Goodbye, Mr Chips!       

      Many times I have been asked 
      what poetry is, 
      or prose, 
      an impulse to express the intangible, 
      this damnation, condemnation, 
      and I have always snapped back, 
      the wrong way. 
      One particular day, 
      after self-exaltation, 
      I said it was a type of writing 
      under dictation of a high principle, 
      as if those chosen by destiny to examine themselves 
      were elected, 
      but that is not exactly how it is. 
      Composing means 
      wishing to explain 
      mysteries only you see, 
      they do not exist, 
      many are not even mysteries, 
      they take origin from you, 
      in the end you go back to the beginning, 
      it is to investigate your infinity, 
      the dragging effect 
      hailing from that occasion, 
      so long ago, 
      when you understood that life 
      is also ill,
      when you started crying, 
      alone, desperate, 
      on the cover of the book, 
      daddy had just finished reading 
       “Goodbye, Mr Chips!”, 
      nothing more.

© Copyright 2023 Mauro Giovanelli “Seventy-nine writings or thereabouts, life, love, death and the usual” 2a edizione febbraio 2023 – “Settantanove scritti o giù di lì, vita, amore, morte, i soliti discorsi” –