I

The flight into Catania arrives late

But this city is not yet asleep

As people of all ages stroll home

The taverns emptying out into the darker corners

II

Elsewhere the fascism rises like a sulphur cloud from Etna

Pluming blue burning hotspur into the naïve atmosphere 

The volcano of Empedocles plays once more the card of fire

Just as folk laughed when Mussolini jailed Gramsci

We all pretend to be as unaware as new-born babes

Char called this the somnambulistic hypnos of humanity during the Nazi war

Ovviamente it can’t again happen here or anywhere

But tristemente it can

III

At the Technical Institute E.Fermi

I give a short class on po/mo theory

The temperature is high twenties

Therefore, some semi-frozen lemon granita is most needed

Kids are seventeen or eighteen, full of end of semester spleen

Ask the best most difficult of philosophical questions

How if, after psychoanalysis, there is no more self-knowledge

Isn’t this a better kind of self-awareness?

Which is true, after a fashion, of course

And if, as Nietzsche said, God is indeed dead

Then what exactly comes next, per favore Signore Mister Irwin?

I, povere me, as usual, have no answers

At lunch, we gather together around a small prepared table to eat clam linguine

IV

Once school is over

We must swim at Giarre

Tuesday in early June

After working on the co-authored new book on Social Art

Down to the Lido with Letterio and Alessandra

For the first splash of summer   

The sea is shimmering cyan

A hue of greenish blue

Driving home cheeky Etna blows us a kiss

Like a prayer to Dionysus

V

Deciphering with keen eyes the AntiFa graffiti at Via Regio

Which references Franco Berardi and autonomy

I’m distracted by the Virgin Mary mural directly across the street

But at Catania Christianity and Anarchism go together mostly

Just as they did for the wise North African, St Augustine

Which might cure the pimps sleazing around San Berillo in the afternoon sun

If there was residual soul left for salvation but tragically there is not   

VI

Oh, beautiful Sicilian nights of summer!

The horse meat barbecues on the narrow backstreets loud with chatter

Flame up as red as the loud scooters motor

As Pasolini rhymed, it is only loving and only knowing that now matters

As a mother has for a son or a daughter

Of love for you I have lots and then more

It is only loving and only knowing that now matters

Oh, beautiful Sicilian nights of summer!