Ode to Fellini

Your city resembles mine

The depth of it

The layers both below and above

Above, the modern surface

Dubious buildings, rickety

From a time of poverty

Our families dwell within

In two rooms

In three

Then the money comes

Commercial industries

And the dilemma of modernity

We stop being us

Somewhat

For a time

Then stage a return.

We go beneath

To the catacombs

The Under-city

Always underfoot

Always pushing upwards

What has been discarded

In error?

Perhaps

Bodies lie beneath my city too

The dead lay silent

But their Spirit’s whisper

Through the trees of St. Stephen’s Green

Across the Front Square of Trinity

The Campanile moved by their resonance

And the chitty-chitty tram goes past

Rattling their bones and reminding them

They are not alone.

They speak to me still

In this vast city

Where I study you.

My own people

In catacombs

Across the sea.

You said “Abroad, I’m blind”

Not me,

Here I can see

More clearly than before

But then my city is a tiny place

Where I can trace, retrace all steps

Of those who went before

The poet’s words, the master’s voice

I speak of Yeats, Beckett, Joyce.

The last two left to explore

A larger city too

That they might hear and feel

What was silenced by our city.

Like yours

The Catholics loom heavy on our art

And so a part of us

It necessitates we

Move apart.

Your city resembles mine

A living being

That infiltrates my core

As I live a new life

In a new space

Object, thought, face

Something has changed

In me

Through you.

I smell my characters differently

I sense a beginning without

Middle nor absolute end.

Linger with me a little longer

Here in the wind

I bless myself with you

In mind

And free myself

Of all confine.

The city speaks to me in dreams

It ekes away,

And I sway to you

For in my heart

I find a new artist

Coming alive.

There are statues in my city too

Faces of fishmongers

Drunks and Junkies

All searching for a life

Between God and Catholicism

Our priests have failed us.

Left us without

That invisible thread

Of Spirituality

We seek it elsewhere

Inside

Ourselves.

Your women live there too

In convents, schools, in

Public houses and museums

They battle too

Losing their place as Mother

To discover

Perhaps it was better that way?

Children underfoot,

Lipstick and dancing

Replaced by what?

Offices and cheap heels

Nightclubs of ghouls.

And my city is full of crazy people

Walking through the market

Eating apples and farting

Sermonising something else

Othering themselves for

Our amusement.

My city has the most beautiful

River,

I shiver to remember its grace

Its bridges crossed over

Footsteps brand new and old

Many faces, many figures

I no longer behold

Sitting in a new city

With a past

That conflicts with my own

But here too I find

Whispers.

Your city resembles mine

Your creation speaks to me

I discover a bridge

Between the dead

And their voices

What may never be said

Artists exploring

Beneath and above

Yet there is no creation

Without a basis in love

Of a city that housed us

Bore our mistakes on its chin

Allowed us to grow older

Absolved us of sin...

Three cities embrace us

Hold us not too tight

And you Federico have broadened my sight

You speak in colours

In sounds on the wind

Tastes in my mouth

Pity my Fool, Federico

As I try to evolve

From this space

I trace images

Of you,

Of a new me

Away from my city

Its light and its dark

Embracing my art

With a new spark.

Veronica Dyas