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Sunday 28 October 2012

Dom Gabrielli

LondonAches

(a love and hate poem)

the body stands as the rampart
it is evening and grey
i rise from slumber
i glance across the murky Thames
the bridges churn with the muck
of invoiced dreams
crossing into slums of unconsciousness

i would be that body if i knew
but i abandoned knowledge
for the clarity of seeing

hence my eyes close
and i breathe away the nonsense
and the arguments
i look to hold your breasts
as the poet once dreamed his muse

i am the first to bring these words
into the bloodstream
into the spunkstream of real love

what killed the poet
brought him back again
in the cave and the cauldron
in the simmering desert mirage
came the voice

i ignored them by writing
one by one
they found their way into the fire
of oblivion
chests of raging words

you were not yet born
i could see you
i could see your father's eyes
the generosity of a moon
to lend you the light
to laugh away the idiocy

your body
my body
the sewers of this world
the shit in posh cars
dismissing the journey
watching the screens
of their incapacities
floating in and out
of programmed orbits

the lines cross
this nocturnal raga
the crash victims in their defiled path
the river poisoned to the cold sea
the dead fish and the laden algae
these lines
writing the material possibility
of challenging the texts
of preposterous goons
with proven spells

your body born into mine
as light into light
as echo into echo
close your eyes
there is too much to see
lay it on a disused canvas
until the welcome of forgetting
graces your orgasms
with the lash of living

the buildings in gridlock
the televisions in overload
the Islamist hysterics belting
and belching grenades
from their fingers
the storms coming and going
neither heard nor felt
in the unsent beginning

nothing ever happened
libraries have always burnt
and the writers in them
have always escaped
the statues and statutes
which hope to teach the world
not to follow them whilst
revering their very bones
in crematoriums of conference

my body your body
the light your light
there is no more day
just shades of grey
lodged in the bottom drawer
of a vagabond existence
i need to get out
as Celine blew a hole
in his own mind
i need to hear the music
of the winds in the olive summits
i need the silver under my tongue
your whispers
your Indian whispers

Dom Gabrielli studied literature at Edinburgh, Paris and New York Universities. He has translated widely including published works by Bataille,  Leiris and Jabes. In the early 1990’s, he left the academic world to travel and devote himself to writing. Gabrielli has published two books to date. The Eyes of a Man (2009), his first book of poetry, and The Parallel Body (2010), which he recently translated into French (Les Corps Paralleles, 2012). Gabrielli travels extensively from his home in Salento, Italy, where he produces extra virgin olive oil.




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