my aunt? Did Mussolini devour gnocchi before
marching on Rome, or just before he got his
comeuppance: his body trussed up,
a bloody pig heart, not beating; and if
he did was it washed down with a glass
of Barolo, Chianti, or a crater full
of fear? Did Verdi savour gnocchi as he composed
Macbeth, and planned Luisa Miller, Rigoletto
while on the same continent the Irish
starved? No potatoes for them,
just grass and weeds for the lucky ones; those alive
herbivores now, like the mule deer, the prairie dog.
One wasteland is like any other.
I made gnocchi yesterday
I can still taste the beef and tomatoes
of the sauce and if I squash my
tongue between my teeth I can squeeze out
little bits of potatoes; and I can still see my grandmother,
my aunt - only now they are dining with the Giuseppes
and Benito, company for potatoes
and the shells of deer and rodents.
WE LOVE THE SMELL OF NAPALM IN THE
EVENING
for the Catonsville Nine
We are inside, easy
like striking a match
a blow for peace.
There is paper, lots.
They won’t listen, their ears
deaf to reason
alert to battle.
How many people must die?
How high must the smoke rise?
How black must the bodies char
before they say no
to war?
This is our war
we will use their weapon.
There is paper, lots.
Nine of us
here in Catonsville
surrounded by paper
draft files
death warrants.
Pacifists=criminals.
Conscripts=dead bodies.
Bring out the napalm
it must be better to burn
paper
than children.
Just hoping it will all go away
‘The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars’ Richard Nixon
Wine turns to water.
Hours choked back by many hands, turned
round so the host is returned
to his mother
to the choreography of disciples
while the stained ones hide,
play dumb. Light shines through
on an unthinkable scene,
the apocalypse of men and women,
backs turned to the altar
like mosquitoes rusting on an alchemic scar
of flesh and blood, stuck solid to the Amen
but striving to escape, to remember before beliefs
led to wars supposedly fuelled
by oil fields full of angry palms that itch.
DOCILITY
I want to speak another language other
than that uttered in Fallujah and Phnom Penh.
I want to form different words than
those heard in Belsen and Vorkuta.
No more mephitic carcasses or
perforating screaks.
And so my khaki uniform keeps
my carbine company - locked away,
shut off from impulses as I write.
For now I know -
the pen is lighter but mightier
than the rifle.
History recalls how cruel the flood can be
We built a house
out of wet books, sodden
after the creek
burst its banks.
Water took,
still loots,
everything
except these books which
we can no longer read.
The balls of cloud
blackened, bleak (were they ever bright?)
carry on bleeding
lumps of despair from which
there is
no shelter. Still.
A hole in the roof
but no rainbow to marvel at.
The red wheelbarrow
floats away along with
the second edition Moby Dick
while a large boat sails past.
Gnocchi and Barolo
I made gnocchi yesterday
It wasn’t easy, my hands more adept at
holding pens, making love than kneading
one kilogram of potatoes, five hundred
grams of plain flour together, beating,
squashing the mixture – King Kong
and the citizens of New York or me exacting
revenge on my brother via his perfectly formed blue
plasticine models of a Spitfire or the Titanic.
I made gnocchi yesterday
Later the family sat down to dinner - gnocchi
resplendent in a Bolognese sauce,
a 1998 Barolo standing guard. The gnocchi
could have been better, I admit; the dumplings
weren’t smooth, my hands not powerful
enough to do the deed; the Barolo, however, tasted like
the scent of Dolce Gabbana Light Blue
pierced by the early morning sunlight, and its
colour was red gold.
I made gnocchi yesterday
My mother cooked gnocchi on my eighth
birthday - it was a different family that sat down
to dinner then; no more can I see my grandmother
at the head of the table, smiling always - La Giaconda -
or my aunt always on my right, so close I could touch
her dreams: now there are daughters,
wives, nephews but they were not there on
my eighth birthday.
I made gnocchi yesterday
My grandmother and my aunt, did they
eat gnocchi on their eighth birthdays?
I made gnocchi yesterday
Did Garibaldi and Mazzini taste gnocchi before
they spilled blood the colour of Barolo uniting
the country that bore my grandmother,
my aunt? Did Mussolini devour gnocchi before
marching on Rome, or just before he got his
comeuppance: his body trussed up,
a bloody pig heart, not beating; and if
he did was it washed down with a glass
of Barolo, Chianti, or a crater full
of fear? Did Verdi savour gnocchi as he composed
Macbeth, and planned Luisa Miller, Rigoletto
while on the same continent the Irish
starved? No potatoes for them,
just grass and weeds for the lucky ones; those alive
herbivores now, like the mule deer, the prairie dog.
One wasteland is like any other.
I made gnocchi yesterday
I can still taste the beef and tomatoes
of the sauce and if I squash my
tongue between my teeth I can squeeze out
little bits of potatoes; and I can still see my grandmother,
my aunt - only now they are dining with the Giuseppes
and Benito, company for potatoes
and the shells of deer and rodents.
WE LOVE THE SMELL OF NAPALM IN THE
EVENING
for the Catonsville Nine
We are inside, easy
like striking a match
a blow for peace.
There is paper, lots.
They won’t listen, their ears
deaf to reason
alert to battle.
How many people must die?
How high must the smoke rise?
How black must the bodies char
before they say no
to war?
This is our war
we will use their weapon.
There is paper, lots.
Nine of us
here in Catonsville
surrounded by paper
draft files
death warrants.
Pacifists=criminals.
Conscripts=dead bodies.
Bring out the napalm
it must be better to burn
paper
than children.
Just hoping it will all go away
‘The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars’ Richard Nixon
Wine turns to water.
Hours choked back by many hands, turned
round so the host is returned
to his mother
to the choreography of disciples
while the stained ones hide,
play dumb. Light shines through
on an unthinkable scene,
the apocalypse of men and women,
backs turned to the altar
like mosquitoes rusting on an alchemic scar
of flesh and blood, stuck solid to the Amen
but striving to escape, to remember before beliefs
led to wars supposedly fuelled
by oil fields full of angry palms that itch.
DOCILITY
I want to speak another language other
than that uttered in Fallujah and Phnom Penh.
I want to form different words than
those heard in Belsen and Vorkuta.
No more mephitic carcasses or
perforating screaks.
And so my khaki uniform keeps
my carbine company - locked away,
shut off from impulses as I write.
For now I know -
the pen is lighter but mightier
than the rifle.
History recalls how cruel the flood can be
We built a house
out of wet books, sodden
after the creek
burst its banks.
Water took,
still loots,
everything
except these books which
we can no longer read.
The balls of cloud
blackened, bleak (were they ever bright?)
carry on bleeding
lumps of despair from which
there is
no shelter. Still.
A hole in the roof
but no rainbow to marvel at.
The red wheelbarrow
floats away along with
the second edition Moby Dick
while a large boat sails past.
