DEBORAH GUZZI - POEMS

Deborah Guzzi’s poetry appears internationally. In the UK in A3 Review, Allegro, Shooter, Amethyst & Foxglove Journal in the UK - Automatic Pilot in Ireland – in Canada Existere, Ekphrastic Review, Scarlet Leaf & Subterranean Blue – Ariel Chart in Australia, mgv2>publishing- France, Cha - Hong Kong - Greece - pioneertown, Sounding Review, Bacopa Literary Review, The Aurorean, Liquid Imagination & others in the USA. Deborah was nominated for the Pushcart Award & Rhysling Awards.  

​Decent from Matsuyama Castle

​Unable to imagine attempting the
precipitous descent from Matsuyama Castle,
I follow a turquoise-topped, Canadian
cabinetmaker, and her Aussie friend
discussing a chair lift down?
 
With a grumble and groan, I realize
There must have been a chair lift up!
 
Approaching the locked lift-gate, I realize
coins are needed. Of course, pay, pay,
one had to pay! Where to pay? How to pay!
Ahhhhhhh, here silly Gaijin, pay here!
 
I grab a circling chair, hold tight to my
go-bag, and clamber into the seat.
Away we go.
 
I watch children whoosh and bounce past,
on their way up, swinging stocking-covered legs,
adjusting baseball caps labeled “Go Tigers!”
 
Take Me Out to the Ball Game sings through
my mind as the lyrics pass on a billboard
beside the train station in English!
 
The lift lands me at a running stop within
an atrium on the top floor of a modern building.
Somewhere?
 
Night falls, and the way home hides behind
crowds of dinner travelers and small shops.
 

​Sweet Cakes with Marianne
 

​On the banks of a turgid Seine,
the boat moors; their anchors descends.
Paris, the boulevards, the art
endless delights are dredged in part 
by a Joie de vivre, which transcends.
 
Miss Liberty rises, Marianne,
as strikers slow traffic again.
Constant unrest served ala carte
Au revoir, a bientot?
 
Fashion, heart, theater, charming men,
those sweet cakes called Madeleine,
tributaries, rivers to chart
and the art, did I mention art?
Au revoir, a bientot?

The Spirits of Mark Twain’s Nook Farm

​I can see Twain’s ghost all about Nook house and house
it was though mansion it claimed to be; the children
with the cats and mother in her favorite blouse,
 
pouring tea as Sam acts as the droll comedian.
The girls, Susy, Jean, Clara, hiding out in bins
impishly going where they should not have been
 
as baby Langdon keens beneath an angel’s wings.
Death came before and after Samuel with comet 
tails, Halley’s trail came to laud and mourn one spring.
 
Nook Farm is haunted by the memories of Sam’s get
swaddled in the cradle, then in the bath, doom came again.
Upon the hill, within a wooded knoll, they wander
 
still, fey shades race dogs and cats and pretty hens.
I can see Twain’s ghost all about Nook house and house
it is, full of kindred about the hearth in the den
with the cats and mother in her favorite blouse.