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TV Viewing Habit
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email – poetsaggio@gmail.com
twitter – @poetsaggio
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Issue 5 is live! Read for free at http://radonjournal.com We invite you to be blown away by 11 talented #scifi poets and 9 short story authors that will recontextualize your existence in the cosmos. #WritingCommunity
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When the poet’s grandfather, Michaelangelo, was a young boy, he and his brothers were sent out with the family donkey to retrieve pizza dough in the next town over the mountain. It turns into a “Jack in the Beanstalk” story when they see a mandolin in a music store window—and use some of the money to purchase the instrument. The poet likes to think that a love of art, poetry, and music is in his genes.
The poet grew up in a one-mile square subdivision, called Ridgeland. The developer named the streets after past presidents of Yale University. A brilliant piece of trivia! There were only three house designs: ranch, raised ranch, and split-level. All the flooring materials were purchased as railroad salvage. Perhaps this is why, the ever-rebellious teenager decided to become an architect.
The poet remembers sneaking out his bedroom window (grounded by his parents) to go see Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. The movie was rated R, but the cool mom across the street told the ticket seller that he was one of her children, and all three had permission to view the film.
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At the Main Street Diner,
“the special for down-on-their-luck poets”
An orange square of processed American
A double-flop of baloney
A dollop of mustard
Placed between the right and left-hand justified
slices of life.
The waitress winks at me 😉
“You’ve got to eat,
especially knowing your habit
to take-out rhyme and reason.”
So, I order an appetizer
cheese-whiz and crackers,
believing in poetry
that searches for the perfect belly-ache.
*First publised by The Main Street Rag
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The Poet’s Struggle (to be published by Bottle Cap Press) is a chapbook chronicling the journey of a poet living in a broken world. Two common threads are present—a call and answer dialogue with my Sicilian born grandfather, the poet and roofer and myself a poet and architect, and a commentary (often satirical) often harsh (an echo).
Michaelangelo Crisafi chose the pen name, Germoglino Saggio, which translates “to germinate wisdom.” His first editor was Benito Mussolini (when Mussolini was a socialist hero). The pen name was invented to both create “a name uncommon in this world,” but also to protect his family back in Sicily—his poetry of protest so enraging the fascist dictator.
It was with reverence I returned to my grandfather’s birthplace for the ceremonies honoring him in the summer of 2018, where professors, family friends and dignitaries read from his works. It stirred deep emotions hearing his words in his native tongue. Later, walking the cobblestone streets, my grandfather walked a hundred years earlier, I touched the weathered walls of his family home, and I was inspired to return to my poetry. My poem, San Mauro Castelverde, was largely written that day.
This small volume of work might be characterized by this line—poetry that searches for the perfect bellyache…. or perhaps this title—the poet says, let us make up stories, then assign motives later.
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On a mountain overlooking the sea
Lies my native ancient town;
It has pleasant valleys and steep, lonely roads…
And a climate which enraptures the soul.- Germoglino Saggio (1893-1972)
A century later, from a high balcony
The poet’s grandson squints
As puckered-up Irises anticipate dawn
Bent in opposite directions,
Here, African swallows trace for him
The Sage’s rhyme schemes,
Above weathered terra cotta roofs
The ancient geometries never yielding to history
Or its inhabitant’s broken hearts.
Note: The epigraph is from my grandfather’s To My Native Town, translated from the original Italian.
Searching For Saggio 