Davide Trame

Herring Gull
( or Van Gogh at his waking )



Its cackling at dawn is an axe
that cuts you definitely
from the last scrap of a dream.
The blue blade through the shutter
is a severe awakening.
In a flash you take in
the drop of red on its yellow beak
and its eye staring in the early sky.
Gone is the root of your being,
the stalk you grabbed in the night field,
the jagged hem of the flower
that made perfectly sense.
The cackling grows into a volley
and asks for another grabbing,
the luminous and bitter
jagged edge of the start,
the day in an unquenchable thirst
and your dread of its hanging openness.
Now the cackling harbours
in the throbs of a vast howl,
you hear even the steeples nodding,
the whole air getting stung,
the day’s shore coming forward
with a blue hunger.
It’s time, you stare at a beam
of sunlight on the ceiling
and are gripped by the furrows of the moment
ruthlessly blooming, memory and desire
staring in a lingering gust,
you hear the howl spreading
and blending with the nearing
sea of May light, a countenance
that wants to overlap.
You get up.

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