Salvatore Ala Poems

Many blue jays from parallel dimensions.
The marshes aloft with birds.
Reed beds in swirling masses.
One swan spread the sun's wings.
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The earth's summer
a furiously burning mother-fire
at a touch of frost the sun shatters
night harvests stars from the soil
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I'll share this photograph of my parents with you.
It's like an old wine overflowing time, still new.
They're eighteen and twenty-four, in their best poor clothes,
Posing under an olive branch on a Roman road.
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After the first beheading, hope was severed like a limb.

After the second, love produced a fountain of blood.
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Ellis Island

Passenger ships slip time in fog,
Their displacement forever in motion.
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A country doctor commencing on a cure.
A chiropractor stretching the spine of his patient.
An ornithologist listening for particular birds.
The dance of lonely awkward people.
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Head without a will of its own,
Blindfolded and bandaged eyes
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I could fish for hours,
Lose myself in a marsh
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Neither complete reason or revelation
But falling in love again when we can't help it
Ambient composite blue transparent to the stars
Between dawn and sunrise sunset and dusk
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Autumn in Paris is like summer in a lower heaven.
Sycamores and chestnuts paint the air,
Pencil-thin branches sketch the city like Utrillo,
The Seine sets leaves in moon-glass.
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