Poetry of Issue #7        Page 33

L'ARCO DI MASTINO II (MORTO 1351)

It was a visit of short duration, young
Mussolini stabbed a classmate's hand
while Marinetti cheered, the future of
Europe was bright, any night in the red
light district a cut purse waited for victims
in a halo of fog -- more deadly than that
chlorine gas was being released in the
trenches of Ypres, there were deathmarch
partisans and human shields, the third
Reich was the third Crusade (having
plundered Iconium emperor Barbarossa,
son of the first Duke of Swabia and his
wife Judith, blessedly drowned in the river
Saleph); nine elderly gentlemen (average
age 90) from the Hermann Göring Panzer
Division #1 would one day be sentenced
to life imprisonment having slaughtered
140 civilians in the Modena region -- as
I say, a visit of short duration, asking each
passenger to tell his or her story

'The countries of Gaul were civilized
and wealthy until Julius Caesar made his move'

'The church doors of St Mary Magdalene
would not swing open, so the abbot-commander said to kill them all,
all the Cathars, the Lord will know his own'

Then it was my turn

I had no further business in Verona, I said,
the translations were done, the streets of
Verona rolled by in slipperyfog, incense of
rain stroked the cobblestones like a leper's
hand; there was no time to visit the balcony
of the Capulets or stick chewing gum on the
face of Juliet, so I walked through shadows
to the Chiesa Santa Maria Antica to see the
grave of Mastino II, great Lord of Verona,
a man of dubious character, conqueror of
Brescia, Parma, Lucca, Lombardy,

Mastino II, entombed among the Scaligeri on Via Arche Scaglieri

Mastino II, bullmastiff of Verona and head dog of the dynastic state

Mastino II, laid majestic among the Roman ruins,
riding in full armor atop four marble pedestals on the turret of his
own marble tomb, also surrounded by marble

  George Wallace