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This poem is taken from PN Review 224, Volume 41 Number 6, July - August 2015.

Cavalcanty

after Guido Cavalcanti
Peter Hughes
I’ pregovoi che di dolor parlate

I know you’ve all had a lot on your minds
but I thought you might like to take a break
from your issues to concentrate on mine

which include dry rot & whistling gaskets
& an ache in the gut that’s calling out
for dynarod I am these sensations
of someone else’s knuckles just behind
my eyeballs which is making it tricky
to gaze reflectively upon the world
or freshen up the stale pits of my mind

& that’s a shame because I’d seen some sights
& enjoyed a stunning range of inputs
which had made my mind feel like a fountain
playing incessantly throughout the nights
of a small piazza in the ghetto
...


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