GENE RUFFINI

Author of 2 books, multiple magazine articles, poems and plays, one of the latter collected in an anthology of Italian American authors to be published this October.

He sent me 4 poems to publish on this blog, and I present you with them all. The first two are an ontological key to understand life, the latter in function of migration and labor, patriotism, and war.

AGE

when old hopes are lost

life can begin again

a chance unseen by most

though a new way is open

they are smote by defeat

unwilling to fight

though hearts still beat

to place day over night

You can struggle in the bog of time

or forget and start anew

cutting memory's strangling vine

shouting you are never through

while blood runs and the years beckon

with fresh prizes to be taken.



DEATH

Death may be expected or no

even invited by some,

but always with sorrow in tow

a dark emptiness unwelcome

And loss becomes just memories

sights and sounds within the mind

of what will never again be

therefore of cold death be resigned

think not of its finality

but do frolic fully in love,

of flesh and festivity

life's here not below or above

There is nothing after the end

so waste not the journey there

but on joy and bliss depend

and with a lover curtain cares

of razored rocks, blows and tears

and steep mountains you must climb

til death comes at the end of years

or at the appointed time.



Ellis Island Wall

Columns of names etched in black granite

each a vessel if dreams and hopes

Courageous people holding their fears tight

in a new land of unknown scope.

My father's name was on that lengthy list

A lone traveler at sixteen

His kin in Italy forever missed

As he faced a fate unforeseen

A boy among thousands on strange new shores

but first there was Ellis Island

examinations, questions ever more

on money, health, lessons learned and unlearned

He came here with only twenty dollars

five less than the sum required

and clothing hardly more than those he wore

but there was work and he had been hired

He labored Day One in America

Always with aching back and bone

A man of strong will and hard character

Who left his name inscribed in stone



Uncle Sam

Uncle Sam siren summons young men and young women,

to save we who are so good from those who are evil,

to fight in strange streets or fetid jungles near Phnom Penh,

and lose life and limb in a dark world of upheaval.

But Uncle Sam has a corporate belly of greed,

and lies to send youth to suffer and die in false war

blown up by bombs or sliced by bullets and who then bleed

so that those who already have can get more and more.