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Ikigai

Franco Cilli 1959 (Pescara)

Ikigai
Under the stem of the elm tree, caressed by greasy breezes of stingy remnants and smells of suburbia.
The sense of what. 
The medals we display are ancient pledges of war, 
of heroism and blood, over mosaic-paved roads on the way to Santiago.
Yet we loved the smell of gunpowder, 
the giddy runs 
And the nights spent drinking 
And building women's fantasies.
I think of the sense of it all, 
told in the novella of the usual Saturday,
all squeezed between the coils of cigarette smoke 
And boredom from the morning sweat.
The evening finally we drink again, 
anxieties slip into the shadows of sound, 
the usual club,
haunted by greasy stares 
And exaggeratedly shaggy, close-cropped hair.
Ikigai, the promise is renewed, 
but time flows lightly through the mountain clouds 
and the August journey to Catalonia. 
We will meet again to count the years that are missing 
And the needles pointed at the skin
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Written on November 17, 2022

Submitted by franco.cilli59 on November 24, 2022

Modified on March 05, 2023

51 sec read
3

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDAEFAGHIAJKLMNOPQBAR
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 926
Words 170
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 23
Full analysis for Ikigai »

Franco Cilli

Franco Cilli (1959) is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist. He has worked at various ASLs in northern Italy and at the ASL of Pescara. After a 30-year career he is currently retired. He was part of formations of the extra-parliamentary left in his youth until the early 1980s. In the 1970s he was editor of Radio Cicala; in 2000, he collaborated briefly with Radio Città di Pescara, Popolare Network. He is the author of short stories in the fantasy-fantasy genre. In 2001, he participated as a GSF Sanitarian in the Genoa Days. That experience resulted in a book, Obbligo di Referto of which he is co-author, published by Fratelli Frilli Editori in Genoa. He is the author, together with Domenico D'Amico, of the novels Razza Impura (Smasher Editions 2010) and Spinoza Rosso Sangue (Delos Digital Editions 2018). more…

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