STEFAN LORENZUTTI
Strings 1
‘dreams jangling with lost connections’
March 2024
Cathedral
My sister said
listening to Lucinda Williams
on headphones helped a lot.
As Notre Dame
burned
from the attic up
she meditated
sitting cross-legged
on the couch.
Baltic Exhibition
In Gdańsk
did you transfer
Fangor’s fuzzy phenomena
to the headland
or carry sand into
the picture gallery.
In the Puppet Theater, Kraków
Schematic lightning
/
textile flicker-singed.
Grey imp
grips ankle.
Fight!
Bite!
Hania my shivering daughter
almost five this autumn
I sink my nose into the
traditional felt cap
you chose to keep on
in the children’s theater.
The dry fuzzy scent
of reassurance.
Advent
Schoolday mornings the daughters & I
wait for the No. 6 tram at Korona.
Next to the tram stop is a bakery
and next to the bakery a brooding tunnel
leading to a gritty tenement courtyard.
A pawnshop is still in operation
though all other portals have been
blocked with boards and chained shut.
Bottles recycled against a brick wall
accumulate in a pile of shards rising nightly.
And every morning with 2 minutes to spare
until the screechy arrival of the No. 6
we dash down the passage into the courtyard,
positioning ourselves below the bakery’s vent.
We inhale deeply the smell of fresh donuts.
STEFAN LORENZUTTI is a poet and the publisher of Bored Wolves Press. He is based in Kraków, Poland. The Stoneware Jug, a poem-comix collaboration with John Porcellino, was published with Nieves in 2022.
