TRAVEL POEM
Antonioni
Antonioni
Her coat is green.
The blazes,
Pouring out of the smokestacks
In the industrial wasteland
Behind her, are orange.
Figures emerge
From the fog.
The shack, where they claw and tear at the walls,
is red.
The grass,
Where the dead body
May or may not lie,
is purple.
He painted it.
We hear a train,
But there are no train tracks
Anywhere nearby.
The final shot,
The eclipse, is a street lamp.
The camera climbs towards it
After it has circled and searched
Everywhere we have seen them
Where they no longer are…
The bus stop,
The corner,
The stock exchange,
Nowhere.
Blinking lights…
And blinking lights.
The adventure is a tragedy.
Someone disappears.
The night is longing and emptiness.
They stumble
Back and forth
Like failures
In the Po River valley.
Mount Vesuvius
Towers in the distance
Over the death of their love,
Over everything.
The search is futile.
In a night club,
A black woman sings,
Coiling like a serpent
Among the tables.
Jeanne Moreau walks
And walks and walks
Through the streets of Rome.
It is day. It is night.
It doesn’t matter.
It is nothing.
The desert is a sand pit
Filled with lies and disguises.
A porcupine is dead on the side of the street
As I write this.
It’s spindly spines,
Innocent now.
That is not in the movie,
But in the movie
Of my life
Where the movies are.
