i.
leaving
streets golden,

this evening
growing from envy

ii.
wild desire
for a city

where
hesitating

encounters
brawls.

the city
of difference,

the dreamed-of man
seated in memories.

iii.
vain bastions,
the streets like scales.
the same relationships
between the distance
of swaying feet
and a firing gunboat.
the hundredth story
of illegitimate memories.
the city, a sponge, expands
a description of its past,
written in windows,
banisters, antennae, flags,
scratches, scrolls.

 

Source: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Michael Prihoda is a poet and artist living in the Midwest. He is founding editor of After the Pause and his work can be found in various journals in print and around the web. He loves llamas and the moments life makes him smile.