Don Corleone in poetry

Grantly Marshall impressed his audience on Monday with his memorized poetry that he recited with great effect. The poetry evening at the busy Manoel Theatre, one of a series of monthly meetings convened by PoezijaPlus, was dominated by the powerful voice of the American born artist. The following poem was recited especially for the evening and Marshall kindly offered to put it to paper and send it to Wired Temples. It is inspired by the colourful artistic director of the Manoel Theatre, Tony 'Don Corleone' Cassar Darien. Other poems by Marshall can be read here via his website.

A POETRY EVENING IN MALTA

You can’ t shake its whispers, soft words of seduction
Which enter your soul when you step on its shores.
Firm footsteps of history from shoreline to shoreline,
The excitement, the power of the bull as it gores.

Its theatre once built by the Knights of the Order,
Whose doors never close and whose lights never dim.
Its leader, director a man of great stature,
The Don Corleone of literature and hymns.

One snap of his fingers moves all the world’s mountains,
One glance from his eyes makes or breaks great careers.
And so when he asked me to join in his madness,
I plunged to the sharks in a dance with my fears.

I dug in my past for my poems most pleasing,
Strange moments of pain or of pleasure or both.
Descriptions of feelings I’d long since forgotten,
Events which exalted and stunted my growth.

My pride stood above just a plain, simple reading,
So I rearranged time to adjust to my needs.
I memorized all of my poems, my children,
And rescued these flowers from the grasp of wild weeds.

My friends felt rejected, my girl friend soon left me,
Her importance was dwarfed by this moment of fate.
Controlled by an army protective and threatening,
With orders to kill if I broke this blind date.

The moment arrived lead by Don Corleone,
Would I dance with the stars, hide with shame in my bed?
I waltzed through the evening, felt my power, my triumph,
Reversed all the negative thoughts in my head.

Time altered these roses to bars of a prison,
Which blocked me from planting the simplest of seeds.
Alone and abandoned I rot in the darkness,
A flash in the pan much too weak to succeed.

Malta, January 29, 2005

Copyright Grantly Marshall
The American Drama Group - Europe
www.adg-europe.com

Ten lessons from Don Corleone