Shalapata, Murissa. Poems by Murissa Shalapata. Coldnoon: Travel Poetics 1.2 (2011): Web.

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1 Murissa Shalapata Shalapata, Murissa. Poems by Murissa Shalapata. Coldnoon: Travel Poetics 1.2 (2011): Web. Licensed Under: "Poems by Murissa Shalapata" by Coldnoon: Travel Poetics is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at Murissa Shalapata p. 41

2 Murissa Shalapata The Streets A Palazzo, A Bridge, A Prison Dirty metal shackles carved deep within the rough stone I walk the same halls, streets and repent my head as heavy as your every day wrists holding on to the idea of the outside with nothing but memory of bloody Christ drawings So with a sigh you make your own drawings and everything is determinedly carved as if time remembers like stone maybe it is too late to repent with the preparation of the slashing of your wrists the inside becomes your outside when I saw your outside and the patient drawings of the carved and riddled stone it made me want to repent as I massaged my wrists The ache of my wrists when I placed them outside the cobbled drawings in the impeccably carved boxy churches within the stone Murissa Shalapata p. 42

3 of your cell where I try to think of the urgency to repent To reach between these gates to repent whittle, like keys, the bones of my wrists to where I can see your bone or my bone on the outside my smaller finger bones run along your drawings like a meditation and they are once again carved and remembered like an ink stone My fingers scratch the imprint you left in chalk stone my forehead, shoulders and chest itch, sigh, to repent but what it felt like to not possess the key to my wrists, and to walk names of the streets outside, elude me like children's drawings not like yours with dates, 1899, all carve Murissa Shalapata p. 43

4 Visions Of a San Franciscan Chinatown With stretched out leather Italian sandals in grey I landed on top of Jack Kerouac's name in gold a Hollywood replica in literary memorial a square in cement What better way than with a street sign too? 000--> Jack Kerouac A narrow alley with a neon sign at the end warning (Adler) Margaritas (blocking City Lights) No littering No right turns I shot the scene with a Chinese man who wouldn't budge -that subject challenging author tropehe leaned against the post, hands in his jeans black sunglasses, a cream chapeau and a suitcase by polished shoes It was clear, through the black shade of glass, that he was looking at me looking more Western like an Eastwood Murissa Shalapata p. 44

5 Reflections Of Venize Friari With crimson Bardolino in hand I taste you, Venize your mind numbing routes of destiny like untangling knots of angel hairs in a hurry by the hour glass of spices that smell of sulfur, basilico, lemon and grass I paid little attention to your streets of uneven marble and stone besides when I tripped and was face to face with my own salty self Ponte Rialto sick of the view sick of the weighty feet that wears her down each year closer to her teal bowels I round and there, stone-faced built-in virgin on the street corner and me - a tourist, an atheist - in the thrill of abandonment discovering someone new in me In time Adriatic sun feeds sweat stems down my back growing from my blue floral neck soaking into black cotton Murissa Shalapata p. 45

6 At the doors of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari smells like an antique old wood shop in rain kicked a crippled Italiano hunched with a ringing clinging chalice in need of spare jewels from any contemporary Franciscan who's willing to be buried beneath the stone in the floor of the church knowing it doesn t matter in the end I pass him despite his purple tumors despite his fortune that any icy creature of Cain would trade for my lecture of pictures and stone and men that don't matter any more Nor do I care when in the presence of Canova his tomb of sleep his pyramid of death A sleeping winged lion mourners that you drew (for the death of another) stays guard of our dreams Does the patron let you roam Venize at night? When the flock and exchangelings are away and everything evaporates into the smell of Adriatic Murissa Shalapata p. 46

7 at once you know it doesn t matter in the end Murissa Shalapata p. 47