Little Christmas, as it used to be known,
January 6 of the Julian Calendar,
though who remembers why?
What irony that on the day of the Epiphany,
when the newborn Christian savior was revealed to three wise men,
the U.S. Capitol was assaulted by barbarians
in the name of a deceiver!
Some were simply servants of the Lie,
She died in a bus shelter outside the CVS.
A few blocks down, bunching traffic, congesting the neighborhood for hours,
before filing out, quiet and dark. We were left to wonder just what all the lights and sirens had been about.
And then the morning after, it was gone.
JC Decaux, paid millions, power washed it clean: Sidewalk, bench, and an ad for Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Teaching Tools
My brother, am I allowed to work less
on reactions, which are taxing
for me to manage in the moment?
For instance, did I hear you correctly
when you said Buddha is
a four-letter word?
Vito Marcantonio’s old campaign posters sit in the glass cases at the cultural center.
His cocked eyebrow and raised fist bring the fire of radicalism surging around him.
At the festa the elder right wing Italians eye his picture nervously,
craning their necks over the bottles of wine to look at the display from their table.
Seeds
We do not talk
about the old country
As if by erasure
we might reckon
with that loss
It has been not yet one hundred years
by Jack Manno
Island people (Sicilians, Irish) are vulnerable to looters, conquerors,
Storms, imperial schemes, thugs.
Its an old story for our people; it breaks our hearts
And compromises our integrity, more; our souls.
Deflate that buffed chest,
lower your head,
and look at the shadow
trailing you, sir.
The rest of us see how
you have ignored
to your own peril
and immanent political demise
by Renzo Marcheschi
Translated from the Italian by Elena Marcheschi
Chicago, Dicembre 1969
Son qui a pensar solo soletto
alla mi’ cara Lucca e al paesetto.
La vita lontan dal tu’ paese è sempre dura
ed ogni giorno di più mi manca la mi’ città e le su’ mura.
Ci sono, è vero, qui tanti paesani,
vivon ad uscio, ma è come se fossero trecento Kilometri lontani.
Una volta di tanto li trovi, in generale,
ad uno sposalizio o ad un funerale.