Three Poems by Julian Stannard

Gigi Picetti

Actor, Genoese Activist, Molotov Cocktail

1939-2022

I lived in the caruggi, lived in the Sottoripa
the streets pushing deeper and deeper.

I lived in the vicoli:
lamentation, catastrophe, chicory.

Ubiquitous Gigi would come and go.
He once knew Dario Fo.

I seem to remember Gigi Picetti
had a machete.

The day — in question — was hot and hazy.
He swirled it about

to frighten the piccolo borghese.

Rose of Jericho

I took myself to Saint Sepulchre Cemetery — Jericho.
Several handfuls of the dead.
They fell asleep, outside the walls, in Jericho.

Are you grieving, Margaret, are you grieving?

A curved bench and flowers and an overgrowth.
The Rose of Jericho.
And there lies Benjamin Jowett, Master of Baliol.
He taught Gerard Manley Hopkins.

In the cemetery I was profligate.

I heard the man from Jericho weeping on his archipelago.

I heard the chuckle of the honeysuckle.

Fruit Bat Villas

I thought there was a cricket wicket.
The grass was rolled and cut.

A net — or two — for practice.

The players
dressed in black,
cloaked.
A contest — crepuscular.
Ashes.
Dust.

Back in the day
teams travelling down under
spent weeks at sea.

Dinners.
Dress codes.
Tinned fruit.
The dark night of the soul.
Sleep.

A little batting on the deck.

Pace bowlers hanging by their feet.
All-rounders.
Umpires whistling in the dark.
Leg spinners upside down.
Full of guile, malodorous.

Julian Stannard has written several monographs and published nine collections of poetry; his latest being Please Don’t Bomb the Ghost of My Brother (Salt, UK, 2023). He is a Reader in English and Creative Writing at the University of Winchester (UK). He used to teach at the University of Genoa.  He has been the recipient of Bogliasco and Hawthornden Fellowships and his work has been nominated for Forward and Pushcart Prizes. He has received the International Troubadour Prize for Poetry and in 2024 he was awarded the Lerici Anglo-Liguria Prize for his contribution to Italian letters.  His website is www.julianstannardauthor.com