Two Poems by Alessandra Bava

APRES NOUS, LE CHAOS

(to Lawrence Ferlinghetti)

In
   the
        bookstore
the voice slowly uncurls some pages of life, revealing Allen's
loss:

           "There is a HUGE                          		          HOLE in the sky" -

That same voice is painting vividly that very hole to the marrow.
          The poet never dies,
nor does his
voice.

Wasn't it that very voice you were looking for
                walking amidst the tombs in Rome? Keats' very voice,
                Shelley's very voice, Allen's very voice reverberating
                their hues upon the world's black canvas -

                                                        We all are a hole on the earth waiting for the
how of the poet, that
deep barbaric YAWP to tear asunder the pages
of our life, to color meaning for us -

Now only a message rests here,
				                        the one the poet said:

          - "After
us
           only
                          Chaos" -

The cobbled stones echo with your 
steps. The air resounds with your 
whistling. Poetic marksman, you
hum Der Freischütz to yourself

and  raise the glass of wine in the 
darkest alley of Trastevere with 
the deft gesture of an orchestra 
leader in his Roman 

Weberland.