Davide’s poems started appearing in magazines in 1999. He started writing
exclusively in English in 1993, dedicating a poem to a group of his students in
the school where he still teaches English outside Venice. He considers his greatest
achievements so far having been published in Orbis 120 (the last number edited by Mike Shields), Stand, Dream Catcher and recently in Event (Canada), In the Red and New Contrasts (South Africa). Davide’s poems have appeared in more than one hundred literary
magazines, which he considers important although he believes it's more important feeling
he can continue to catch that fundamentally elusive muse that gives birth to poems.
Click image for a biography and selected poems by Thomas on the Modern Welsh Poetry website; for the Tribute to R.S. Thomas website, click here or for related books on Amazon, click hereSEAMUS HEANEY
Click image to read and listen to Heaney read a selection of his poems; for biography and bibliography of Heaney on the Nobel Museum site, click here; for biography and bibliography of Heaney on the Nobel Museum site, click here; for profile of Heaney and a selection of links on the Poetry Exhibits site, click here; for a selection of articles about Heaney and his work, click here or for related books on Amazon, click hereDEREK WALCOTT
Click image for a selection of poems by Walcott on the Phat African American Poetry Book website; for an overview of Walcott on the Post Colonian Website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click hereTONI MORRISON
Click image to visit Anniina's Toni Morrison Page on the Luminarium website; for the official website of the Toni Morrison Society, click here; for Zia Jaffrey's Salon.com interview with Morrison, click here; for the Toni Morrison Anchor website featuring archive of reviews of her books, click here; to listen to Don Swaim's interview with Morrison on the Wired for Books website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here.SARAH HALL
Click image for an interview with Hall on the Ready Steady Books website; for an interview with Hall on the British Council's EnCompass Culture website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click hereJIMI HENDRIX
Click image to visit the official Jimi Hendrix website; for the Jimi Hendrix Experience website, click here or for related items Amazon, click hereJANIS JOPLIN
Click image to visit the Official Janis Joplin website; for the Janis Joplin Kozmic Blues site, click here or for related items on Amazon, click hereTHE SPENCER DAVIS GROUP
Click image to visit Spencer Davis's official website; for a profile of the band on the Making Time website, click here or for related items Amazon, click hereTRAFFIC
Click image for reviews of Traffic's albums on Wilson & Alroy's Record Reviews site; for a profile of the band on the Brumbeat website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click hereGRATEFUL DEAD
Click image to visit the official homepage of the Grateful Dead; for MP3 archives and details of forthcoming gigs, click here or for related items Amazon, click hereJEFFERSON AIRPLANE
Click image to visit the official Jefferson Airplane website; for a great selection of links on the Jefferson Starship/Airplane site, click here or for related items Amazon, click hereBOB DYLAN (particularly 'Visions of Johanna')
Click image for a selection of Dylan links and a review of C.P. Lee's book, 'Like the Night: Bob Dylan and the Road to Manchester Free Hall' on The New Review section of this site, or for related items on Amazon, click hereP. KAVANAGH - Raglan Road
Click image for the lyrics to Raglan Road on the Fleadh website; for a selection of poems by Kavanagh on the Poetry website, click here or for related items Amazon, click hereLOUIS MACNEICE - Snow
Click image to read the poem on the Wondering Minstrels website; to read his poems, 'Soap Suds' and 'Snow,' click here; for a further selection of poetry by MacNeice, click here or to view his work on Amazon, click here.ELIZABETH BISHOP - The Moose
Click image to read the poem on the Poetry Exhibits website; for a profile of Bishop on the Poetry Exhibits website, click here or for related items Amazon, click here
SELECTED POETRY
by Davide Trame
BOB DYLAN
I watch the trees in a blur
as the train moves on, and the regular
rhythm of the electricity poles.
I drum the fingers on my knees
by the window, humming, mouth closed,
his new song I’ve just heard at home.
From a new album, once more.
I am not young, once
I never thought about getting old,
about the span of my passing.
In these days the fog is constant,
it stubbornly swaddles the stones,
I keep humming, at one with its persistence,
with on this side the same ongoing
riddle of landscape’s stare
and I cannot say I am not glad
I’ve come this far,
if anywhere.
SNEEZE
Your old country home, the huge moths bumping
against the lamp on the lintel with its yellow light,
the straw mattress where you slept as a child,
and that itch in your nose before going to bed,
your sneezing in the corners, then your waking up
in the dead of night, breathing with the mouth,
fumbling among silent moths for a handkerchief
stepping barefoot on the screeching floorboards.
In the day your clogged nose as you played
and panted in the field by the hedge’s dusty gold
under the widespread silvery eye of the mountain
by the wrinkled cornstalks among shafts of dusty sunlight,
the rustling, stinging, slightly burnished bounty.
It was a god or a ghost that wished to make you burst,
to shoot maybe into the eagle’s staring hush,
as it is now here while you are on the verge of a sneeze,
eyes watering, closing, sunrise sky flashing,
stubble like a scattered debris of arrows
and rows of vines with red leaves in the haze,
scythes of God’s relentless gaze.
FAMILIAR
The last bit of the line you know so well, the horizon
when your train runs smooth on the bald mauve countryside
and the last orange-red sun’s slice that runs with you
along and into the winter trees’ pencilled lines,
you love following the round glow until the last tip
is slowly swallowed by the violet haze
that like a honey swarm comes forward
and fills quietly the pot of your gaze
when the dance of the lights is ready at once,
car lights, lamp lights, screen lights, a crowd
like flies busy covering what’s behind,
a crowd of nothing in front of the real light just gone.
Then what you know even more well, the other line
when you get to bridge on the lagoon,
the horizon made of lit scattered dots, loosened pearls,
with in between those large gaps of black fog
like a suspended breath, it’s when the thin, strong
familiar fingers of your anxiety come,
you think of someone that said
fear and anxiety keep us close to the earth,
the real force of gravity,
so you fear just that bit, your bed, our feet
travelling by the dark clods of the earth
when we want to leave the outside dance of lights
and look only for lit roots in our dark,
asking them to whisper some clue
on the always unrolling unknown gravelled path.
LAST DAY OF SCHOOL
Open windows, the dance of sunlight and leaves’ shadows,
sunflowers of laughter in the walls,
something in the air itself expecting applause.
And it comes, the last bell ringing, you see
the exploding of a flock of birds.
Down the stairs, shouts, shoulder-patting, feet stamping,
embraces, heads swinging in unison at a tune
and hands waving with promises.
You relive your own plunging into fields,
into an emptiness that had to be brandished,
in the terribly quiet golden horizon of the gardens
with the slow summer ocean in front,
each stalk asking to be fingered
testing you disarmingly.
Before leaving you are stopped at the door,
the two faces are trying to look kind and tough
at the same time, but a nervous laughter in their eyes
marks unquestionable vulnerability,
they ask for some hints of their future results,
the preciousness of some news in advance, they wait
in the pit of some windy seconds
while you think of some reassuring word,
but the crowd behind pushes forward
and the two are carried away in the stream.
It’s like this on these thin borders,
no time for weighing a meaning,
it’s already beyond,
in the yard the stamping feet and the yells continue,
the flock of birds scatters in the sky.
PRODIGAL SUN
It’s back, the fiery stripe on your table,
it’s higher now, out early above the opposite roof,
it gives your shoulders, through the window pane,
a foretaste of the luminous time to come.
Despite the promise of a clawing heat
you welcome it, without reserve.
You silently praise the unframed radiant countenance
and can’t feel close
to the Hindu monks who sit cross-legged
in a row on the beach, the reds and yellows
of their vests and faces full bright
in the broad bountiful light,
while they finger the coral beads in front of the sea
whispering their mantras not to be reborn
and trickles of sand stream away in the wind.
No, you can’t understand them at all,
your heart is “fastened to a dying animal”, no doubt,
but you feel healthy with desire
sitting at your warm illuminated table,
your arms settled on the smooth sunlit cherry-wood lines,
on time’s renewed, homecoming complexion.
QUEST
Looking for those roses that
- Had the look of flowers that are looked at -
you keep longing
for that simple sharp wind
that hones your will
and makes your gait spare
cleansing your acts to the bone;
you remember when you could guess
the dashing intent of a vein in the air,
your leg giving the right pressure
to the horse’s flank,
your heart already beyond the fence;
or the appropriate twinkle in your gaze,
your voice a light, guessing gust
when you called your dog
back to the leash,
you knew before knowing that he would come.
Heaven, a thin dashing line
and on a perpetually hidden side-road,
the roses asking for a stare to reciprocate
and your will growing
and trying to be perfectly lost in the air
entering the route of one of its hilarious streams.
NOT YET DAWN
Tell me about my being fully awake,
breath and eyes scanning
the tips of the rooms’ walls
striving in the silence to hear
a twitch, on the still dark beach.
You wouldn’t believe but it’s a chirping
I’m now coming across.
And an unexpected gathering of voices
I thought lost, crowding
in the eddies of my sea.
Irises and waves and handshakes
in streets of the past years,
all sleepless and present
or drifting towards sleep
when you least expect it.
But tell me what is so real
and ungraspable in this wait
for the light, that has a light
of its own, when the bottom
of the sea, for once careless,
comes afloat and marvels.
NEW
A drier sunlight on the causeway,
the emerald seaweeds in a dance on the water-skin
on the polished shiny browns of the pebbles,
gulls’ feathers in the lull of the rippling meadows
and all the fish the fisherman longs for
smelling of fresh shadows.
You plunge in, immediately brushed by the busy fluffy tips,
the sun on the bottom sand following your irises,
you swim in sparks of timelessness
and re-emerge hands and feet gripping the stones;
you haul yourself up
dizzy with glances of mermaids reeling,
the whole horizon dripping on your skin
while you balance yourself on the slippery bank,
sit down and breathe the morning
and sense the touch of what’s new
even though you have always known it.
R.S. THOMAS
SEAMUS HEANEY
DEREK WALCOTT
TONI MORRISON
SARAH HALL
JIMI HENDRIX
JANIS JOPLIN
THE SPENCER DAVIS GROUP
TRAFFIC
GRATEFUL DEAD
JEFFERSON AIRPLANE
BOB DYLAN (particularly 'Visions of Johanna')
P. KAVANAGH - Raglan Road
LOUIS MACNEICE - Snow
ELIZABETH BISHOP - The Moose
