The birds come closer.
I can’t catch them.
Fog and smoke carry them.
I can’t bend
And catch the fish in the fountain.
I’ll go hungry again tonight.
I can’t lie down –
A thousand pounds of bronze –
From a distance at midday
You can see my green body
Through pigeon wings.
I, Giovanni Cortona,
Blacksmith and Renaissance god,
Am four hundred years old.
My brothers and sisters
Died of the plague in one week.
Soldiers murdered my father.
Crows circled the rooftops.
My mother drowned herself.
War, famine, plague.
I stood
Naked all winter.
The sculptor didn’t light a fire,
Give me food.
Eternal, forever twenty,
The ruler of the plaza.
Spreading stains scream in the street.
Schoolgirls giggle at my nakedness.
Englishmen, Brazilians, Japanese snap my picture.
Green as pond scum in summer.
There’s rumbling in the turbid sky.
It’s beginning to snow.
At dawn the town
Will blend with the hills – a ghostly vision.
A freezing blacksmith and Renaissance god.
The ruler of a hidden town.
(Henrikas Radauskas)
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Based on Topics: God Poems, War & Peace Poems, Fire Poems, Summer Poems, Fathers Poems, Snow Poems, Eternity Poems, Winter Poems, Imagination & Visualization Poems, Food Poems, Soldiers PoemsBased on Keywords: plaza, renaissance, giovanni, schoolgirls, brazilians