Poetry

When you are down
and cannot think
and everything seems 
to be wrong
drowning in words of ink
by broken mirrors of love
suffocating from the heat
we take a kayak
like Charon's oars
over the high sea
to enlighten us
in the cool sunlight
and breathe in ocean air
as once in the Adriatic
away from fields of wheat,
when a friend is in grief
open the doors to her
and offer Natalia a greeting
of daytime flowers,
give her no obstacles
in any dance of hours
for all miracles are welcome
in a luminous belief,
try to draw or paint
a number of pictures
as a bas relief,
when you were far 
from home
and needing a plumber
in Rome
by the marble carrara sink
was dripping
by your Trevi fountains art,
we choose transparency
to do my visible part
and drew Natalia in a flight
of angel bird-song above
the shimmering mountains,
when you need any remedy
drink from a parlance
to command your vocabulary
at a sunlight's window
outside the cape,
or call on the Parisian poets,
Baudelaire or Pierre Reverdy,
or give ear to saint Malachy;
when I try to exercise 
or play sax in the attic 
to maintain my wise balance
by the music's stands weight
and not be sycophantic.