in america I'll discover
our apocryphal history:
stifled voices with
throats slightly cleared
of steerage and rails:

   Mamma, Mamma,
   loan me a hundred lire
   for to America
   I want to go...

Mamma, bless me off,
greenhorno from Boscoreale,
so I can get guappo -
streetwise in Babylon

whatever it costs, Mamma,
I'll molt my lavaskin,
grow new calluses and hide
my red-and-black flag
from the promised land...

Mamma, I promise I'll
survive Lager Island,
the Pogroms of Hell's Kitchen,
our tenement pandemonium,
to ply my tailor trade and buy
our Dream House
in the South Bronx...

(sure I'll have to stow
our skeletons in the attic:
denials of how italy
expunged us "malfeasants,"
how my exile was not
for my children's "opportunity,"
how I went incognito
for Sacco and Vanzetti)

Mamma, I swear by your saints,
I'll raise my sons as doctors,
lawyers, even professors
so they can cure the family
of exodus plagues...

(naturally, I'll raise
my daughters to be good
wives and procreators
of decent americans)

then, luckily, I'll die
before the mother of my progeny
crepitates from three strokes,
my first born drops out
of medical school to become
a chef for the Yankees,
my second bolts to be
circus barker and bootlegger
(killing for no revolution),
and my daughters don't marry
till their mother dies
and then die heirless...

ma, grazie a Malatesta,
my third son "Myke" -
I forgive Michele for that -
will resist the tortures
of Jesuit schools inflicted
on non-Catholic wayloes
to become defender
of States enemies!

imagine, Mamma,
he'll detoxify
the criminal wasp world and
and still take proper care
of your brain-dead daughter-in-law,
making his purtroppo
non-Italo wife
cater to her whims
in the nuclear (?) house
he fabricated to launch
his offspring to universities
from their Arcadia of maples
and dandelion greens on the lawn
so she, my wife, could die
almost like nobility -
   as you did
with your Lady of Pompei
amid broomflowers
and the sulphur fumes
of our Vesuvius...

naturally, Myke
will also die too soon
before basking in
his american dream:
a villa in Positano...

Mamma, was our Diaspora
and my Wobbly flight
all vanity of vanities?

ask, when he alights
to stroll with us amid
myrtles and laurels,
the grandson I never met -
he'll arrive cursing the turds
most of us have become:
fummo!
   sbafantarìa!
sguarciùmma!
      unfanità! -
dying of their own
consumption to suffocate
that earth and land
we came to Babylon
to charge with strokes of Justice!

Mujik (1973)

   to Domenic

Mujik's hand fell off one day

then one bright morning
Mujik came back!
and dad, the magician,
who sewed my buttons too,
watched proud as I welcomed
my only brother...
      now
we don't have to be
so afraid of the dark

Mujik (1973)

   to Domenico

la mano di Mujik
cadde un giorno
e poi lui sparì -

   ma quando
papà non guardava
io m'infilavo nell'armadio
dove lui mi sorrideva
colmo di fossette...

poi una mattina splendida
Mujik tornò a casa!
e Babbo, il mago,
che sapeva anche cucire bottoni,
guardava fiero mentre io
ridavo il benvenuto
al mio unico fratello...

ora non dovevamo avere
tanta paura del buio

for a Gypsy Maria (1995)

deep within this tasca -
simulated Alhambra -
they've hung her image,
ignorant of its source...

Maria, nomad princess?
odalisque? sacred whore?
framed in a brick
   keyhole arch...
Maria, façade
   and hook
baiting us to plunge
through Calle Victoria
buy bullfight tickets
eat free tapas and
mellow and cure with
Iberian concoctions

"we have no idea who
she was or is",
the barman apologizes
as he slices the last scraps
from that wormy marvel,
a jamón Serrano thigh
as prefect as a cántaro...

Maria, ancient jug
of oil or wine,
who are you now?
just your display of
sensual feet and left
breast glowing like gold
in a Moorish mosaic?

holy in the vernacular,
do you aim to kill or love
as you brandish a bottle
of aguardiente in one hand
and a pistol in the other?

one black tress grazes
your demure shoulder
with wisps of hair wafting
from your dank collarbone...

and your lovely, shabby lace
Rom brocade dress
frills and frays at
your callused elbows...

how can I paint
your ambiguous gaze?
Whore of Babylon?
Venus reborn?
despairing Gioconda?
Madonna on hard rocks?

no one but you embodies
such abysmal transcience,
such obsession to stay a while,
such desire to die miraged
in deep black eyes
and arcs of lips pointed
like your dimpled chin -

mortal fool,
      I even dare
to want you forever...

per una Maria gitana (1995)

addentrata in questa tasca -
Alhambra da f(av)ola -
hanno appeso la tua icona
senza sapere da dove venissi...

Maria, nobile nomade?
odalisca, puttant sacra?
incorniciata in un arcvo
di mattoni moresco...

e fuori, Maria,
tu sei facciata e amo
adescandoci a tuffarci
per la Calle Victoria,
intossicarci della corrida,
sbafarci di tapas,
e stagionarci di elisir
      iberici

"non abbiamo idea
chi fosse,
      chi sia",
l'oste si scusa mentre
taglia il culo della
bacata meraviglia -
la coscia di jamón Serrano
perfetta come un cántaro...

Maria, antica giara
di olioi o vino,
chi sei ora?

solo il tuo sfoggio
di piedi sensuali,
di seno sinistro nudo
che splende aureo
in un mosaico mozárabo?

sacro nel profano,
vuoi uccidere o amara
mentre brandisci in una mano
una bottiglia di aguardiente
e nell'altra
    una pistola?

una treccia nera sfiora
la tua spalla schiva
mentre ciocche fluttuano
da clavicole umide...

e la bella veste Rom
di merletti cenciosi
s'increspa e sfliaccia
ai gomiiti incalliti...

come ritrarre mai
il tuo sguardo ambiguo?
Troia di Babilonia?
Venere risorta?
Gioconda disperata?
Madonna sedotta?

solo tu incarni
tali labilità abissali,
ossessioni di starci un tantino,
voglia di morire in miraggi
in profondi pozzi neri
ed arche di labbra aguzzi
come la fossetta
      del tuo mento...

folle mortale, io
      pure oso di
desiderarti per sempre...