Sic transit

Air France nearly bought
Alitalia yesterday.
Last minute, walked away
(Hunky dory till they fought).
Doesn’t matter, still flying,
Green livery, down to Rome,
Then to London, nearly home…
…barely laughing, nearly crying.

4 weeks in Europe, my DNA’s home –
denatured Oz makes it fit for a poem.
Too many paintings & sculptures & crap
fall out of the sky & go splat in my lap.

Culture-free Sydney is beckoning now
Welcome to Haymarket’s Concertgebouw.

Shortz

Usually Thursdays the crossword defeats me.
In sunny Piazza Maggiore, failure streams
down ancient brick courses like sunbeams.
So is this where a misplaced rapture meets me?
Three clues answered of one thirty two:
inn / lay / needed – that’s it!
Can’t cheat on the Blackberry – it’s on a hissy fit
Substitute another cap, a croissant – well, what would you do?

Later to via della Belle Arte, to try viola bows,
perhaps after lunch at Zanarini, pasta and local red wine.
Just wander up old via Oberdan, turn right and follow your nose
So the mundane is rendered transcendent, the quotidian divine
Travel making strange always, overthrows
The signifier – but we’re luckily left with the sign.

Back in Bologna

Lazy late breakfast in this lovely town
- this time in via Clavitura, where
Il Calice has thank goodness reopened. Over there
the bearded bullying patron fusses around
his red check tablecloths and broad bowl
of ice, which will fill later with bottles
of Prosecco and Pinot Grigio (after Giotto?)
A town full of food, art and an academic soul.
But I’ve abandoned all that, thanks,
in favour of a sonnet a day,
a long walk, a good lunch,
the casual observation of assorted cranks,
the internet, perhaps a brief sharetrading foray,
anything to avoid the final crunch.