Tony D'Arpino
AFTER DINNER MINT
Little world little flower
Galaxy of sloe berries
The sound of a tree
Is dark sauce
If man has in him a lake of blood
The body of the earth has its ocean
Mixed with the doorways of Barcelona 5.0
Math War in the suicide forest
The Klencke Atlas taller than a man
Treasured by collectors and daydreamers
A dry plump world with Renaissance legs
Vermeer's map in blue adventure
String theory of light
On the mullioned windows
Above the Stag and Hounds
Brutalist Icarus Recidivus
All banks will henceforth be called bands
All systems will be theatres
The fortune cookie factory prisoner texts
The Corporation is ephemeral
You really don’t understand
How much I hate Disneyland
ODE TO CAROLINE BAUDELAIRE
An earthquake
Is never overdue.
Nature is not dogmatic.
Confused before the dream,
The double life
Wakens the soul.
Climbing out of winter
Looking for the sun
Like an old cat,
A strange comfort
Feeling so close
To that nether region
Of shadow storage
And dream notation.
Two fingers through the head.
Not trying to say anything.
Trying to see. Saying sees.
Saying is a way of seeing.
Lie detectors do not detect lies
But the anxiety and context
Of all the left banks in the world.
COLOURING BOOK
Don’t give up
It’s still the Renaissance
City full
Of gangster towers
(Singing)
The island
Señor vapour
And the green night
Calm
Naked
Habitual
Newcomers of tomorrow
Don’t colour me
Go outside
The lines
Plein air flesh-pollen
The truism
Of tomorrow
False today
How they caught the light
Don’t give up
Crossing the dark
Tree line
To the blue pages
COPPERPLATE OF PHILADELPHIA
Few now can fire
In the rigging of the harbour ships
A fresh hand on smooth ropes
So thin they cannot be counted as
Pure communication pine
Knot-holes branding the hatches
Every beach a palmetto farmhouse
A tide of smiles
The sand a bird
Crying sky
Half-Phoenician fish traps
Along the freedom creeks
The Delaware flows
Like copper Cyprus
An icon reversed
Through a frozen summer
Engraved in the strange divide
Between observation and oblivion
Little world little flower
Galaxy of sloe berries
The sound of a tree
Is dark sauce
If man has in him a lake of blood
The body of the earth has its ocean
Mixed with the doorways of Barcelona 5.0
Math War in the suicide forest
The Klencke Atlas taller than a man
Treasured by collectors and daydreamers
A dry plump world with Renaissance legs
Vermeer's map in blue adventure
String theory of light
On the mullioned windows
Above the Stag and Hounds
Brutalist Icarus Recidivus
All banks will henceforth be called bands
All systems will be theatres
The fortune cookie factory prisoner texts
The Corporation is ephemeral
You really don’t understand
How much I hate Disneyland
ODE TO CAROLINE BAUDELAIRE
An earthquake
Is never overdue.
Nature is not dogmatic.
Confused before the dream,
The double life
Wakens the soul.
Climbing out of winter
Looking for the sun
Like an old cat,
A strange comfort
Feeling so close
To that nether region
Of shadow storage
And dream notation.
Two fingers through the head.
Not trying to say anything.
Trying to see. Saying sees.
Saying is a way of seeing.
Lie detectors do not detect lies
But the anxiety and context
Of all the left banks in the world.
COLOURING BOOK
Don’t give up
It’s still the Renaissance
City full
Of gangster towers
(Singing)
The island
Señor vapour
And the green night
Calm
Naked
Habitual
Newcomers of tomorrow
Don’t colour me
Go outside
The lines
Plein air flesh-pollen
The truism
Of tomorrow
False today
How they caught the light
Don’t give up
Crossing the dark
Tree line
To the blue pages
COPPERPLATE OF PHILADELPHIA
Few now can fire
In the rigging of the harbour ships
A fresh hand on smooth ropes
So thin they cannot be counted as
Pure communication pine
Knot-holes branding the hatches
Every beach a palmetto farmhouse
A tide of smiles
The sand a bird
Crying sky
Half-Phoenician fish traps
Along the freedom creeks
The Delaware flows
Like copper Cyprus
An icon reversed
Through a frozen summer
Engraved in the strange divide
Between observation and oblivion
Copyright © Tony D'Arpino 2019
Tony D’Arpino an American poet living in England (12 years). At poetry readings he is often introduced as a San Francisco poet, which is only partly true: a good few years in San Francisco, but 10 in Hawaii, and more in Europe. His most recent book of poetry is Floating Harbour (Redcliffe Press, UK). Other work has appeared in Agenda, Barrow Street, The Clearing, E Ratio Magazine, The North, Poetry East, and the Glasgow Review of Books.
