These candles covered with bumps and scribbles
dream of a space with black reflexes, a life I'd call more stunned
than still: apples sprinkled with powder, effeminate pears,
an overturned mandolin, its rounded ass in the air,
and drapery and crystal, mirrors and locks
and a shout shaking a mirror and then going silent.
These candles covered with scribbles and bumps of wax dream
an untidy church dark as a closet,
and three watchful ghosts and bone powder
and moths in confessionals
stubborn, implacable old women pray on their knees
shrunk and gnarled as wrinkled skeins.
These candles covered by polite tears
dream flurries of leaves, shreds of wind,
panting curtains, a banging window
a vase pushed by nothing falling and shattering,
and the Irredeemable sitting in a lonely corner
cheek in hand, thoughtful, and
from time to time scratching his beard.
These servile and obsequious candles go out when
a light weighted with things revives
darkness, viper-tongued, doubting sow, frightened, disappears
takes with it disposable bottles full of memory
everything is illuminated once again, even the t.v.
in the air there is still a toccata e fuga
for four feet and a yawn.
Gregorio Carbonero was in 1953 in Boconò, in Venezuela, of Italian parents who emigrated after the war. He completed his studies in physics and music at the University of Los Andes, Merida, and moved to Italy 12 years ago. He now lives in Cremona, where he is an oboe-player in the orchestra. His poems have appeared in various literary magazines in Spanish. In Italy they have been published in the three-monthly magazine of international poetry "Pagine", on the on-line magazines "El-Ghibli", "Sagarana" and "Kuma" and in the anthology Ai confini del verso: poesia della migrazione in italiano (ed. by Mia Lecomte, Florence, Le Lettere 2006). His poetry collection, Nervature, was published in 2006 (Rome, Editrice Zone).