At the train station they had a Lavazza machine
it glowed in the dark red, it was fresh roast ground
and, oh, the sound of loamy loam tickled nose colors.
I asked where it was to someone. Said, Dove?
Sorry, in English, he said, I speak no Italian,
no Italian at all, and read librettos in English,
and he directed me to the library
which was at the corner of a wide wide street.
I'd come on a pilgrimage
to see the spot where Nietzsche hugged the nag
in distress, beaten down, in fact, downtrodden.
Stop beating the dead horse! He was said to have cried,
full-throated in the marketplace.
But had I come too soon? Again.
.
I'd come on a pilgrimage
to see the shroud
which bore the image of Don Quixote
at least that's what he looked like to me
Don Quixote as Jesus and windmills as crosses.
It makes the head spin, to think
there but for disgrace go I, round and round
and when I finally found the shroud
it was a piss-christ
postcard of Jesus lynching in a jar of piss
Ecce Homo!
Turin, home of poets and whores,
no horse though, no plaque, no nothing
I looked around for the spot
where N had tapped a local on the shoulder
and his hands widening to take in the vast panorama, says,
What do you think of my Grand Illusion?
Scusa. Non parlo inglese, he goes.
The sky grew dark and, frankly, shroudy,
and I made my way back to the Nescafe machine
at the hotel where Nietzsche was said to have stayed
when he was crazy with syphilis, looks all can-can
and Der Will to Power was just a pipedream in his eyes
crazy augen, full of windmills.
Why have you forsaken me, Papa?
And, geez, was that George Clooney in the lobby?
Or another caricature?
Or did I come too soon to understand.
Maybe if I come back in an hour, I mused.
.
Next up, Milan
where I longed to hear the Fat Lady sing.
Let's hope she's doing Pole Dance, I pined,
as I have molto vivace lira to tuck rid of
and the opera house, dimming --
god help me if she sits on my lap,
her dapper bouncer boyfriend enforcing --
and Trieste,
where I hear they have a recovery house
for voice hearers and failed prophets
and the equivalent of a Starbucks:
Starbucks, Moby Dick, harpoons, sperm whale,
obsessive scrimshander from New Bedford, I muse.
.
Trieste today, tomorrow Rome.
On a pilgrimage to the loamy loam.
