All Music, Arrangements, and Lyrics by Romina Di Gasbarro
(except poem in A Song Sung by Federico Garcia Lora) © 2004 Romina Di Gasbarro (SOCAN)
1. NAME ME!
Your eyes,
moonlight,
through a loon’s cry
on a burning night.
Dark eyes,
two curtains to your soul
I might open with this pen
And reveal you again.
Name me, my nameless one.
Call me your little dove,
Wait for me with the rest of a baby bird,
Don’t make me say these words.
Name me.
Your voice,
Too beautiful to believe,
Say the words and I shall be healed,
Sing the song that might reveal me.
Sing it…
Piccola Roma.
I will hear the dusk of serenades,
Of your fleeting vow, of your prose and praise,
And I’ll lay them down, on a bed of lake
And I’ll drown them with this pouring rain.
Sing me songs of endless dawns,
Sing me songs of futile love,
Songs from the world of gramophones.
Draw me with chalk white wings,
Drape me in saphire slings,
Glitter me in ancient things…
But more than anything…
More than anything…
Name Me!
2. CHOCOLATE and CINNAMON
This morning I was awoken by thunder
Thunder under the tongue of sky bloom
It cracked my room wet with billowing grey
And in that grey I wet my room
I wet my room with the thought of you
Your legs under my feet
The scent of hours gone by upon us
The lulled wake of a kissed open sleep
The flowers outside my window are dying one by one
I’m filled with the heat underlying
The streets are filled with
Chocolate and cinnamon.
This morning my room was lit by lightning,
lighting in rhythms measured by passing cars.
It charge my room with movie screen white
and in that white I charged my room.
I charged my room with the touch of you,
marks that propel a madrigal death.
Under sheets of sticky desire
within the heightened breath of shortened breath.
There grew a flow in my palm and a fountain in the other,
I’m filled with the street underlying
The streets are filled with chocolate and cinnamon.
This morning I stayed in bed to remember you,
a breast in one and a flower in the other.
The jerking measured by lighting and passing cars,
I filled my room
I filled my room
I filled my room
with chocolate and cinnamon.
3. GREY PAINTER SUITE
i.GREY PAINTER
I see myself in the hand of a Grey Painter,
painting by waterfalls and fruit stands.
People passing, following his traces,
paint hope under the leaves.
Of twenty of them before him
painting packages of technique and hourless galleries,
of twenty of them before him
shaping his memories
at least one drew what I think of me.
Wet by hourless galleries, I swear I am a line in that palm that lies down shamelessness…
in colours.
You have no spades behind you, and I only one.
But I can’t love you nonetheless!
’cause you’re a grey painter, so full of grey,
and I don’t want to be covered in greyness.
Of twenty of them before him
painting packages of technique and hourless galleries,
of twenty of them before him
shaping his memories
at least one drew what I think of me.
Wet by hourless galleries, I swear I am a line in that palm that lies down shamelessness….
in words.
ii) A SONG SUNG
Spanish poem “Cancion Cantada” by Federico Garcia Lorca. Translation by William Jay Smith.
En el gris / In cold gray
el pájaro Griffón / the Griffon bird
se vestía de gris. / was clothed in cold gray
Y la niña Kikirikí / And there from the little Kikirikí
perdía su blancor / whiteness and shape
y forma allí. / were taken away.
Para entrar en el gris / To enter into cold gray,
me pinté de gris. / I painted myself gray
¡Y cómo relumbraba / And how I sparkled
en el gris! / in the cold grey!
iii) IN COLD MAY
In cold May,
the splitting seed finds its own way
through April’s decay
speeding fast to find the burn of day
that opens the eye
to a people like me that can’t see why
they can’t be who they can be.
In warm June
the seed bends stretching in a full bloom
now pale maroon
I sit by the window in my room
and think of you
and the thing we said that won’t come true.
But now I see what I can be.
All Music, Arrangements, and Lyrics by Romina Di Gasbarro
(except poem in A Song Sung by Federico Garcia Lora) © 2004 Romina Di Gasbarro (SOCAN)