Author: Diego Panzardi

It is June. The city sweats out of its pores
As it moves; the lethargic step of still air
is finally come; oh how much I love it!
The humidity, how it clings and it bores;
The balmy fuel, the ancestral furnace,
the way it bites — how it gives, how it goes.

It is true that nothing happens while we live,
But on the way I have seen the glare and felt the steam;
I have shopped at the market and had an iced tea,
I felt my tired walking feet in a fiery moment

With joyful tears I saw that I could reach;
Stretch out my weak arms and take off.

We have run out of metaphors
and there is no more perfect one than the phoenix:
To burn — I want your heat to destroy me, atomic god!
Scorch me, evaporate me, return me to the air
Give me lift so I am not trapped in a dirty sod
And I can know the bird that the poet knows.

I shall hear waves I’ve heard before
And I’ll go bling of folly with your painful glow
Meet your golden glare, but I will know it all;
As it was written on a Keatsian ode.

“Would you mind taking a step back?”

Tu aliento empaña el mármol

Y el salitre le hace daño

“Thank you”

They’ve got a lot to say.
Oh how they give me hope,
For they are made of feathers
And they remind me of
Dickinson and Oliver
And that fluttering is possible.

They chirp and chirp and sing.
Shee-sheet, little guy, shee-sheet.
I know you mean something.
I know you call with meaning and free will.
I knew it the moment your fellow
(he is also made of feathers)

Left you perched behind
(he fluttered; it is possible)
And you quieted down,
Like I do in the evenings
And the middle times.
(the wind itself runs from his down)

What deep silence! That pause!
With it you showed your hand.
That break has salient lead:
Your song is with a cause.
Pee-tee-twee, tiny thing, pee-tee-twee
I try to touch; but you flee.

Take it with you, mystic thing,
The secret from your beak.
Oh how I wish that I could reach,
Hold you, hear your chirping think.
Please I beg you, little bird, preach
What’s it that you mean?

The mysteries are unimaginable.
You neither fear God nor you scorn him.
You just flutter (it is possible)
And you chirp, pee-tee-weet.
For that’s your part, it is flowing.
And I have my own, it is not knowing.

Así son las ausencias, tú me dices.

Ojalá se pudiera vivir impúber,

Mas el tiempo, que es lluvia ácida,

Te llena la cara de cicatrices

Y bajo un cielo de verdes nubes

Ella me fluye, me rompe y me mancha,

Así como se amarillan mis dientes

Remojados en café las mañanas.

Así son los finales, tú me dices,

Para siempre con la piel marcada.

Now that it’s warmer out, I like to sleep with my window open. Even though the cars going down Highland are loud, I enjoy feeling the cool air on my face at night, and the warm sun opening my eyes in the morning. But sometimes I wake up to wet light. Those days it’s tempting to complain; it’s romantic, but I won’t lie and say I like when it rains. But I also don’t hate it, because I get to wear my raincoat. I got it at the thrift store down the street, along with a print of “Christina’s World”. The coat is cream and long, with a huge collar and sides that widen as they go down my legs. When I got it, I convinced the guy to give me a discount if I paid in cash. That felt nice, but afterwards I regretted buying it. I realized my new coat had some issues. It is a size XL and is way too big for me. My hands barely peek out the wide cuffs. It is old and stained. It clearly wasn’t made for me, but I wear it and I go out in the chill. The waterproof fabric engulfs my body. I’m more coat than man. Still, I like how it has big pockets, and they can fit a book and my hands. I’m wearing my hat, which is new. A month ago I didn’t wear hats, I thought my head was too big. I’ve been wearing one every day lately. I walk up the street and get a coffee. I sit and read Mary Oliver in the moist morning. On the way back I walk under a tree. A rainy whirlwind shakes up the branches and I’m showered with chunky droplets and pink leaves hanging. They’re cold and soft and blurry; they fly in circles for way too long, then graze the sidewalk in silence. I look around and think of what Oliver means by the pleasures of the body in this world. It’s me, with my raincoat, in a world not tailored, but fresh and grounding, physical and real. I look at my reflection bouncing off a beady window. I’m standing underwater and my coat fits me perfectly.

Ahora pienso en esdrújulas.
Ellas que siempre me han gustado,
direccionales, son las brújulas
Recónditas que me han faltado.

Y en el cráneo réquete suenan
imágenes idas del Tártaro;
nuestras efemérides, risueñas,
Inventando traición de pájaro.

Son mis favoritas las mandonas.
Rígidas, como tú, y lúgubres.
Todas son las horas que abandonas
En mi cúpula y en tu cómoda.

Háblate, te imploro, perdóname.
Fúmate, mójate y jáctate.
Muévete, olvídate, cámbiate.
Mírate, encórvate y púdrete.

I shuffled restless, cluttered thinking,

When a breeze-like finger

jabs my shoulder, makes me

turn and notice, floating

little specks with honey

bursting out in white light.

“I wonder where the comb is,

where the bees go at night.”

Silly! Busy! Don’t you see

the diaphanous spice?

Smell it. Lean into the tinder.

Shut your eyes and feel the

cloves and black tea and ginger.

Severed cups of stained marble,

a cold tower the body stretches,

caught under a sparkling mantle.

Born of sea foam, it sketches

discolored patterns up your navel.

Long understated, brittle granite

Were the many chiseling hours,

Carving up the hardened fleshes

Usurped to the edges, made final

Which we used to feel as ours.

What’s it like to not see

out the back of your head?

How does it feel to sleep

like a buried germ

under patterned tiles?

It’s a being alive and moving

out of view somewhere,

unfocused, talking and weightless,

missing

yet still pulling me into a gravity well,

curving your precious space

and my lost time.