These three poems by Sam Prestianni invite John Berger, J.S. Bach, Archangel Gabriel, John the Baptist, Homer, Ovid, Lao Tzu, Skip James, Moses, Jesus, Plato, Amy Winehouse, and Joan of Arc to a banquet room on a mountaintop for a roundtable on the sacred and the profane…
by: Sam Prestianni
To Raise Mountains
We sit on green hills gazing at camellias
beyond our outstretched fingertips
Grateful the sun has once more gifted
its warm embrace we share the light
To welcome into each of us and everything
begin to hum de profundis
Rib bones stretch sound union lifting
from lax mouth and memory
Our throats fill—and our faces, my heart,
brief as—the rests in chorale sheet music
We don’t need words to summon
the strength of billions
To raise mountains from wetlands
we call the sandhill cranes
Their wordless chants loop and echo
across the yawning valley
There’s no hunger this morning
the length of the shadows no rain
Red Sea Mythmaking
To irrationalize ourselves into translucent spaces
is to claim a seat on Gabriel’s merry-go-round
Slipslap from there on cornet taps
to John’s waterpark where voluntary drowning
is called submersive now we’re revolutionary wet for the cause
Strap tricolor bombs to your belly and dive, rebel child
believer, don’t stop for alt porpoises you pass along the way
These mermaids of Homer Ovid Lao Tzu
will muddy your mission with petroslick
moves like afterdark curves in quonset huts
Be frontline stealth falsetto of the USS Skip James
shot forth from barbed netting on hard time killin’ floor
To bend the shape of holy water gurgle and froth
from the back of the throat sticky tongue toothless
slack jaw is the stuff of Red Sea myth
Burn the star-n-cross into your brow drape bones
with allied flags hang gold medallions from bowed
necks now we’re the chosen and the savior and the saved
The Color of Dragonfly Dreams
Who shapes who’s fighting and what for
what’s meant when words sound off
blinding naked soundtrack flashing
of swords what once we called holy war
wrought by god How divine is faith
in all of us how divination’s magic, and
love, mostly love Love first from roots
to fruit bats symphony of stars devour
constellations even then there’s love, if
there is There is Devour Be solar storm
stratus parent mountain spring outside of
clocktime beginningless beyond endless
beyond seduction petty thieving beyond
desire Who shapes breadth and length
the measure of moments if breath moon
shadows on walls temperature of the cave
Amy’s voice is Saint Joan’s shield Minos
heart Daedelus wings How our songs
take to the sky How these childized
human words summon what’s meant
when suns of systems beyond math
language brighten our seeing the color
of dragonfly dreams Who shapes sacred
what (un)holy war set banquet rooms on fire
Sam Prestianni is the second son of a second-generation Baltimore Sicilian who shared the same Americanized first name. He’s a writer, musician, filmmaker, Humanities educator and founder of 21stcenturylearning.com. He divides his time between Oakland, Baltimore, open road, lost highway, golden valley and endless skyway.
