The Sistine Chapel

Head to nose to back to front to shoulder to side
The Akia crowd carries us forward
Towards the Sistine Chapel
At an excited snail’s pace
It seems like we cover every exalted inch
Of the four miles of Vatican corridors
Gazing at tapestries, details, paintings, reliefs
And potted New Testament histories

Head to nose to back to front to shoulder to side
We shuffle on our pilgrimage
And I lift my feet and the crowd carries me towards the Big Match
Towards the Sistine Chapel
Delighted that Michelangelo has passed a late fitness test

Head to nose to back to front to shoulder to side
We finally decant into the Sistine Stadium
And the room, and ceiling, is breath-taking, and beautiful
And we gasp, as do the other five hundred tourists,
Crammed onto the terraces, moving towards the touchline
No cameras! No cameras! bark the officials
But everyone’s holding out a phone
As if to bless the ceiling
Or catch a whisper from God
Sending the great story though the firmament
To the folks back home who couldn’t afford the ticket prices
And to all those outside, anxious to hear the half-time score
And little flashes flicker over the crowd
Like incandescence on the waters
Where Jesus might have walked

Head to nose to back to front to shoulder to side
We later pass the secret rooms of the Vatican
The closed bookcases and arcane ledgers
We browse the many retail opportunities
Gather our bags from the cloakroom
And are spewed into the reality
Of a cold and refreshing Roman rain
And the voices in the market place cry
Buy the Pope’s Likeness!
Buy a Virgin Mary key ring!
Buy an umbrella!

Rome Arrival

Late evening
and we arrive at the Colosseum Metro
to the applause of thunder and heavy rain
But as luck would have it
an umbrella salesman is at hand
to sell us an umbrella

We wake to sunshine
And the knock of hammer
and cold chisel on old stone
Through our fourth floor window
We glimpse the Forum
I doubt if they’ll finish repairing the lift
before the end of our stay

Rome Dream

I dreamt of Joseph
A crow was circling
and Joseph had made the crow
his friend

Now that I’m wider than awake
I wonder who the crow signifies
Joseph’s mother?
His girlfriend?

Or maybe it was just the usual
random fragments of my imagination

Now, as I walk along the ruins
of the Forum
I watch a piebald crow
picking over Rome’s bones.

Jerez Flamenco

Sharp beggars who shake their pesetas to shame you
And children who chase through the afternoon’s litter
See high-heeled young chicas with phones on their earlobes
The splash of the water below the stone general
In Jerez the home of Flamenco and Sherry

We sit in the cool of abandoned bodega
And sip at the table of Pepe Gonzalez
Outside in the night air the festival ferments
The bright lights are neon, the costumes all shimmer
And everything here in this world is inverted

The houselights are dimming, the stage lights are dawning
The flamenco baby, his guitar awaking
His face is a mirror, his fingers are slender
He trills the cool waters, he plucks a small fish
And his thoughts hit the air with a cascading thunder

A young man arrives like a bull in a temple
He paces the ground and his eyes are the soldiers
Who seek out the peasants who helped the stone general
He tells of his love for a shy senorita
She hides in the ruins of Alcalzar fortress

And teases and wails that her village is ruined
Her brothers are dead and her father is dying
He begs her to love him, she says that she cannot
Her heart is the dust that blows cold from the mountains

She raises her hand and she turns to the shadows
And spins to the sunlight and treads the grapes under
Her heels are the echoes of vultures and buzzards
Of gunshot and cannon. Reflects in the eyes
The bright fire of the young man, her fingers catch bullets

The dance of flamenco, as wild as the wind
And as crazy as fire and her heart is a mouse
In the vaults where the barrels of sherry are resting
Like graves in the darkness of Pepe Gonzalez

The youth with the guitar, his fingers spark lightning
The lovesick young man is dancing El Torro
He gives his life gladly, his heart and his soul
But the heartbroken girl succumbs to his passion
Too late.

As the doves on the general of stone
Fly up to the moon that is brimming with blood
And the stars spell flamenco
The click and the clack of the rhythms and circles
And crazy inversions
Flamenco my lover
Flamenco my saviour

Jerez

A Stormy Afternoon

The thin light
beneath the jungle canopy
Maroon
The mud where pond worms
swim and squirm
A dusty tomb
The hole in the clay bank
and the badger's tail at dusk
Tales of deception,
revenge and lust
Impenetrable shadows
as you walk across the midnight park
I hope you like my poem
even though it is a little dark

Doorway

The sallow-faced man
stood in the doorway
a knife in hand
watching me

I looked past him
aware of his scrutiny

I could see the naked flesh
hanging from steel hooks
glistening
in the neon light

I said,
I think I’ll plump
for the sausages

On Time

Five o-clock
In these Italian hills
The birds hide in the mountain oaks
A cuckoo calls high upon
A distant wire
We reach for the binoculars
But the rogue’s gone
Hans says
Now we’ll have to wait an hour
For another