I've just been in Italy this year.
And I spent some time in, six weeks
in Tuscany working in a tower.
And I tried to write some sonnets about that tower
and my visitors, so two of these.
The first one is "La Stanza Delle Mosche"
and "Room of Flies."
"The room sizzles in the morning sun,
a tinnitus of flies drones at the bright windows,
butting and dunting the glass.
One dings off the light, to the floor,
vibrating blackly, pittering against the wall before a taxi
and take-off, another low moaning flight,
another fruitless stab at the world outside.
They drop on my desk, my hands, and spin their long deaths
on their backs on the white tiles,
like tiny humming tops that stop and start.
Badly-wired armatures or literally fly wheels,
chasing their tails, first one way
then the other, fizzling dervishes,
whining to be stubbed out."