The Blue Aisle: Poems by Gabriella Garofalo

No, don’t spin it nice here, get it?
Riots here, there, them, the lunatic fringe,
Comets kicked out from their ghettoes,
The dropouts dying to shred the sky
And no, they don’t give a damn if once the trees
Were sinners and now the branches rust away,
They don’t give a damn if some build with skin,
Some with the words -
Shattered bones, wasteland galore,
Freebies for everyone, hurray!
Shall we join them, the girls who bike
With an Amazon’s speedy wrath,
All smiles and winks to draw the dark,
All those daft nicknames, Aggies, Wendys, Tinas,
Bloody bimbos bringing probs and making life bit tricky -
By the by, you seen that green light on?
Well, they shrug it off, who cares if
Black leather and jeans are the real thing,
You taking note, life? Please smash in due time hopes,
Laughs and dreams, will you?
Oh c’mon you lot, c’mon stars, c’mon moon,
Stop sneering at the city lights,
You know men aren’t good at them,
God, bless him, is a poor tutor, so we make do
With the beaming twinkle of a pc screen,
Maybe a smiling lady chatting some guy up, -
Who knows?
End of.
Mark my words, whatever I saw in my nights,
No use as I find no answers to these words:
Do men snuff it like doomed sparks?
Do women schlepp their days locked up into hearts or closets?
Simple as that, I dunno.
What I do know is sometimes I stumble on him,
A tall guy shabby dressed,
Maybe death incognito wandering about
In search of a sip or a thought among fake lights -
His due, as who else shuts our eyes and whispers
‘No more time, rows and words ahead’ -
Only silence and a lighter skin, wan like a mid-spring drizzle -
The skin, the light, the silence when lovers
Dream that God and the North Star are smiling,
Even if bit hung up on a faint blue light -
A nice lady, sure, ‘cept she’s a jailbreaker
Keen on playing mayhem to the sky
On even days, mind, when my soul
Gets akin to the breath of blue kites
Children are chasing -
I mean, so fast and blue that demise
No longer grabs it on the fly.





Fancy a bit of escapism, love?
See, colours never forgive, do they,
If her soul is sitting on a bench
All disheveled,
If the brown shelves, the brown cupboards load her eyes,
A bloody remainder of reckless shadows,
Her life -
Autumn, I’m afraid, is no reliable friend,
Time and again it gets brown, so whimsical,
So different from green who keeps
The word she’s longing for, a blessed distance -
And blessed be the trees, the foliage,
The shrubs who gave her shelter
When the gravedigger’s son tried to
Foist on her his hand-me-downs
And some underwood as gifts, is she damned?
It all started that night, the stars
Trying like mad to chat the sky up -
He hardly gave a damn, too hooked with the clouds -
That night, yes, when Abel and a doomed fighter
Were discussing like mad aims or dreams -
Words help, they said, as long as you
Keep clear of battles and brothers,
Of course she paid no mind, dashed off home,
As food and her soul were burning
To stare like Mona Lisa at the scraps from the night,
Her mornings -
Fancy that, even raptors scorn them, such sniffy vultures -
Luckily, a wide open window, a China blue dark
Great for stray dogs howling at a moon
Too classy to reply, yet busy snooping,
Of course she knows the Rapture enjoys tidbits and trivia,
You never know, they might always come handy -
No.
The Rapture’s soul is made of a fire
Bit keen to slip up trivia,
A gutsy fire that never shirks from dark and danger -
Meanwhile, let’s make do with life’s soul,
Made of white cloudy crystal,
Just what she needs, sure, but raptors know better,
So don’t bother with love and care, just snags -
Hey wait, the seeds are storming
And splitting up the pomegranate,
What’s wrong, where’s Pluto’s gf?
Go get her, go shout her to care only for blue -
Blue?
Yes, blue our heart, blue our life.





Ah, the soirée, the vernissage!
But why bother with wannabe critics,
Quasi - painters, losers on the verge of a masterpiece?
See, my infinite artist?
Don’t your works look stunning, yet smirking wankies
Whisper they can’t stop water if she twirls
On a sudden, white whim, then her deepest blue
Wounds the eyes, the horror, the shock! 
See, my infinite artist?
How can the shallow nitpickers
In love with vodka or malt get her whiteness
Feeds souls they took for granted,
Heals shades they can’t eye for their life -
See, my infinite artist?
Dashing babes are shaking their heads,
‘Cause the moon’s silver nuance can’t match their frocks,
Such ditzy frilly floozies!
See, my infinite artist?
Keep clear from chats and smiles,
Forget sham bunches, all slant mouths
And creeping doubts hidden in their mind:
What’s best, talking shop, brand new SUVs,
Quaint resorts or French bistros, wines and lobsters galore?
See, my infinite artist?
Gosh, Mummy and Daddy make a cat’s bum face,
Kids are waving hello,
Heaven forbid they get that close to you.
See, my infinite artist?
Not even your sidekicks can cheer up the party -
Do you still call them angels, by the by? -
No use to show up, My Angels, my God,
If wines, frocks, cars get the upper hand
And blindness smites light, our gift, never mind.
Luckily she’ll get here soon, our classy demise
Clad in blue, her blue bag stuffed with pills, guns, poisons
Drowning by numbers, yes, the good ol’ stuff -
Blessings happen sometimes,
So let her smile, shake hands, chat guys up,
And if it helps children and I love water
We feel soo thrilled when the moon gleams -
Darn, I almost forgot, you unworthy scorched souls,
‘Course you can’t love the water, the moon,
Too yesterday, too démodé for your souls,
So stop wasting time, bin the flysheets,
Forget pics, words you never cared for,
Don’t bother with freebies, fresh drops
And a bit of moon your ladies mistake
For some cheap tat -
Me? Why are you asking, I swallow whole towns
As if they were pills, no fuss, no muss -
While ghosts keep dancing on a moonbeam
Mocking at me and waving ‘see you soon, see you soon’ -
Yes, yes please, but where?
Maybe on a vernissage all over the sky
When heavenly vaults and tsunamis
Play, get even, thank God get some rest.

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 Bio: Born in Italy some decades ago, Gabriella Garofalo fell in love with the English language at six, started writing poems (in Italian) at six and is the author of “Lo sguardo di Orfeo”; “L’inverno di vetro”; “Di altre stelle polari”; “Blue branches”.

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