IN A SENTIMENTAL MOOD

(Duke Ellington)
Introductory poem by Gianluca Manzi

But now it has happened,
no use in talking.
The silence between me and you has never had meaning.
It was. Love it, that was all that was asked.
But now it has happened,
no words for the foretime,
the desperation has made me the same,
has made me another.
Who looks at the shape of the fish
grow giant on the side of his bowl,
who walks on the terrace
observing foliage from above,
who hears the snapping of plastic
that wraps like cellophane
bare branches of climbers?
you don´t know, and I
who descend the stairs neither,
I am the same, I am another.