Manifesto
Michele Lamberti

I don´t like to write confessional poems:
I don´t want to shit on other peoples bellies.
I can´t stand to screw around with the spelling:
Picture the young Francis Bacon painting your face.

I´ve never considered it as classy, tricky or tough
to write something metaphysical or ontological:
Just envision Brigitte Lahaie´s titties (1977)
or two billion dollars on your bank account.

Those one-word lines don´t trick me:
On the beach, standing in the water
they´re like pebbles in front of you.
Looking down they seem so radiant,
so cryptic...but then in your hands
you just find them to be grey & mute.

When the cue hits the white ball badly,
slips beside with an odd sound (and all
the other balls make a click, clack,
click): suddenly something falls, dis-
appears off the table or in the pockets.
And the blue Salmon may find home.

Michele Lamberti