Campo di Fiori
In Rome on the Campo di Fiori
Baskets of olives and lemons,
Cobbles spattered with wine
And the wreckage of flowers.
Vendors cover the trestles
With rose-pink fish;
Armfuls of dark grapes
Heaped on peach-down.
On this same square
They burned Giordano Bruno.
Henchmen kindled the pyre
Close-pressed by the mob.
Before the flames had died
The taverns were full again,
Baskets of olives and lemons
Again on the vendors' shoulders.
I thought of the Campo dei Fiori
In Warsaw by the sky-carousel
One clear spring evening
To the strains of a carnival tune.
The bright melody drowned
The salvos from the ghetto wall,
And couples were flying
High in the cloudless sky.
At times wind from the burning
Would driff dark kites along
And riders on the carousel
Caught petals in midair.
That same hot wind
Blew open the skirts of the girls
And the crowds were laughing
On that beautiful Warsaw Sunday.
Someone will read as moral
That the people of Rome or Warsaw
Haggle, laugh, make love
As they pass by martyrs' pyres.
Someone else will read
Of the passing of things human,
Of the oblivion
Born before the flames have died.
But that day I thought only
Of the loneliness of the dying,
Of how, when Giordano
Climbed to his burning
There were no words
In any human tongue
To be left for mankind,
Mankind who live on.
Already they were back at their wine
Or peddled their white starfish,
Baskets of olives and lemons
They had shouldered to the fair,
And he already distanced
As if centuries had passed
While they paused just a moment
For his flying in the fire.
Those dying here, the lonely
Forgotten by the world,
Our tongue becomes for them
The language of an ancient planet.
Until, when all is legend
And many years have passed,
On a great Campo dci Fiori
Rage will kindle at a poet's word.
poem by Czeslaw Milosz
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Related quotes
The Night The Carousel Burnt Down
Werent you there when the carousel burned down
The fire and confusion, the smoke and the sound
I swear you were there when the carousel burned down
We were all around
The rings charred and tarnished all over the ground
And the heads hung down
And we all left town the next day
The children all cried when the carousel burned down
The old ladies sighed and the carousel burned down
The rest of us lied as the carousel burned down
And the flames did fly
The pipes steamed and shrieked out a blazing goodbye
As the boiler died
And they melted down the midway
And we all left town the next day
song performed by by Todd Rundgren
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Healthier Easter
This is the first Easter
No candy baskets will be here
But we had so many baskets
Each and every year.
The kids are older now
Candy they don’t want anymore
So this Easter the baskets sit empty
Behind the closet door.
Somehow I want the Easter Bunny here
Want those baskets filled with eggs so bright
But my teens want to be healthier
So they make sure that they eat right.
They forfeit sugar and junk
No more Peeps or a big chocolate bunny
But being without Easter Baskets on Easter
Seems to be very odd and funny.
So I am putting the word out
To the Easter Bunny in my town
That I don’t think the teens will mind
If you decide to come around.
Maybe you could leave some health bars
Perhaps some fruit and veggies too
And maybe you could put some books in there
Those things could still say “I love you”.
poem by Connie Webb
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North Atlantic Drift
Meanwhile Rome burns
Meanwhile Rome burns
Its a cultural shift its the North Atlantic Drift
Americana and a rule Britannia
And the moon yes we own that to
And where the Euphrates meets the other rivers
Is now the home of the devil and the liar
And the pyre we plan to make
Is just the drift leaving its wake, home
Meanwhile Rome burns
Meanwhile Rome burns
And the films you want to watch
And the films you want to make
And the kids like lost angels
Dressed in black sensations
And the shift won? shake
And the drift won? brake
With billions of Diamonds growing like olives
And the drift holds the coffers
Meanwhile Rome burns
Meanwhile Rome burns
Meanwhile Rome burns
Meanwhile Rome burns
Meanwhile Rome burns
Meanwhile Rome burns
Meanwhile Rome burns
Meanwhile Rome burns
song performed by by Ocean Colour Scene
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Cooking Pot!
tastes like....
rainwater on my tongue,
blood drawn from unclaimed bodies....
the wind lapping at my curtain,
the candle flickering in the dark.
gunpowder, and bourbon!
the baby's bloom opening,
rose petals 'neath my tongue.
pepper spray, and human rights....
the damp chill of the small cell.
the burning bush, the last refrain,
yesterday's nails long driven....
food scavanged from dumpsters,
the back seat on the bus....
the old woman dying on the floor!
life thrown together in the cooking pot,
left to simmer unattended....
shared in bowls made of flesh,
and dreams now long forgotten!
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Human Experience
Jeffrey Azize, Clifford Azize, Michael Campo, Matthew Sanchez
by Michael Campo from The Human Experience (2008)
Submitted by Film Fan
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Today a Windy Monday
Today a windy Monday,
brisk, businesslike north wind,
I would make a great altar
and pile it high as heaven
with washing straight off the line
shirts like roly-poly hunchback
astronauts like human kites
a sharp flapping of hemmed edges
the squawk of hens surprised
laundry baskets full of the smell
of Spring and freshness and new beginnings
laundry baskets that smell as if
a walk along the shores of love
all Your wind and air and water, and
sunlight soap, soapy sunlight making
iridescent bubbles in the washtub
the squeak of the mangle,
dripping into the sink
stained heavenly with Dolly Blue
the smell of love and motherhood
the hot iron’s steamy smell
the starch, the sharp warm ironed piles
ready for the cupboard shelves
and say, look everyone
this is a woman’s lifetime of unspoken love
see it made of the holy elements themselves
as on the first day of Creation
that is ever a woman’s life
men, worship this
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Losses
It was not dying: everybody died.
It was not dying: we had died before
In the routine crashes-- and our fields
Called up the papers, wrote home to our folks,
And the rates rose, all because of us.
We died on the wrong page of the almanac,
Scattered on mountains fifty miles away;
Diving on haystacks, fighting with a friend,
We blazed up on the lines we never saw.
We died like aunts or pets or foreigners.
(When we left high school nothing else had died
For us to figure we had died like.)
In our new planes, with our new crews, we bombed
The ranges by the desert or the shore,
Fired at towed targets, waited for our scores--
And turned into replacements and woke up
One morning, over England, operational.
It wasn't different: but if we died
It was not an accident but a mistake
(But an easy one for anyone to make.)
We read our mail and counted up our missions--
In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned about in school--
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen.
When we lasted long enough they gave us medals;
When we died they said, 'Our casualties were low.'
They said, 'Here are the maps'; we burned the cities.
It was not dying --no, not ever dying;
But the night I died I dreamed that I was dead,
And the cities said to me: 'Why are you dying?
We are satisfied, if you are; but why did I die?'
poem by Randall Jarrell
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Ceremony After A Fire Raid
I
Myselves
The grievers
Grieve
Among the street burned to tireless death
A child of a few hours
With its kneading mouth
Charred on the black breast of the grave
The mother dug, and its arms full of fires.
Begin
With singing
Sing
Darkness kindled back into beginning
When the caught tongue nodded blind,
A star was broken
Into the centuries of the child
Myselves grieve now, and miracles cannot atone.
Forgive
Us forgive
Us your death that myselves the believers
May hold it in a great flood
Till the blood shall spurt,
And the dust shall sing like a bird
As the grains blow, as your death grows, through our heart.
Crying
Your dying
Cry,
Child beyond cockcrow, by the fire-dwarfed
Street we chant the flying sea
In the body bereft.
Love is the last light spoken. Oh
Seed of sons in the loin of the black husk left.
II
I know not whether
Adam or Eve, the adorned holy bullock
Or the white ewe lamb
Or the chosen virgin
Laid in her snow
On the altar of London,
Was the first to die
In the cinder of the little skull,
O bride and bride groom
O Adam and Eve together
Lying in the lull
Under the sad breast of the head stone
White as the skeleton
Of the garden of Eden.
I know the legend
Of Adam and Eve is never for a second
Silent in my service
Over the dead infants
Over the one
Child who was priest and servants,
Word, singers, and tongue
In the cinder of the little skull,
Who was the serpent's
Night fall and the fruit like a sun,
Man and woman undone,
Beginning crumbled back to darkness
Bare as nurseries
Of the garden of wilderness.
III
Into the organpipes and steeples
Of the luminous cathedrals,
Into the weathercocks' molten mouths
Rippling in twelve-winded circles,
Into the dead clock burning the hour
Over the urn of sabbaths
Over the whirling ditch of daybreak
Over the sun's hovel and the slum of fire
And the golden pavements laid in requiems,
Into the bread in a wheatfield of flames,
Into the wine burning like brandy,
The masses of the sea
The masses of the sea under
The masses of the infant-bearing sea
Erupt, fountain, and enter to utter for ever
Glory glory glory
The sundering ultimate kingdom of genesis' thunder.
poem by Dylan Thomas
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They Fought with their Bare Hands
To Mordecai Anielewicz (1919-1943)
Facing formidable forces,
Supported with tanks and artillery,
You knew that there was no way to win.
Nevertheless, you decided to fight,
Not for victory, but for Jewish honour.
So, one day in the spring of 1943,
You were 24 years old then,
The Zionist banner was hoisted
Over the Warsaw Ghetto wall,
Along with the Polish flag.
The SS troops preferred to use
Artillery fire, flamethrowers
And gas, or to blast the houses
By dynamite squads, rather than engage
In direct street fighting with untrained
And poorly armed young Jewish men
And women.
And soon the whole ghetto was aflame.
The news about the uprising spread in the world.
Broadcasts by the Underground Polish radio SWIT
Operating out of Warsaw were picked up,
As far as Sweden. The radio said that women
And children are defending themselves
With their bare hands.
The uprising galvanized resistance movements
Throughout Nazi occupied Europe. It was on May 8,
After three weeks of Combat, that you threw
Your last grenade from the bunker on 19 Mila Street
And fell together with your beloved bride Mira.
But, as you said, you realized your dream,
Because you had lived to see Jewish resistance
In its heroic greatness and resplendent glory.
You had stood up to the brutal Nazi empire
Of Adolf Hitler.
In spite of all his Military might,
The Fuehrer failed to drag you away to
Treblinka and you died as a free human being.
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Transformed Jewish submission to resistance.
You helped to turn hopelessness to resolve,
Despair to vigour, degradation to courage.
You formed Dignity out of humiliation,
Sculpted from misery the grit of honour.
Like the North Star showing steadfast direction
To Desperate sailors, the light of your heroic command
Shines through the darkness of the Night.
Your young life sacrificed on the cruel altar
Of History is a luminous monument
To soulful conscience, a lofty triumph
Of the human spirit.
From your spilled blood that sunk into the earth
Of Poland, poignant sprouts of bravery and dignity
Blossom forth, flowers of freedom and buds of hope
Bear blooms of sacred petals.
poem by Paul Hartal
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The Rhythm Divine
You know that my tears
Have kept me awake
The longer youre gone
Ill hunger and shake
From warsaw to rome
Ill wait out of time
With you in my heart
The rhythm divine
So wont you come close
Bring this to an end
With each winter rose
My love I will send
So tender the night
When you hold me tight
With you in my heart
The rhythm divine
With you in my heart
The rhythm divine
You know that these tears
Have kept me awake
The longer youre gone
Ill hunger and shake
From warsaw to rome
Ill wait out of time
With you in my heart
The rhythm divine
The rhythm divine
The rhythm divine
With you in my heart
The rhythm divine
song performed by by Yello
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Rhythm Divine
You know that my tears
Have kept me awake
The longer youre gone
Ill hunger and shake
From warsaw to rome
Ill wait out of time
With you in my heart
The rhythm divine
So wont you come close
Bring this to an end
With each winter rose
My love I will send
So tender the night
When you hold me tight
With you in my heart
The rhythm divine
With you in my heart
The rhythm divine
You know that these tears
Have kept me awake
The longer youre gone
Ill hunger and shake
From warsaw to rome
Ill wait out of time
With you in my heart
The rhythm divine
The rhythm divine
The rhythm divine
With you in my heart
The rhythm divine
song performed by by Yello
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Men with a Heart
Who wrote lyrics for the songbird?
And who made music and the tune?
Have you got any idea of the meaning?
Do the war flames kindle again?
Dear men, you all are deaf.
Did you see the beauty of a flowing river?
And you feel the coolness of a pond.
Have you ever thought the nature is your friend?
Do the war flames kindle again?
Dear men, you all are blind.
Do you understand the dialects of trees and beasts?
And the secret murmur of the wind.
Have you ever tried to learn their language?
Do the war flames kindle again?
Dear men, you all are dumb.
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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At A House In Hampstead Sometime The Dwelling Of John Keats
O poet, come you haunting here
Where streets have stolen up all around,
And never a nightingale pours one
Full-throated sound?
Drawn from your drowse by the Seven famed Hills,
Thought you to find all just the same
Here shining, as in hours of old,
If you but came?
What will you do in your surprise
At seeing that changes wrought in Rome
Are wrought yet more on the misty slope
One time your home?
Will you wake wind-wafts on these stairs?
Swing the doors open noisily?
Show as an umbraged ghost beside
Your ancient tree?
Or will you, softening, the while
You further and yet further look,
Learn that a laggard few would fain
Preserve your nook? . . .
-Where the Piazza steps incline,
And catch late light at eventide,
I once stood, in that Rome, and thought,
''Twas here he died.'
I drew to a violet-sprinkled spot,
Where day and night a pyramid keeps
Uplifted its white hand, and said,
''Tis there he sleeps.'
Pleasanter now it is to hold
That here, where sang he, more of him
Remains than where he, tuneless, cold,
Passed to the dim.
July 1920
poem by Thomas Hardy
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In The Garden Of Olives
the garden of olives is silent.
it has been silent for years.
no one wants to tell its story.
about a garden of olives and
how blood reaches there
there it is, unreached by humanity,
untouched by the fingers of civilization
certified virgin garden of olives.
three shadows on twilight.
gone.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Sobbing God
It was 1942 in the Warsaw Ghetto
And Rabbi Kalonymos Shapiro posed a question:
Did the God of Israel abandon his people?
And then he heard the voice of Jeremiah:
“My soul shall weep in secret places
And my eye shall weep sore and run down with tears
Because the Lord’s flock is carried away captive.”
As the dark days descended on the earth
And the flames engulfed the ghetto
The Lord bitterly sobbed,
Mourned in agony the innocent souls.
But God hid his tears in inner chambers.
He wept lonely in solitude
He concealed his immeasurable sorrow.
For, the Lord loves the world immensely
He suffers silently with his infinite pain.
Had his boundless grief touched the world
It would destroy it.
poem by Paul Hartal
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EMBERS n a FIRE ABLAZE
MEMORIZING, how the embers are flickering
each flame seems to be dancing
wood thats crackiling 4m the heat
and both it and the fire are bickering
as to the charcoal we added, now is turning 4m black to grey
and the wood starts to burn slowly, as it withers away
ashes...flying all around...up high in the air
pieces fallen upon us, as they fall to the ground
ashes that now have turned to dust
as the fire flames leap high, and the fire is so alive
each spark has spoke, with the words made out of smoke
speaking the words....of my love and lust
as each wind gust
reinforces it over n again
the truth that lay on the tip of my tongue
i wish i knew, what to say..what ive been waiting
to say to you...but everytime i try to....
i freeze, and begin the hesitation
as each flame reaches high, headin 2wards the moonlit sky
and as ember begins anew, as the wind and ash have flew
i catch the flickering shadows at play..streaming along your handsome face
then a small wind blew...a small circle around me n you
the forces of nature freeze the time
and across the fires, that slowly dim
then sets a bright blaze...i whisper into the wind
practicing what i want to say to him
my heart stands still as i take in the fill
of the handsome glow of your face
the only sounds...are of the wood crackiling on the ground
the very sound, of my heart that grew a bit
LOUD, as i recaptured the shadows across your face
over the fire pit....my heart skipping in place
in this frozen moment of time..as you come near, closer to my side
now the space was yours and mine...just for a moment in time
all that i could hear, was the echoes of the fire, and the fast beat
of my heart thats jumped with a start, as the 2 sounds seemed to just coincide
each phase of the burning fire, filled me with so much desire
turned the heat up within me
from the top of my head to the tip of my feet
hotter then the fire...ablaze..was my desire dancing in the flames
caught the out; ike, contour, and shadows of your georgeous face
embers that flew, around unto the ground
all around in the air..as the wind slightly blew
as it surrounded us 2
whispers of my love, lust, as the embers have all now turned to dust
as now would ever compare, not the fire, nor it blaze
but as you stood there
bit by bit......in the smoldering glaze..of the fire pit
as it n i caught the handsome shadows that played across your gorgeous face.........................
poem by Krissi B'williams
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Out of Pompeii
1 She lay, face downward, on her beaded arm,
2 In this her new, sweet dream of human bliss,
3 Her heart within her fearful, fluttering, warm,
4 Her lips yet pained with love's first timorous kiss.
5 She did not note the darkening afternoon,
6 She did not mark the lowering of the sky
7 O'er that great city. Earth had given its boon
8 Unto her lips, love touched her and passed by.
9 In one dread moment all the sky grew dark,
10 The hideous rain, the panic, the red rout,
11 Where love lost love, and all the world might mark
12 The city overwhelmed, blotted out
13 Without one cry, so quick oblivion came,
14 And life passed to the black where all forget;
15 But she,—we know not of her house or name,—
16 In love's sweet musings doth lie dreaming yet.
17 The dread hell passed, the ruined world grew still,
18 And the great city passed to nothingness:
19 The ages went and mankind worked its will.
20 Then men stood still amid the centuries' press,
21 And in the ash-hid ruins opened bare,
22 As she lay down in her shamed loveliness,
23 Sculptured and frozen, late they found her there,
24 Image of love 'mid all that hideousness.
25 Her head, face downward, on her bended arm,
26 Her single robe that showed her shapely form,
27 Her wondrous fate love keeps divinely warm
28 Over the centuries, past the slaying storm,
29 The heart can read in writings time hath left,
30 That linger still through death's oblivion;
31 And in this waste of life and light bereft,
32 She brings again a beauty that had gone.
33 And if there be a day when all shall wake,
34 As dreams the hoping, doubting human heart,
35 The dim forgetfulness of death will break
36 For her as one who sleeps with lips apart;
37 And did God call her suddenly, I know
38 She'd wake as morning wakened by the thrush,
39 Feel that red kiss across the centuries glow,
40 And make all heaven rosier by her blush.
poem by William Wilfred Campbell
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Casebook Of Oliver Cyriax - Case 1# The Burning Bush (Part 2)
The smoke from his pipe
rose up like a small cloud.
For a long time afterwards, t
he fire in the barn
was referred to as a ghost fire.
The next ghost fire happened
almost six months later to the day
in the midst of the summer sun.
A passing tramp had rested
for a while in a field
and fell asleep against a tree
as the grass around him suddenly came alive
with flames that burnt close to his feet.
The local Constable was riding passed
saw the flames and dismounted from his bike.
Racing into the field,
he tried to beat out the flames with his jacket.
Still the flames danced around the tramp,
whom was asleep and unaware.
The Constable yelled at him,
but the tramp did not arouse from his slumber.
The Constable looked around
and off to his left noticed a stream.
He ran across to it and filled his helmet with water.
Running back he threw the water over the tramp.
The tramp woke up startled and looked around.
He stood up and asked the Constable,
just what he thought he was doing
throwing water over him.
Watch out for the fire
the Constable shouted back.
The tramp scratched his head
and asked what he was talking about.
The fire, the fire, the Constable replied.
What fire? The tramp asked.
It was only then that the Constable realised
that the fire was no longer there.
He was mystified how it disappeared.
It was about six months after that,
another ghost fire occurred
in the very Inn where I was staying.
The bar was crowded
when suddenly against one of the walls
a fire started and seemed to burn ferociously.
The first thing the customers did
was to start throwing their drinks against the wall
in hope to dampen the flames.
They met with little success
and the fire brigade was called.
The bar was evacuated
and the firemen came in with their hoses,
which like the drinks had no success on the flames.
As with all the other incidents
the fire raged for several hours
before dying away of its own accord.
The investigation that followed
found nothing had been burnt or scorched.
There seemed no earthly reason
for the mysterious fires that engulfed things,
but never harmed any of them.
Then last month the burning bush began.
When it was discovered,
an attempt was made to extinguish it,
but failed like the ones before.
Presently each night ever since
the bush ignites itself and burns for several hours
before disappearing again.
Oliver paused for a few moments,
stroked his chin
and puffed a couple of times on his pipe.
To be continued…
poem by David Harris
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Spring Wind
The petals are flying away in the spring wind
So are my thoughts and words
I cannot hold them back
Stunned as I am in an ethereal idleness!
I see before my eyes
The spring wind flying away
With my desires of life
Little I can do
To hold them back
Dazed as I am in a resigned stupor!
I see the drift but can’t prevent it
I do not want to
The flying away of the petals and the fragrance
With the spring wind with a mind of its own!
poem by Pradip Chattopadhyay
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Hot Burning Flames
She left me almost burned out
I couldn't feel a thin'
A walkin' talkin' statue
Afraid to love again
She did everything to kill a flame
But a little spark got through
If she'd a got her way I'd be gone today
If it hadn't been for you
You turned cold gray ashes into hot burning flames
I'm alive with love because of you
When you came to light the fire you knew just what to bring
You turned cold gray ashes into hot burning flames
--- Instrumental ---
She thought she had me down and out
But at the count of nine
A livin' lovin' angel showed up just in time
She thought that I would surely die
Sometimes I wanted to
She had no doubt the fire was out
But she didn't count on you
You turned cold gray ashes into hot burning flames
I'm alive with love because of you
When you came to light the fire you knew just what to bring
You turned cold gray ashes into hot burning flames
You turned cold gray ashes into hot burning flames
I'm alive with love because of you
When you came to light the fire you knew just what to bring
You turned cold gray ashes into hot burnin' flames
You turned cold gray ashes into hot burnin' flames...
song performed by by George Strait
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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