Wish
Like a branch
the gale has rent
from a tree
and cast in the water
down the river
of disquietude
my wish longs
for the mouth
the end of the run
the flow
into the sea
of unmet desires
wary of shoals
and shores
of piers
and abutments
asway in the current
to the most universal
and singular of keys—
soul’s ol’ sole sol.
Cosmagony
Each time a life is taken,
wrapped in antique silence,
devoured by utter nothingness,
in such a cosmos otherwise perfect,
shrouded with impenetrable oblivion,
the symmetry is imperceptibly breached.
When the fatal instant strikes,
sole among insignificant instants,
the eternal countdown begins anew,
the sense of everything is swept away,
the noose tightens around naked infinity,
one more scream stuck in spacetime’s throat.
Reset Time
After Deep Purple
And so,
the Earth was cleansed,
in no time at all.
And yet they will all say
it’s nothing at all.
Nothing at all,
whatever whoever will say.
As the sun sets in the West.
The whole shebang’s about to reboot.
I remember when I was a teen,
in junior high school:
the icicles were three meters tall,
from the gutters to the ground;
a two-inch snow cover lasted for weeks,
until the next snowfall patched up the holes;
the unrelenting freezing fog blotted out all things
underneath a steel-hard coat of ice.
Secluded home, General Frost our captor.
None of that happens anymore,
not the slightest shade.
Now we just have to dream
of being adream in the Northern Lights,
hope the Dinosaurs will hold on,
although they’ve been around
for over half a century.
And they’ve always known.
The way it was, it is, it’s going to be.
Most shout at the world
while keeping silent,
as if nothing would ever change,
nobody even dared to try, but her.
The Viking Lass won’t give up,
keeps on trotting the globe
while pointing the finger at them all:
the unmoved, the immovable, the irremovable.
Since the juice went down.
This is no time for heroes.
also the last one will soon be gone,
like a gust of Euroclydon in early spring.
It’s the time for everyday men and women:
refractory, redoubtable, resilient.
All-time folk and no-time folk.
Folk who know the score in turn,
who they are or have to be, none else.
It’s reset time.
Whoosh!
Alessio Zanelli – Cremona, Italy
Copyright ©2021, by Alessio Zanelli. All Rights Reserved.
Alessio Zanelli is an Italian poet who writes in English and whose work has appeared in some 180 literary journals from 16 countries. His fifth original collection, titled The Secret Of Archery, was published in 2019 by Greenwich Exchange (London), whereas a chapbook, titled Amalgam, was published in 2021 by Cyberwit (India). For more information please visit https://www.alessiozanelli.it/.