Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Norberto and Cervia, the Emilia Romagna Twins

The day came and went, the littlest things taking on the appearance of the biggest things, the biggest things shrinking into the smallest, puniest things, things come and gone in the blink of an eye, the sin of the children visiting the father. Mamma’s milk comes by the dram, suckle suck.

Norberto and Cervia, the Emilia Romagna twins, were born in Santa Merrimu in 1968, Cervia, the daughter, took up with an Italian hatter named Blanco who was in cahoots with the Moravskoslezsky family who were in cahoots with the Kraj Ecatepec family. Nothing more was heard of the twins, not an iota. The man in the hat met Norberto’s great aunt at the church bazaar in 1982, the day before the second to last Ships Day. Dejesus said he’d leave all his worldly goods to whoever could play ball and jacks for 27½ hours nonstop. Challenging him, the man in the hat threw the ball, picking up two jacks before the ball hit the ground bouncing. ‘…one…’ he counted off. No further dares were challenged, both men leaving for the night, the campfire glowing perniciously hot. As it goes it went, the day coming and going, receding into the black apron of nighttime.

‘…might I beg, beg your pardon…?’ asked the alms man of the legless man. ‘…I’ve heard say that one should never give up the opportunity to beg another’s pardon…’. The legless man, lowering his head smiling said ‘…beg all you want, be my guest...’. At that very moment, or there about, the sky fell falling, the clutter and thud stymieing both men, the legless and the impoverished. Soon, soon afterwards, the sky blacker than shoeblack, the legless man pulled himself up by the petard and simmered this way and that, his stump-ends meeting with no resistance ever whatsoever. A beggar in Teignmouth with a tin leg begged for coppers and fools gold, the morning sun spearing him through the heart. A pole-legged beggar in Kingston Upon Thames steals another beggar’s hat. ‘…might I ask why you beg beggar…?’ asked the man with no name. To which the begging beggar replied ‘…petard, petard…’. At that both men, the nameless and the beggar, went their separate ways, never to be seen or heard from again.

The sun speared the alms man through the heart, his feet quaking to beat the band. Not one to back down from a speared heart, the alms man picked himself up off the blacktop and went back about his daily day, a hole the size of a petard in his chest. The substantiation is in the plodding, one foot shunted in front of the other. Hoisted up by his petard, the man feeding pigeons in the park went about his day, a sac of birds’ fife clutched taunt under his arm. (The day begins and ends with sleep, tucked beneath the sheets dreaming of fools gold and easy street).

1 comment:

Joanne said...

"the substantiation is in the plodding"...that phrase captures so well what I often have tried to express about the life of my friends here in this tiny empoverished African village. Assante sana.

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"Poetry is the short-circuiting of meaning between words, the impetuous regeneration of primordial myth". Bruno Schulz
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