O mia bella Napoli

for Angelo Colavita

Winsome buddy
on time for hijinks.

A Sicilian bromance
for the ages:

burlesque scones
& powerful suits.

O mia bella Napoli,
fairweather friend

in the coming storm.
O Rome open city

& your sheaves
of wheat, a bundle

of faggots
will burn you to the ground.

O mia bella Napoli, fisticuffs
for when you think

better.  O Bonaventura Durruti;
O Vini Reilly; O Sacco;

O Vanzetti; O
Eugenio Montale

& your Star Odyssey
space jockeying

for a pair of gams, bespanged
tarantula & a laser

sword for my scant
companions; O matter &

its anti-, took a wrong turn
on the wrong

street & found the maudlin
little man.  Right

fist still clenched
in anger,

his left's grown palsied
ever since the

incident w/ the mandolin
beneath the cypress

trees : one chord wore
tweed, another

broke open your diaries,
the third brought

down the guillotine two
decades too late.