A Symphony Of Olives
The music I hear as of late is not one of
discordant melodies or random noise
scattered across the sonic landscape.
The music I hear is accompanied by sangria,
wine, olives, guitar;
and although the first movement has barely begun
I embrace this sound like no other.
It has already given me hope that somewhere
beyond the frenetic beehive in which I live
is a place where everything I know is turned
upside down, on its side and backward;
a place where all that is deemed important here
is buried deep beneath the sea which flows
through my blood.
It is there I feel the touch of the hand that
comforts, soothes, loves, warms,
never reaching out to grip the throat,
never reaching out to stop you from living
the way you want to live.
I catch glimpses between the iron and steel
skyscrapers which loom like Gods over those
who have embraced the weeds which burst through
concrete to strangle any sense of progress
one wishes to make in a time when it is often
not allowed by those who have taken it upon themselves
to be the arbiter of lives.
I catch glimpses between each plastic smile,
each pair of Hollywood eyes,
each touch by waxen hands.
I catch glimpses between each face that awakens
every morning ready to fight for the scraps that
are dropped for them by the real enemy, the enemy
that these faces, in reality, aspire to become.
In between all of this is a subtle glimpse of
tranquility, somewhere far away from
this never ending war of conscience,
this never ending attempt by madmen
to compose the next movement
c.2005 Julian Gallo
Blood Of The Lamb
I feel compelled to experience it all.
Everything.
What else does one have to lose?
My eyes light up with a fury.
It just isn't fair.
I have forever choked on the blood of the lamb.
I feel the slow delirium of re-birth,
then it is immediate.
There is no quarter.
I am whimpering like a girl.
I am blanketed in misty nocturnes,
dressing for the monkey house
and I wear a helmet of dust.
Powder my face gently, tie my shoes
and get ready for my entrance.
c.2005 Julian Gallo
The Divine Bursts Out Laughing
The divine bursts out laughing.
I confess----
Exhausted with the present circumastances,
I need to shut my eyes and think
and take a break.
Put the kettle on,
brew some mate and
relax----
I will allow a dream to swallow me
in one gulp.
c.2005 Julian Gallo
New Apocalypses
I am planning new apocalypses:
everything is disorganized,
insane like a Vandal.
It is a question of loyalties and
betrayal strikes my head like
a clown's baton.
I have quarreled with this subject
more than once.
A few chromatic runs and tremors.
I am painting a continuous annihilation,
face to face with the absolute.
c.2005 Julian Gallo
Blood and Sand
Sometimes I enter this arena straddling
the line between confidence and insecurity.
The crowd awaits me to do great things
but sometimes I am not sure what will happen
and sometimes I am not sure if I am up to the task.
I will confront you not knowing for sure your next move
yet I will try to determine, with the best of my experience
and ability, exactly what that next move will be.
Sometimes I get it right, other times not.
I will try to manipulate your charge,
for better or for worse.
Sometimes graceful, sometimes awkward.
In the midst of all this I suddenly realize that this
is essentially all sport, yet it can be dangerous,
even fatal at times.
Sometimes it is simply a matter of pride,
this dance we do,
in which one of us will ultimately be victorious,
for it rarely seems to be for mutual benefit.
It is merely a bloodsport for all the world to see.
c.2005 Julian Gallo
Somewhere Between Golgotha and The Slaughterhouse
Drawn homeward
on this long thread of music.
Somewhere between
Golgotha and the slaughterhouse
my indocrination begins.
Guitars, a burnt sienna
Mediterranean composition between
two distant memories,
art paying back loans with interest.
c.2005 Julian Gallo
Day To Day
No kidding, this treachery we face day to day
when those who look you in the eye and say one thing
and often do and think another.
We are often blind and deaf
to what they say and do.
We often see what we want,
hear what we want,
and the carousel spins
around and around.
It haunts you,
gnaws at you,
yet there is nothing you can do
but accept it, forget it and move on.
The blind leading the blind.
The dumb lecturing the dumb.
c.2005 Julian Gallo
Orbits
Haphazardly bouncing from one point to another,
reaching out to empty hands which pull away,
listening to promises never intended to be kept,
realize once and for all you are merely a means
to someone else's end.
That is, unless you take a stand and refuse to
allow it anymore.
Yeah, we've all been there,
listening to the words of insincere people
filter through your open ears,
and actually taking it on its own merit.
Revolving around this erratic orbit
observing people too lost to make any form
of commitment to anything unless it benefits
them in some way.
There is no real connection made
except for those rare few that actually have meaning.
Everyone has their own agenda otherwise
and you are nothing more than a stepping stone
to that agenda.
Therefore, stop reaching out
and stop being pulled into their orbit
before you become nothing more
than some assymetric comet waiting to crash
and burn into some unknown sphere.
It just isn't worth it.
c.2006 Julian Gallo
Revolution
This is a call to arms.
This is an appeal to those who
wish to elicit change.
Read----a lot.
Stop listening to pundits
and especially politicians.
Learn about history.
Learn about other cultures.
Think for yourself
and stop attaching yourself to ideology.
Listen to people who think differently from you
and stop preaching to the converted.
Don't only associate with those who think
just like yourself.
Be open to all things.
Explore, educate, learn.
Live the things you believe
and not just talk about it.
Do something and most importantly,
look in the mirror
and change
what looks back at you
first.
c.2006 Julian Gallo
Venga qui!
It seems I could sit for centuries without anyone knowing I was there.
In these dog days nothing is topical except obedience;
a typical stroll across dirty linoleum,
curling at the edges, frayed in the middle.
The astronomical manna powders my face
whenever the slowly stagnating hours creep through my open windows.
It is a mechanism that attempts to swallow the world.
The great luminous symbol of cunt fluttering in the wind.
Nero e bianco
Verso chi vadi io?
Venga qui!
Io esco dalia stanza.
I have anticipated things about personal style,
every fold of the brain is bursting with music.
Rosso e giallo, the trinacria
a postcard, a hint of identity.
Brick dust raining upon luminous silk.
Come to the trough and watch the mad eyes dart here and there
for the passion they dream up in their insatiable boredom.
c.2006 Julian Gallo
Java Cabana
A dazzle of light from a room full of crooked mirrors.
Ibrahim Ferrer---the sounds of son
and her insatiable giggle getting entwined with my thoughts.
I am on the borderline of reality where every abstraction
has some form of solidity.
Touch me. There is absolutely no charge while
the cafe is charged with laughter, talk and music.
The decomposition of my ancestors dog me at every turn
of phrase, every word that seems to connect with the music
here and in the pockets of my black guayabara
nestled comfortably next to my pack of cigarettes
and bits of folded paper with premature poems
written on them.
I speak to her of how my father used to listen to this music
and how he loved the brass, the rhythms and she looked
at me, head tilted to the side, questioningly,
"But you're Sicilian!"
"Go figure," I replied.
Yes, go figure. In a flash of an instant, thoughts
of my childhood home came rushing in,
with it's gold walls, Spanish lamps, Afro-Cuban Jazz,
Bossa Nova and Flamenco playing on the stereo;
the painting of a bullfighter my cousin had painted on the wall,
because of my father's love for bullfights on Channel 41,
and me watching Iris Chicon with him some nights,
the ever present bottle of sangria on the table
and my uncle's and grandfather's ever present guayabaras
on their backs in the tropical Miami heat whenever we were
on vacation there.
But yes, we are Sicilians,
from a long line of Gallos
from a place where Spaniards ruled for over two centuries,
a place where Arabs once built one of the biggest mosques
since Alahambra.
I used to tell her we have more in common than she realized,
but this was always lost on her due to conventional wisdom
propogated by those who really don't have any wisdom at all.
This elastic landscape in which we both live and breathe
often stretches beyond the vision of those who look but do not see.
The coffee flows, the music plays.
All the old invocations served up in meter.
The air is hot and charged with life.
The sun illuminated my every thought.
A new rhythm begins.
That much belongs to life.
Amen.
c.2005 Julian Gallo
Labyrinths
Through these labyrinths
of pages and words
I've discovered many things about myself,
working my way through in order
to slaughter the minotaur that lurks
in hidden caves and passageways.
Each page turned,
each written word
is a new path and I walk with head held high,
determined and confident to find
the center.
c.2004 Julian Gallo
Afternoon Delight
Like a red-eyed scavanger you
devoured my thoughts one by one.
You sometimes sit with
predatory hands, waiting to snatch any
word that can be used against me.
You hear me but you never listen,
for that would take too much effort.
You are not what I always thought you were.
No, you are just one of the rubber gloved elite,
an aging debutante peering at the faded portraits
through your own weathered prism.
c.2004 Julian Gallo
Clubfoot Tango
Sometimes it's like a bloodletting
and the womb is the target.
Open your legs and let me be
sucked up into the bloodstream.
Come, we will walk hand in hand
down lighted streets
as I construct an idealism more damning,
more hysterical, since sometimes I
feel infinitely outmoded, infinitely second hand.
It is so ludicrous now, I feel compelled to laugh.
c.2004 Julian Gallo
Originally published in "X: A Generation Defines Itself" Volume 6
Michelangelo
I would build you a glorious palace
with ornamental roads and
wondrous sculptures if I could
but I only have these two clumsy hands
to work with.
They are the best I have to offer you
but these hands would work wonders
if given the chance.
The trouble is, I don't really
know if I should have that chance.
Sometimes you have to do the best with
what you have to work with
and these hands may actually destroy
the very thing they are trying to make so
beautiful for you.
c.2004 Julian Gallo
Rules of The Game
And I try to teach myself many things.
A professor of the self, incessantly searching
for the right way, the only way, in fact,
for me to get on with things.
Apart from the myths of today's age.
Apart from the standards someone else has set.
Apart from the rules of the game
that I don't want to be a contestant in.
It's not an easy thing when you tell someone
that you don't feel like playing.
They will try their best to make you play,
for they will not tolerate any insubordination,
any insurrection of any sort.
There are certain rules to this game and you must abide by them
or else be disqualified and forever withheld the dice.
It never occurs to them that you never wanted the dice
in the first place.
It never occurs to them that
one is just not willing to play.
You must conform, must be a part of things.
Nothing else is tolerated.
They want you to play so they can try to beat you.
They want to win and win badly
for this kind of success is most desired.
Otherwise they may have to face the extreme
failure of their own.
c.2004 Julian Gallo
Before Me Like An Oriental Fan
I'm nearly forty yet the childness continues to unfold
before me like an oriental fan:
ornate and wide,
a symbol of generational discord
and absurdity unbound.
A long time ago I had washed my hands
of the trivial matters which seem to preoccupy
my peers or at least I hope I have.
But they keep bringing it on,
like a raging fire spreading through a house
that no longer has the foundation to support it.
Soon it will come crashing down
and the panic will begin
and everyone will try to look for the way out.
By then it may be too late;
for childhood never seems to end
for those who refuse to let it go.
We walk a spectral playground
that refuses to fade into memory.
c.2004 Julian Gallo
The Perfect Mask
It's the perfect mask.
Preoccupy yourself with talk of
very trivial matters regarding pop culture
and you can fool people into thinking
that you're wise in the ways of the world.
It's all a ruse designed to keep the conversation
from getting too personal
because no one wants to expose themselves;
no one wants to feel vulnerable.
Then it's safe to continue
to live a lie;
safe to continue to
run away
from yourself.
c.2004 Julian Gallo
Another Cultural Sophisticate Sips Cappuccino
With A Friend, Greenwich Village, 10:30am
The Midwestern WASP accent,
the affected pseudo-intellectual pose,
the freshly scrubbed face, thin lips,
blonde hair, blue eyes,
the narrow black frame glasses screamed
"liberal!"
"intellectual!"
the one size too small navy blue
T-shirt adorned with the slogan
"I want your boyfriend",
talking to her friend about how
Italian men were on the "lowest rung
of the ladder as far as cultural pursuits go.
Latin men are different, though. At least
they are in tune with urban culture."
These cultural sophisticates are all alike.
Maybe one day it will occur to her that
Italians are Latins.
(It was the Romans who "Latinized" the
Iberian peninsula, after all.)
Maybe one day she will realize who
invented that cappuccino she was drinking.
Maybe one day it will occur to her
to think before she speaks.
Maybe one day these types will just go away.
c.2004 Julian Gallo
