Fontegaia rambles on.

20

 
On a straw-strewn Campo ring, beneath
the inching shadow of a clocktower,
horses and horsemen display their power -
hearts hoofpounding for a laurel wreath.

 
A snoozing hobo in the clocktower
rotating away from the hubbub below
forges a dream-rim out of molten snow.
Its iron heart will win the race this hour.

Hopalong Cassidy keeps hoppin' along in Fontegaia...

19

 
August now, the month of Palio.
The U-turn of those tender feet
quattropasso in Siena street -
echo of an old paint's hollow

 
thundering.  Imago of Everytown,
a rooster crest's unquenchable desire -
your nippled ring a roaring hemisphere,
rage welded into ceremony (such loco

 
renown).  Motionless in motion, this
parade of silks and garlands round
an altar green with laurel... Greyhound
Pastor!  Ex cathedra Pegasus!  Thus

 
Siena signs her crepuscule of history
and wills it bent (as testament)
into a duplex wreath : nine sent
skittering on horizontal - only

 
a rust-encrusted tenth (last call)
sounds (contrapuntal) from the tall
bell-tower.  Armillary, spherical...
a gyroscope.  Reverberant sundial.

 
And all we know is this double-ply
of blazoned passio, importunate light.
Bands of limestoned spectators
in the Campo (goddesses, mortal) sigh

 
as one toward yon singular suspense,
forevermore.  Deep in their scalloped
bosom of clay, rocked in a tempest
in Arcady - smiling Augustan-Etruscans.

I'm on jury duty this week, so blogging will be minimal. Here's another scribble for Fontegaia chapt. 2 :

6

 
The swelling crowd fills the Campo-conch
like the roar of the sea - contrada banners
swoop and flutter, sailing - glory to Siena!
Horses, horsemen jostle in the cinch

 
of the lead-rope - twilight inches forward
from the bell-tower - the tenth horse
starts his run... the race is on (hoarse
cries of rival jockeys, lashes of calf-pud).

 
Peacock rivalry, testosterone.
O vain people!  Chasing a bloody rag
around the haybales (for a brag).
This is about the poets (non-Verona).

 
You hold the key to the highway, cowboy
(sucking your pacifier).  It's cold
in the mountains (iron manifold) -
where snow locks up the almond eye

 
in a hexagon of exempla - where the race
wheels around a cast-off labyrinth
and the frothing beast (ninth
horse of the Apocalypse) reflects your face.

Last night I was reminded that Eugenio Montale has a poem titled "Palio" in his 2nd book, Le Occasioni.

There's a translation of a much later poem ("After Palio") here.

"Palio" shows faint parallel to previous effort posted here (the contrast between "Bernardino" & Siena racing enthusiasm resembles the substance of the speaker's address to "you" - the spiritual "Clizia" - in Montale's poem). (see translation by William Arrowsmith in his great English edition of Le Occasioni.)