Poem: "Portraits"

Click here for a printable copy of "Portraits" © 2007 Greig Roselli 

Poem: "brother & sister"

    she’s a waif about to vomit her bread,

    to get ready for the Banana Republic shoot,
    the “I love it when you look at me” pose.

    she’s singularly angular, positioned on a bar,
    her brother at her side,
    singing glad hallelujahs to the boys passing by.

    Everyone loves a stare, a glance, une regarde,
    but this gal wallows in it,
    lapping up the paparazzi shots, the mental
    undressing behind the pews.

    She loves it;
    she’s sick,
    or possibly stuck in a Truffaut film.
   
    he loves it,
    complete.

    And we are so sick that we stare anyway,
    because we know he, she, they love it.

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Poem: Riding MARTA on a Business Trip

MARTA train arrives in Atlanta's airport photograph: visitingdc

Faces I saw on the train from the airport,

twin faces painstakingly exact,
except for a
birthmark on one of their chins,
dressed in a gray hooded pullover,
one blue, one grey, a branded name, the same,

stood on their seats with a cousin or friend,
lions and lionesses
guarding
a traveling father and mother
planning, checking the stops …
don’t want to miss it …

going to the zoo, a little vacation
with the kids

said the papa

sitting right next to me

and as the train ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhed by,
a twin’s tooth came loose in the aisle seat,
between Civic Center and Peachtree.

Showcasing the discarded flesh to his brother as if
rejoicing in his difference,

jostling up to his twin, eagerly sharing his tooth,
snuggling up to him, intimacy,
the entire family of the car noticed
and sighed a collective ahhhhhhhh of parental instinct,
distracted from reading, staring out the window,
getting off, getting on,
the gapless gemini grinning
his roman face leonine, as I have said,

and switching places with his father, to calm him down,
to displace him from his brother,
he glowered in the seat, never quite glowing,
or sharing his tooth,
stowed probably in his pocket.

When the train had stopped and they had gone.
I didn’t see them again; I had turned my head and when I had looked
back,
where the twin had sat, there was an empty space,
an orange-tinted plastic seat

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"Lady" © 2006 by Greig Roselli

A Poem Written During Hurricane Season: "on the vacation of spirits"

I wrote a poem about Hurricane Katrina - because I lived through it. Here is the poem (and yes, I took the photograph too).

on the vacation of spirits

when the zephyr blazed through MR GO, the gods, naiads, goddesses, with their hollow shrieks vacated the levee womb, a deposit bereft of running life
left, vacant and empty where once
spirits danced and melancholy wept –
on the corner of St. Claude and Alvar –
now split into dry wood, a gaping gash,
unsutured and sullied with faded peeled shrimp –
drained,
as if blood itself where all that is necessary for a full spectrum rainbow –
now only empty houses, prom dresses

milton’s house,
left on top of a pickup
because there are no longer laughing gods to re evacuate,
no longer a god to sit on the stoop at the fish market,
a boy to close the door behind him when he leaves

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text and image © Greig Roselli

Poem: Mo

you are beautiful in your floral arrangement

paisley printed dress fuschia blown

patterned garden scarf, pale green, brilliant magenta

carefully placed on your body

like a funeral

or a balle masqué

a night out with the ladies,

or merely crossing Canal street to type,

nonetheless

you are beautiful quite in your floral arrangement

and your arms extenuate, lengthening, your beauty,

cotton white comfort that serves as a “drawing out” of your body

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Picture Credit: "Georgette" by Greig Roselli © 2005

Poem: "Ordinary Childhood"

Fontana della Barcaccia - Spanish Steps, Rome, Italy

brushing past the crêpe myrtles,
their slim, shedding bark legs entangled
on the shadowed front yard of this house,

i see rebecca and her children
hidden in the silence
of their pacific northwest camper trailer,
parked against a red brick wall of a church

my grapes of wrath family laugh and play checkers,
swatting mosquitoes
hoping for a better licorice stick,
praying to god for a sturdy black mailbox.

And even at stan’s funeral the other day
mom and dad with their stoic, but engaged stares
singing remember me when you come into your kingdom
as if they had been with us all along,
comfortable pictures,
hands
firmly embraced on roger’s shoulder,
his ordinary childhood shaped and formed,
sifting sand and dirt through his green hands,
shoveled onto the pine box we have chosen to gather around, singing our songs of christian burial,
quickly rubbing our eyes from the bright daylight −
too much light and not enough darkness

too much information and not enough silence

we all dispersed quietly,
but the children who had lingered,
fascinated by a dead body they once knew,
wishing to sprinkle their own earth over him,
instead ate sandwiches and sprite later on at supper,
their collection of forks and knives piled up in the newly acquired yard of louisiana,
remained silent and grinned,
helping themselves to a bag of chips, tater tots,
hamburgers

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© 2005 Greig Roselli

Poem: "The Pope and Mr. Murdoch"

Others say the pope should quit

to a monastery

to live out the rest of his days,

but I say look at the gnarled hands that scoop up soup on

a Saturday afternoon at the old folks home,

insistent on doing it himself, murdoch says,

dribble of reason coagulates on the tip of his chin

and the pope rolls on like murdoch,

both stubborn in their resolve,

clutching oversize spoons,

suffering from influenza

and doesn’t he look beautiful

sitting alone during bingo,

munching on fried rice

that I had brought him

despite the MSG −

once a six pack −

and now he asks the orderly for a Splenda,

which he brings −

he tears open the package himself,

as if following a medieval rubric,

gingerly pouring the contents into his mug that reads:

what do you get when you work like a mule?

O L D 

stenciled across the porcelain

in a marker felt type.

Download an Image File of the Post Here

 

© 2005 Greig Roselli