Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Kit Kelen #662 - Venice


662
Venice

principles

it is not amenable to maps
(though of these there are an infinite number)

the hatred of tourists is a deep thing
it's a long way back
not hard to understand

projectiles of a language pass
we will call them manifestations

all ways must be seen as a circle

saints are the souls of tourists
who never found a way out

they are looking down on all comers
marble, plaster

beggars vanish up their way

residents are their descendants

it is called a GPS – the eyes all in the hand

but no one has walked down the same street twice

the barking is chained

the street is an art of time caught

the water is at the end of the road

give your coin to a beggar
be blessed

turn left when you come to the water
stand a while for the sun

you will see feet affixed, top of the bridge
the piercings do no good

to sit is a privilege you pay for
anyone can walk slow

the wifi has gone
all other worlds ended

accept
you are here and now

the water comes around a corner
and you are followed

reflected there

you can watch a burglar consider

only the ancients inhabit these houses

give to a busker

glass like an island
all made by hand
so crooked so

everything bent

your gaze arrests
a camera calcifies

the hatred of tourists is deep
it is beyond disdain

they are pumping it out
they keep us afloat

pigeons see all of this landing
the sky is one to them

you can buy the manicules

feathers and skulls
fridge magnets
fudge cudgels

a gondola takes you to drown

in every cafe – the music of a different year
and that's when you come out

it has always been this way
one thousand years of republic

after two days you will give directions
though only in Italian

walk with a stick and then you are old

Texans and Latvians, all China's here

devils everywhere

barrows of cement go by
and they're the city sinking

you could eat
and take it in
chocolate bolts and spanners

gloves and quills
carnival masks
a little wobbly gondola says

here is the Venice of object to buy
these will always remain in this Venice
once past the lagoon
they dissolve
we forget

all these clocks stopped
just where they would
gold with a sun to say

take home the pillow
rest on it
then you'll never get Venice out of your head

sit still
it will revolve for you

in a picture fed with sunshine
in a shop window

under a plane tree's leaves
this vast from the bright
moustaches plural

trained up like vines
and satin tight pants

a proper little pup
in a spider man suit

a gull stands tall to bark
and another

so cold out of the sun
and met on the Rialto
with a Falstaff guffaw
fine capon lined and soaked with sack

as if no time had passed at all

so much tongue out to lick the thing
it could all turn to chocolate
or marzipan

pasta or pizza the right time of day
but mainly it's gelato
in summer see the whole town melt

Venice in a snow cone shaken
that's where we all are

time is killing us here
in arches
topped with coats of arms

primitive the bobbing poles boats rub
ends out of the water

see them stumble up with cameras
I myself drift off

it is a fountain never stops
and then a bell chips in
between gulls
between pigeons
no one haggles now

so flow like tourists
all a flutter
hatred of them keeps everything floating

so many
so lonely they all are

I think were melted wax
and all as if they had to dance

I drift off
where sunshine is streetstruck
my words elastic banded
I'm here to inscribe

sit for the gondola splash

an accordion comes all major bright

red shirts striped horizontally

Dean Martin won't give it away
it's never too early for a drink

the city is almost as big as an I-pad
miraculously fits

see them walk the plank on a gondola pier
that's one way they go in
it's brave to edge the pink socks near
topple off into the murk reflections

the air weighs precious here
so much the hundred grams

buy ink and quill

magic, how streets come
campos, piazze

a poke in the eye with a selfish stick
or a girl examines inside of her shoes

then who runs this republic?
whose are the thousand years?

golden dragons, the seat beside
wait for the moon to gleam

throned
you'll have to ask the dogs
pampered along
they know
they shit
and their lackeys
clean up for them

it is only the dogs who know

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