Mendes Biondo is a young Italian journalist and poet. This chapbook follows two of his recent publications, the bilingual Italian/English “Spaghetti & Meatballs” (Pski’s Porch Publishing, 2018) and “Where Hot Rods Run” (Cajun Mutt Press, 2019). Biondo’s poetry is like hot spilt blood on the page. His work is raw, exuberant, angry and full of imperfections.
Biondo’s poem “Fighting With Blood-Swollen Veins” is amongst the best which recklessly expresses his passion for life. It is a kind of manifesto of anger in which Biondo openly vents what makes his blood boil. He gets mad, raises his voice and never holds back. He even reckons that “it is good for my heart.”
In Young Cruel and Hungry was the Night, Biondo writes about writing poetry, Bukowski, fucking and dying. The title of the collection derives from the poem “Landing Phase.” In the concluding lines of the poem, the speaker presumably Biondo, describes the “inner death” and the sense of loss he feels after leaving university:
as far as I am concerned
I feel that gasoline flowing into my veins
I’m just a tired bull
running through the streets of Pamplona
I can feel I lost a unit
like the space rockets do when they abandon the earth
but I’m still waiting for the last hit of the matador
to fall on the ground and drink my own
young
cruel and
hungry
blood
As indicated in the above passage, Biondo likes using mixed metaphors and he especially loves extended metaphors in his poetry. His poems “Boxing With Life”, “Homecoming Blues” and “The Night Death Came To Drink Something With Me” are memorable examples of this trait in his writing.
In the following poem, Biondo draws the incongruous comparison of death being a sexy temptress:
The Night Death Came To Drink Something With Me
she was a redhead woman
or maybe she was blonde
I cannot remember now
how I imagined her
mrs. death
the stiletto-shoes-woman
the sexiest person on earth
so sexy that we all have to pass
a lot of time
with her
at the end of all our struggles
the stiletto-woman was wearing a tight dress
wrapping those rollercoaster
people use to call breasts
and ass and hips
they were shining in front of the moon
she was sexy and she knew it
my house was a real mess at the time
I lived alone and my only mate was the microwave
a funny guy dreaming of becoming a wooden oven
one of these days
she took out the rum bottle I hid some days before
she opened it and she poured the human gasoline
into nutella branded glasses
don’t judge me
they were good glasses
after all
so it’s my time to go?
not yet
why are you here?
just looking
looking for what?
how did you feel
bad as hell
I know my man but stay cool it will pass
another sip of rum?
yes thanks
we talked with the same rhythm
of a typewriter
crying out a blue story
on a white sheet
then she shut up
the moon was high
and we were drunk
so we danced
slowly and tenderly
a cold and reassuring hug
just me and
the death
our glasses of rum
swinging with her stiletto shoes
For more information about this limited release contact Holy &intoxicated publisher johndrobinson@yahoo.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment