Davide Trame is a retired Italian teacher, now living on the mainland an hour’s drive from Venice, where he lived until 2019. He has been writing poetry exclusively in English since 1992. His poems have appeared in magazines since 1999 and a little collection of his poems “Make it Last” was published by Lapwing in Belfast in 2013.
NOTES OF THE APOCALYPSE
It has been for quite a lot of time,
evident, the embezzlement.
It blinks and sparkles in the air,
look carefully, like shining, dazzling
bits of armour incrusted in the stones.
It’s not clear how many have realised
the hints in the transpiring glints.
Could be an end or a beginning,
some can’t resist the temptation
of assuming tones of solemnity
in foreseeing a galloping catastrophe,
messiahs through the layers
in booms and whispers, renewed Rasputins
preaching in front of the cameras.
Our dishevelled souls praying
each in its solitude.
But maybe I’m only exaggerating,
babbling, wishing to be a further Hamlet
because I am fearing to lose
my already diminished dignity.
And maybe evidence is just going
to be plain and banal, so bear with me,
let a presumed revelation run in my veins
and notes of the Apocalypse warm my heart.
© Davide Trame
AUBADE
A quiet nostalgia, very well known.
A bit pensive, a bit sad, all yours.
You look at the cloudy sky, the still air,
the low light of an October dawn
and it’s there: the old hushed moan.
The familiar reminder of the beginnings.
The month has come back: school.
Head and heart in cotton wool.
The first, ineluctable pace
of what had to routinely be
the first half of your day.
In the pit of your belly a very
unpoetic burning.
And later your shortsighted staring
at the blackboard, the chalk
squeaking like a puppet.
The ritual lament of life.
But you feel a quiet nostalgia
for that time all the same,
so long gone, so long lame.
Why? Dig in it, silence the cry…
This rhythm of what has been,
with flashes of a life you are still in…
Is there anything else you really know
or only this show?
© Davide Trame