Things
for Jaya Savige
why are there things rather than nothing ?
nobody knows but it is better that way
better than nothing, at any rate
the things of Rome
are great marble, terracotta, glass,
pewter, bronze,
old old old bones ribbon-bowed together,
and gold under peachy pearly skies
concealed inside
diesel blackened palaces,
or behind graffitied roller doors
and peeling shutters
and such beauteous ephemera -
the sequinned things
from Oppio
a tiny shop
on via del Corso
the ancient things' continuous rediscovery,
dug up from under
building sites -
further revelations
to satisfy ancient history's
package-toured gluttony
the modern wars are well-embedded
in breakfast tv reminding me of
the things of Silvio Berlusconi -
mirrors, private surgeons,
an opulent villa in Sardinia
- those days
are over.
have the rainbow PACE flags
that flew
from thousands of Roman balconies
been furled
and folded away since
Prodi brought the troops back from Iraq ?
today I walked around a hilltop of streets
in the Blue Mountains,
and, because you'd sent your poem,
I remembered
the walk, opposite the poets' flat
up and along through Trastevere
to the Gianicolo
(today, I returned there,
with complications, certo )
and I remembered Ponte Milvio -
one place in the hundred places
that I loved - where you must go -
just catch a tram on the far side
of Piazza del Popolo,
go on a market day - weekend antiques -
(it's in the guide book)
and don't even think "antiques ! in Rome ? "
just go there - to the unkempt banks
of the swift river, to the famous bridge,
and then to Mussolini's stadium
ringed by perfect giant athletes -
you can picnic beside the enormous feet
of their towering kitsch heroics
if you lean out
from the poets' flat terrace
and stare, way past the railway station,
towards the distant south
you'll see the white concrete building,
that will remind you of de Chirico
(but no banana),
of EUR,
more Mussolini -
more impossible idealism,
looking so vast, so cold, so practical -
impossible !
because if anything is known there
it's that nothing works
by program,
on the opposite side
of Rome.
this poem - merely a hint
of the trove of things
to help you spend your grant
and the things you've paid to store
to do so,
it's nothing really.