Photo (CC) Alessandro Prada @ Flickr
*
I once saw Charon,
you know,
in a cafe, just off the Via Cavour,
stirring lumps of sugar into his blackened beverage.
He spoke
with all the crunch one would expect of a mid-level deity,
of how would you guess that the free market
also can cross the Styx
– one drachma only! Savings passed on.
When I asked if he could feel the sun’s warmth
he just slurped his drink.
Seven sugars, no milk.
.
*
.
Aeolus? But of course
last time we met
we were bumbling, spilling,
into the gutters of medieval streets
– the works –
small place, behind Navona,
old Od has his wind,
you see,
and little there was,
but to stumble, bumble,
windless
– retirement is never kind on
those late deified
Olympian pensions are small
although he got the next round
.
*
.
‘Tourists!’
laments Virgil
and bottoms the fourth shot
of red, red rum
– part time at the musei vaticani is
/exhausting/
A guide by trade,
he points me true
to the bathroom,
when I ask
– and when I get back, he’s gone!
But the tab is paid.
.
*
ABOUT THE POET
TRAVIS MCKENNA is a student of Mathematics and Philosophy, who has also taken very recently to the writing of poetry. He was raised in the western suburbs of Sydney, spent some time abroad in Rome, and now lives in Newtown, in Sydney’s inner west. In addition to poetry, he is currently working on a set of short stories. His undergraduate study was in Classics and Italian Studies, with a special interest in the Renaissance.
Contrappasso Magazine: International Writing 