GIULIO MAGRINI – Fevers of the Mind

“Roman Candles” inspired by Elliott Smith online blog Anthology

Tincture of Opium by David L O’Nan

A  saddle strapped and swallow down the tincture.
Assimilation over these years worth of crashes to curves of corners.

It is much heavier than before
It is much heavier than before
I begin to resemble a caricature of a zombie-
drawn by the superficial you.

Under a slightly warm night sky, barely alive
I was dreaming of you dancing on unbroken bottles.
Then again, they break again, and you're always surprised.

Much heavier than before is the cutting
Much heavier than before is the failing
I watch you fainting out a smile while bleeding away onto the floor.
I watch you believing in which heaven you have restored for this day.

The evolution of the tincture.
What is willing and what is wading
You’ve tried to prove yourself almighty.  But 

It is much heavier than before
It is much much more heavier than before
Wishing I was inside that mind with you.


Poems about Elliott from Afta Gley

Untitled

hillbasement 
musician, from your 
soughtfor transition,
your oblivion ambition, 
may you never, never
land


October 21, 2022

dear Mr. Smith, twelve
years ago I was too sad
to go to work, but

decided to work 
through the depression. there
by the Dumpster: a cat.

who knows? maybe you
guided your namesake to me.
so very grateful 

TWO FROM FOUR DAYS AGO

lighting a candle 
for 34 minutes, youre 
missing Elliott 

nineteen years ago 
I knew everything else 
meant nothing to me 

Elliott Smith waltzed 
with his metaphors, partnered
by no one at all

SO UGLY BEFORE by Lynn Elliott

A great man once proclaimed
He was damaged bad at best
In my heart of hearts
To know him I feel blessed

There was beauty, truth and honor
In his troubled soul
People clammered just to touch him
and it took it's toll

I see him in the morning
As the sky is turning blue
I feel him in the stillest night
Sometimes as if on cue

I mourn his loss quite often
Celebrate him even more
For bringing out the beauty
In what was so ugly before.

XO. Lynn Elliott

Unknown name poem by Lynn Elliott

It's so easy living in the past
Sleep walking through each day
Living where I saw you last
Pretending I'm okay

XO Lynn Elliott

My Elliott Smith story is a little different
I broke my neck and suffered a traumatic brain injury water skiing. For 5 yrs I was pretty much a zombie. The only thing I could feel was fear. I'm not a fearful person at all but that's how all tbi ppl feel
I was listening to everything's OK by Elliott
and it made me feel safe. It was the beginning of my recovery. I listened to Elliott almost every hour of every day.
It inspired me to start writing songs and poetry, which really sped up my recovery even more. I'll never be like I was before but my injury stimulated my drive to write and share what I write. So I was in my 50s when I started.

My bio

I rescue special needs dogs. I did extreme sports most of my life. Surfing, skiing. diving, soccer, tennis, gymnastics, etc. I worked for the airlines so I did a fair amount of traveling. I'm an outdoorsy person. Elliott Smith is more than a great musician to me. He is my safe place.

Ripples by Khadeja Ali

inspired by ‘Everything Means Nothing to Me”

days start and end in blank white and solid black
shapes that will not harmonize rigidly exist in my eyes
when finally touching, the sharp lipped edges cut 
and me, wanting so badly for lines blurring, insides blending
But there is no chance of grey. No body electricity to make it work.

was I once a kaleidoscope of magnetic color
shuddering with vibrating life, dancing constantly? I think so
if not singing, was I humming to natural silence?
now is there a piercing screech in my ear, or nothing
No ears-plugging or opening my mouth anymore. Frozen.

lying down is not an option; when did I start standing?
since when can I not move? This is not me. Is it? walking I was
but stiffly erect and standing at once. When started my movement’s death?
my mind’s edges are so sharp, but inside empty as air
Squinting hard. There’s nothing to see.

my energy; drained by a taunting echo of everything
wavering glass below me reflects my iron face
So glorious am I, yet—I’m nothing to me.

“Junkyard Full of False Starts” by Jennifer Patino

I'll refrain
from the
'gone too soon'
sentiments       Instead,
I'll boast of your intellect

There's a way back to blue
& to you, but we couldn't
remind you in time

& wasn't that you,
that one time, pounding
your chest
like a barbarian?

You couldn't speak
truthfully
to people
without scaring them

I know, I know, I know,
the burdens
you tore from
your aching shoulders

I know, I know, I know
how terrified you were
of even the vague idea
of growing older

You were only one, ever one,
little inside, unnamed,
but mighty            Someone
we'll think of
while
staring at flames,
hearing your phantom drunken
crooning on repeat,
when we're tired
of fighting,
or just tired
of the taste of the
city streets
where your ghost
lingers on
beneath neon lights
& in the silhouette soul
of every
ragged musician
in a beanie
we happen to meet

I'll say it, I'll pray it,

               RIP

Little Mr. Socialite by David L O’Nan

We’ve all been strapped to and strapped by the spellbinder
He walks up to you and expects you to drop the ceiling down to become his platform for a show.
Handed the keys, by osmosis you become a local legend.

To the city that continues to decay,
there is only so much here to reel in.
The cocaine socialites keep barking for you to leave their hipster colonies.
Fuck you! Fuck You! Fuck You!
You can’t talk sense to the overconfident.

They want the world, and they want the life.
They want the respect, Rifles and knives.
They want to joke and manifest a spiritual world in which they are absorbed of their behavior.

Hell to the homeless, hell to the mental health
“I don’t care about your personal lives” I care about my termination.
Your words will never get past these windows because I’ll just run out
And bark out orders like a witch in a bad dream.
Blah…blah…blah Fuck You! Fuck You! Fuck You! You can’t talk about our prince and princesses
That push the drugs and sex behind bars and counters that blow up this neighborhood.

You will vanish as soon as you appear.
Hours later you’re in another chessgame. You’re in another straight line socialite walk.
From one blink to the next you’re game changes. Drawn to your fuckin’ pawn.

He is in charge of our children. Teach them well.
Teach that future well.
Afraid of a soured reputation.
Bullying has never left your privileged brain.
And your story will never be told as long as the socialite holds the powder and the power.

Roman Candles by David L O'Nan

I’m feeling tricked in this cold October rain
The entire town are shooting Roman Candles in masses
Hypnotized in another wired dream.
Nauseated and feeling blind, worthless
The rain burns the cuts on the skin.
The friction drowns me with the idiots.
I’ve never felt this tired. I’ve never heard this much screaming.
The Roman Candles, Firecrackers, the Halloween monsters.
The shoes are beginning to sour.
The red just keeps getting darker, yet feeling thinner
The slitting and sitting with the rattle again
Have I ever been real?

The Kill of the Darlings by David L O'Nan

Another abused evening. Copper skied and bloodshot eyes.
The kill of the darlings reads on a flashing screen.
I was introduced to the spilling and polishing of my sweat to the sheets.
It must be raining, raining in my death.

I’ve been waiting, smelly and divided
On a pitch black night with coal mine moons.
I’ve been asked inside to feed the tiger.
The locomotives keep moving slower through the brain, through the cast.
Through the fade, they praise the ugliest ghost after all.

Becoming so angry by medicine and shiver out new fears.
I wait and wait and wait. Just knowing you have his name tattooed in your blood.
I wait for you on the inlay filling of broken sidewalks that have survived the earthquake.
I wait for you to come home with him.
To bust him with this chain or break a bottle over his skull.

Yet, I should realize you’ve the not caring if I ever lived or died.
Adaptation, realization and broken, a crinkled tarot card.
I’ve been calling another busy signal suicide hotline.

Winnemucca by David L O'Nan

Days of being dazed, drugged, and dangerous
Now in Winnemucca waiting for a new train.
To rescue me from the lights of the cities to the deserts to thaw.
Not feeling the jazzy hope that all these horns convey.

I’ve been travelling like it is a system wondering
If the honey was ever laced, were your smiles ever more than pain.
You played beautifully being beautiful and being muddled at the same time.
You played beautifully being heartbroken and wearing a new ring from another lame maniac.

Wafflin’ drunk on something, traintracks shaking.
Winnemucca gives me the eye of some crook.
I’m asking for tickets, asking for wishes, I’m asking for some powerful graveyard dirt.
I’m washing my hands of you since yours are covered in the outlines of sweat from the burns.

You’ve been a cough, to send away the clouds
You’ve been a leap, through the meek and the lack of sound.
You’ve been admired, but admiration wasn’t enough.
You’ve been dashing, dashing straight into the wreck.
And I will fall and eventually so will you.

I may fall sooner, but tomorrow is a full moon.
I could still be in Winnemucca, I could be dead,
or banging on pots in the streets of Chicago.
You could still be married to the errors,
you could be flooded out of house and home.
Digesting more fertile dirt.

Catharsis (collaboration poem K Weber & David L O'Nan)
also part of the Empath Dies in the End series

1. (David L O'Nan)

I was in the process of purging the ideas of you
The wrens, the beetles, and the crabs we’ve been energized by
On days of smiles. The parks, the oceans,
the imperfect apartment ceilings.

In the middle of a catharsis
I was fast to the falling down the mountainous zoo.
In the deluge of rain I remember smashing against your dress.
Umbrellas breaking, wind straining, yet in the distance we see a sunset.

Now I’m wondering are you ever really leaving me?
Will we meet again in this organic hex that has been swirling
From the ground to the trees.
To the shearing of my humility, my impulses are pulling with each inhalation.

With palms on head, a robin stares at me from the ground.
Right against my boot it seems not fear my 50 foot shadow.
Just searching for some worms through the puddles we reflect in.

2. (K Weber)

Winged leaves breathe
Between fingers of ashen
Branches where birds’
songs rest. The pulse
of a rain-tapped dusk
counts down the last
snippet of sun. Light
gets drowsy as windows
on one wall yawn
to a close.

Red Ant. Black Ant....The Stars (collaboration poem with Jennifer Patino and David L O'Nan

1. (Jennifer Patino)
They spoke of interior silence.
A way to navigate cacophony
with a smile on your face.
These forced emotions, pulled
to the surface, daisies squeezed out from beneath the grime
of disconnect.

One has to die to hear advice better. A portion of the self must be sacrificed to allow change to claim new roots. I think I'll bloom in winter. Switch the expected at the last moment so the patient ones can be satisfied. Those drought souls have waited for a resurrection long enough. They will have their day safe from the blinding sun. They will feel rain on new skin and be quenched.

2. (David L O'Nan)

I’ve been searching for your footprints all over the place.
The joke is only red ants meeting black ants on my shoelaces.
I’m disgusted I can’t past this place. Scared to walk out to new noise.
I’ve feigned happiness and I’ve dreamt up new stars.
I’ve been alone and hid my aches away.
The nightmares absorb in the pillows, as long as I stay hid.
In the shade. I got to my tree.
And I try to remember the invisible me.

I know you’ve been waiting for me to at least show a hello
I can’t keep the creatures inside and the rush becomes a roar
And the hush becomes hypnotic and
my window becomes the source
for the entertaining eye.
So go on, and move on with what you want.
The devil is dancing and waiting for your soul.
You know you want love, but this will just be another gaslighting poem.

The lake, the flowers, the light. Go the distance and find what’s right.

I met you in a trance. I was scrawny and I was a mess.
I thought I was becoming famous. And you thought you’d be the root.
I would grow from you and learn to be a jolly shine under your foot.
It’s a shame I only can understand what is anger, snark and shame.
If I could cure myself, I would try to shave away your pain.
The scene won’t have any of it.

The Dark Aesthetic/Wives in the White Light by Jess Levens and David L O'Nan

1. (Jess Levens)

The sky is quintessential October—
wet without rain; dusk in daylight, blurring
any distant thing. Blurring what is real.
Desaturated evergreens birth out

dead leaves in every citrus shade, plus
plum and pear and red delicious. They
clatter down, loudly in the quiet fog.
The chill bites flirtatiously, without pain.

Outside my window, a lone coywolf in
the farmer’s clearing stares back at me through
this dark aesthetic—howling into my
home; into my head—barking out malice.

2 (David L O'Nan)

So you keep your wives in the White Light
And the mass is enchanted that you bring
The entertainment and the insanity from the mistakes.
Like paper we’ll fly with the crisping leaves.
Some cut just like that paper,
some just itch as the wind bites down on the skin.

The wives you hide in white light
Scurry like a squirrel trying to hide a direct hit.
From grey to brown to orange to green trees-
that squirrels will scurry from the pain.
So slip outside of your skin,
Watch yourself in the mirror with another angry grin.
Revenge glowing in your eye.
And the harm you want is the harm that’ll cause you to die.

There are wires just falling everywhere…the storms are brewing
And the we all become impaired.
Hiding your wives in the white light behind the shed.
Are they in blinking blue and red lights ripe for the restoration.
They are just waiting for you to fall asleep and give up,
in your irate dream.

Continue to pour yourself that drink.
Continue to pour yourself that wolf’s howl.
Continue to transition from the rake to the shave.
Repair is on the way.
But the bedpans and the creatures inside may be the cream,
and your body may just be the trough.
The Wives in white light are just looking for you to break.
The narcissism will eventually implode
And the darkness will be decorous with light as they take you aside.

Bled Out For Liberty (collaboration poem Giulio Magrini & David L O’Nan

1 (Giulio Magrini)

The younger ones look at us and smirk…
We remember the smiling of our youth
Furtive… covert… and shrouded

Those memoirs are today’s mystery of youth
And live behind the curtains of our past
They are cognitions divorced in time but parallel confidence
What is the necessity of covert masks in the present
And our frustrated guilty memories?

2 (David L O'Nan)

I've began to feel afraid.
that i've bled out for liberty from my imagination-
that was never brave.
The loveliness just disappears.
Morning whispers engulfed in last night's tears.

I was concentrating too much on the lies.
Assuming everything from youth to existing was from the failing eye.
We were watched down on by the lighted figures.
Not wasted anymore yet cultivate me with all my failures until I die.

You're private and play hide away.
You're intellectual and passing around the plate
Damn, i'm still living slender with my fist taped up.
Everything from midnight to morning is just medicine
just passing through.
I go from I love you to i'm sorry i've been holy for you.

Maybe my mind has bled out only lies.
And my exit is the last leaf on the tree trying to cover up his face.

https://feversofthemind.com/2022/10/22/current-bio-for-fevers-of-the-minds-david-l-onan-editor-writing-contributor-to-blog/

https://feversofthemind.com/2022/07/13/a-poetry-showcase-from-giulio-magrini/

https://feversofthemind.com/2022/09/14/a-fevers-of-the-mind-quick-9-interview-with-giulio-magrini/

https://feversofthemind.com/2022/09/12/2-wonderful-poems-by-jennifer-patino-inspired-by-plath-and-sexton/

https://feversofthemind.com/2022/09/07/a-poetry-showcase-from-jess-levens/

https://feversofthemind.com/2022/09/30/a-fevers-of-the-mind-quick-9-interview-with-jess-levens/

https://feversofthemind.com/2022/05/25/poetry-showcase-from-k-weber/

A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Giulio Magrini

Q1: When did you start writing and whom influenced you the most now and currently?

Giulio: I started writing in the early 1970’s. In my days of erratic attendance at Duquesne U. and the University of Pittsburgh, the environment was influenced heavily by the Beats. I tried and failed to replicate their style, and found my own voice through the performance of my work. Now I am continuing to explore the harmonies of my own voice. That should never stop for a writer. I celebrate the work of the writers I meet presently, who exemplify their present. The similarities between the 70’s and today are striking, and depending on your perspective…Disturbing.

Q2: Any pivotal moment when you knew you wanted to be a writer?

Giulio: I would say the moments when I performed my work at such venues as the Three Rivers Arts Festival, which has changed its character since the days we read. Also important was my work at drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers using poetry therapy, and a radio show we created using local Pittsburgh poets to read their work. There is no greater reward for me and no greater gift that can be given by an artist of any kind than to enable a sharing of another’s work. Thanks for this opportunity by the way, as you prove my previous point of the importance of sharing.

Q3: Who has helped you most with writing and career?

Giulio: While I had mentors through University with writing classes, and I was exposed to many fine creators in those days, for me the person who sits at the top of the pyramid is Vincent Zepp. He single-handedly changed the complexion of poetry for local poets in Pittsburgh. He elevated a writer’s world in a city through his Szep Foundation, and was a river to many writers who have gone on to establish enviable bodies of work not only in Pittsburgh, but around the world.

Q4: Where did you grow up and how did that influence you? Have any travels influenced your work?

Giulio: My family established its roots in the Bluff, which is a mixed urban area of Pittsburgh. Gentrification has taken away the people and replaced them with hospital and University concerns. We then moved to a middle class suburb in Pittsburgh. It was a great place to grow up but was insulated and did not challenge the status quo. It was like owning one overly comfortable couch designed for me but not for uninvited others from other diverse parts of the city. Some grew from that environment and some are still sitting in that couch…waiting.

Q5: What do you consider your most meaningful work creatively to you?

Giulio: My most recent work is usually my favorite. I am my biggest fan in that respect. (Laughs) I might choose an elegy I wrote on the occasion of the death of a mayor Richard Caliguiri here in Pittsburgh who was mayor from 1977 to 1988. That poem was read the 4th of July following his death with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at Point Park in front of over 100,000 people. The poem is currently archived in the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh.

Q6: Favorite activities to relax?

I love music, cinema, and apart from my writing, I like to post my cuisine on social media. I am inspired to help people in their own kitchens, and pass on the lessons of my teachers, like my Nonno and the rest of my family from Toscana and Calabria. I also include my many teachers who own restaurants in the Pittsburgh community. We are a close-knit group. Traveling is an earnest desire, but due to circumstances I have been unable to do that as I have wanted.

Q7: What is a favorite line/ stanza/lyric from your writing?

Giulio: I have a poem called Artists and the Intelligentsia where I discuss artistic process. There is a stanza that reads: “The medium and the touchstones of civilization were defined through history as an artist’s production that begets the manifestation of us” Ask me that question another day, or hour, and I will give you another answer from another poem.

Q8:What kind of music inspires you the most? What is a song or songs that always come back to you as an inspiration?

Giulio: Classical has to be at the top of the list. My heroes in life play for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. I have great memories of rock concerts and bluegrass also. The greatest or most important song is like wondering which drop of the ocean you most prefer as you listen to the roar of the waves on the beach. We cannot enumerate the stars in the sky either, unless we use
them for a backdrop of love.

Q9: Do you have any recent or upcoming books, music, events, projects that you would like to promote?

A timely question I am glad to answer. As it happens I have a new release The Color of Dirt, which is an anthology of my poetry, flash fiction, and some poems in Italian. It is being published locally by Word Association Press. It will be available on their website, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and we will also do direct sales from home. I will be performing in as many venues as possible to promote the book. I am in the midst of creating a blog to keep readers informed of my latest schemes. Who knows when or where I am likely to turn up?

Bonus Question: Any funny memory or strange occurrence you’d like to share during your creative journey?

What reason did they give to call them “privates”? Seriously, there have been a lot of years and I have had the pleasure of the joy and the thrashings. Despite my age I look forward to the memories and strange occurrences that await. Curiosity did not kill the cat. It motivated him (in my case) to keep writing and performing.

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https://wordassociation.com/poetry%20book%20page/thecolorofdirt.html

Please send an email to giulio27@verizon.net <mailto:giulio27@verizon.net>
if interested in DIRECT SALES of The Color of Dirt

My blog is under construction. At this time I urge readers to check my Facebook page until the blog is finished, https://www.facebook.com/Giulio27

BIO: Giulio Magrini started writing poetry in the early 1970’s, and takes most of his inspiration from the darker sides of human nature. He has performed at the Three Rivers Arts Festival, and many other former venues in Pittsburgh like the Lion Walk and Encore II, and was among the four featured poets at the Fifth Fourth River Poetry Festival in 1990. Giulio has conducted poetry workshops in alternative high schools, prisons, drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, and hosted a radio show for local poets. He
was asked to perform one of his poems, The Pittsburgher, as an elegy honoring the late mayor Richard Caliguiri before the Pittsburgh Symphony at Point State Park before a 4th of July crowd of over 100,000 people. That poem is now archived in the Heinz History Museum. Giulio occasionally writes in Italian for performances, as he instructs his audiences to listen to the sounds of the Italian and remember them as he translates. Magrini has always
preferred the performance of his work over publishing, until now. The Color of Dirt is an anthology of his poetry and flash fiction, and is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and also from his publisher at:
https://wordassociation.com/poetry%20book%20page/thecolorofdirt.html The color of Dirt may also be obtained directly from the author by contacting him at <mailto:giulio27@verizon.net> giulio27@verizon.net

A Poetry Showcase from Giulio Magrini

New Poems from Giulio Magrini

A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Jay Maria Simpson

https://www.amazon.com/Giulio-Magrini/e/B0BCZHPGV6/ref=zg_bsnr_10159396011_bl_sccl_7/000-0000000-0000000?pd_rd_i=1633854655

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-color-of-dirt-giulio-magrini/1142150473

A Poetry Showcase from Giulio Magrini

photo from pixabay

MY LIFE IN EMPTY SPACE

Everyone has it
What they were was taken
Or left
Expelled with the trash
The residual leavings of life

Excreted lifeless empty
I am left with the holes 
Of memory through the laughing smiles 
The touch of a small hand 
The eyes turned upward
Loving the birds 
Especially the red ones
You remember those days of dressing up
She hated the attention of her favorite color
And was patient in the museums
Odd for a child her age
You wondered at the joy she commanded
Where would it take her?

You dreamt for her
Her choices viewed from immature bows and taffeta
Your charge to plan and dream for her 
Until her design finalized by her seasoned choices

That season never came
And it was never planned for
Because there was no plan 
And there was no life 
That made an allowance 
For unbearable terrible eventualities
Possibilities that are unthought 
Through the moments and breaths 
Of a child’s happy gasps
Of one more time Momma
One more time


What can we do with these empty spaces? 
They will never be her
And what have I become living as a minus
From the memories of her in my heart
There is no reckoning of us left or of me

There is no me without us
And that is my life in empty space

HER DELIGHTFUL SMILE

Axiom: Beaming deception is shrouded by constant smiles

Janet smiled to excess
Happiness exists in flashes 
Not in perpetuity
A bewildering obscurity 
Glistening behind conspiracies 

This is the one with the cackling sister
Behind the curtain 
Plotting against the naïve brother
This was the main feature
Unveiling the cartoons of my life
I have seen this one
Janet the flying monkey
Grinning madly in the air

There was no awakening
From the nightmare of Janet
Hallucinations night after night 
Calling for my little sister

We spoke for years and years
In the terrible daylight
Her incessant smiling 
Continuing and chronic

Truth was a stranger
When I shared my pain 
She replied with a smile

I grasped for her but found smiling desolation
She is gone but her smile remains in memory
And now I rely on the remembrance
Of her smiling face 
And the nothing it gave me

THE HORTICULTURIST

Barbara embraces the flower

She cannot resist
First the stems slightly 
Then the delicate blooms

What does she see that I do not?

And then she caresses me

TO MY FAVORITE EMOTIONAL CRIPPLE

Underneath the perpetual Halloween masks 
Of fashion art and correct moral despair
She deposits her opinions 
Like fecal disease disguised as au courant sophistication
Eventually distinguishing herself
As graceful stale fish emanating from the art gallery

Her craven cowardice hides
Behind whatever it is she is selling
It cannot be her 
Because there is no there
There

She talks to mirrors
Or others that speak in her preferred 
Mirror language of rot
Providing an environment to make her comfortable

She is an interesting disgrace 
And dances well for a handicapped person
Until it becomes time for loyalty
And she retreats into the cell of ruin
That she has become

Let us celebrate the embrace of her demise
It is after all an example of her free spirit

WHEN THE GOING TO DIE BLUES TRANSITIONS TO THE GOING TO DIE ANYWAY RAG

They told you
That you reached a certain age

Knowing better 
A wizened nod
To the assembled onlookers 
Growing from the stumps
On the streetcorners
Their glared and cornered peripherals
Noses pointed to the margins
Tracking your regressions
As you falter predictably 
An exemplar to the dynamic 
Of your devolution

Going through the motions
Biding your time
Until the next big thing

But there is nothing on the horizon
No invitations were sent
No meetings are scheduled
And everything that must be done 
Has been done or neglected

The question lingers in the air
What is the point and the purpose of you?

You see shadows and silhouettes
Apparitions of moist tight skin
You assailed the unforgiving storms
Not giving a damn with her
Grinning at terrors
They were trivialities to your conceit
Vulnerability is your embraced ally 

Smoke stifles your flagging memory
Where the air no longer breezes 
The memories pile up unmercifully
Too much to keep orderly
And the chaos and confusion festers
And breeds well in an environment 
Of cerebral clutter and noise
Clanging and banging thoughtlessly 
Inside your head

The queues are fowled and the memories 
Demolished and cracked 
The reality of the last beat
Of the measure of your life has begun

We begin our final tune for the evening
The Going to Die Anyway Rag 
A request by Giulio Magrini


BIO:  Giulio Magrini started writing poetry in the early 1970’s, and takes most of his inspiration from the darker sides of human nature. He has performed at the Three Rivers Arts Festival, and many other former venues in Pittsburgh. Giulio has conducted poetry workshops in alternative high schools, prisons, drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, and hosted a radio show for local poets. His book The Color of Dirt will be published sometime this Summer by Word Association Press. Magrini has always preferred the performance of his work over publishing, until now.

New Poems from Giulio Magrini

THE TAIL OF A PEACOCK 
For the special ones
*Argus was a figure in Greek mythology with one hundred eyes, that were subsequently put on*

To grunt slobber pant
To waddle to grin
To grin to grin
To act improperly
In the real world
To walk lumpy
To pandemonium on Sunday
Retard sweating hands
Protocol
To be able to make change
And be told
You are a success
To be ridiculous 
And have an excuse
And not use it
To laugh at complexity
To dance truly alone
Act the fool
Swing from the bells
To be found 
Thousands of years later
In the arms of your lover

Without 
The eyes
On the tail
Of the peacock

                   PORT DRINKER

He wakes
In a shabby brown coat
Urinates
And vomits something brown

He won’t know 
Where he is
Until half a bottle

After that
There’s no stopping him

And the image of his before
Smiles approvingly and sedated
Anesthetized his misery 
Now ecstasy
And the symmetry of his end


SHE'S A TEACHER AND A MOM


I.


A mother’s
         A mother’s
34-year-old daughter
            just a little
Little 
           little bit neurotic
Can still 
          identify
          identify with
What is happening
          feels free to 
Say fuck 
Say fuck
Say fuck
         feels free to say
Fuck
        and even
Even smoke									
        marijuana



II.

They
         must
They must
         suffer
Suffer and do
        all the 
Things
        all the things
I had to
I had to
I had to
            I had to do


III.

They
         want
They want
         a free
Ride
         a free ride
They want a free
         ride
Lazy
        bastards
Lazy bastards

IV.

It is my 
            job
It is my job
            to see
To see that
            they
To see that they
           tow
Tow the line


V.

They
Do 
Not
          do not 
Participate
They do not participate
          they sit
They sit
          they sit
They sit staring
          staring at the wall


VI.

I
am
        I am 
Sick
I am sick
        they
Are
Going
        are going
To be 
        to be sick
They are going to be sick
Too.		


BIO:  Giulio Magrini started writing poetry in the early 1970’s, and takes most of his inspiration from the darker sides of human nature. He has performed at the Three Rivers Arts Festival, and many other former venues in Pittsburgh. Giulio has conducted poetry workshops in alternative high schools, prisons, drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, and hosted a radio show for local poets. He is now working on a manuscript of much of his work titled The Color of Dirt taken from his publications and performances. Magrini has always preferred the performance of his work over publishing, until now.