Pier Paolo Pasolini visiting the tomb of Antonio Gramsci. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
in him those brave
translunary things
Michael Drayton
1. Police Report
Not the hustler,
a boy you’d loved—the Roman
convicted of your murder
on the beaches of Ostia.
Or Maria Callas singing,
Ecco il velen di Laura. . .
It was the stolen film rolls,
and the Mafia, discreetly
extorting you, Pier Paolo, for Saló—
2. Post-Mortem
A pipe; smashed testicles.
Run over by my own car—
my carcass, a receptacle
on fire. What a lonely bastard
watching my days
splashing against the alley dirt
like piss near a cypress.
A spectacle. This hatred
becoming nothing, becoming even less. . .
3. In Venice
Walking that winter, confronted
by a rat. . . Merlot-colored,
I was wearing monkstraps
with blue soles; hand-made leather,
Stefano Branchini.
I’d bought them for my burial
opening night at La Fenice.
I don’t believe in ghosts,
only gravesites. The rat was hungry.