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Alessandro Manzetti

The April Featured Poet is Alessandro Manzetti

Please feel free to email Alessandro at: a.manzetti@hotmail.it

Allesandro

INTERIORA

Lightning, the sky is pissed
Above: fractures, broken bones
chippings, corpses of sirens
impossible fishbones, the high tide of asphalt
rain, a dog that limps
the outskirts of Rome, the circus tent is sunk
a Purgatory appetizer
bittersweet
pineapple and dust on the tongue.
The polluted Venus is sleeping, deflated
disappeared flesh, pandemic bones
illusion of boobs, soft stuff
buttocks ghost without legs
evaporated lungs, the triumph of the ribs
panties stuffed with wind.
Two hundred dollars, for the whole night
for what now disappeared.
Venus is chewed 
by the sharp morning, by my teeth
by the reality mower.
gasoline and sadness engines
blades and other fuels, double tanks.
The window, the rotting buildings behind
the sleeping cars cemetery
waiting for souls, drivers.
Ghost fingers run on the back
on the curves of scars
sparkling cracks
they are the copper pipes of pleasure
underground, underskin.
It's still her, she wakes up
whispering squeaky thoughts
she is without armor
She gets on her knees, waiting for my flesh
between the voids and the cracks
of her skeleton smile.
She takes me by and drags me to the black bed
she rides me, her orbits are lit: two blue holes
two sprays of light, two survivors
glimmers of outside.
The flesh is forgotten, useless:
the uterus subway, the generous glands
the byzantine buttocks and the skin of mango
stuff that I bought yesterday.
Two hundred dollars, for endless nights
for a black ring
for that closed room
narrow and immense
locked up by an old welder.

THE MONKEY WITH THE BIG HEAD

The man with the big head
crosses the gate of the asylum
he leaves behind himself
the smell of iron
the rough sheets and the fleas’ claws
a too white walls room
scrawled by numbers, broken lines,
roads dangling from the ceiling,
one-eyed small faces
—is son nibbled from memory—

The man with the big head
gets on the bus
there’s too many people around
too many thoughts rustling
that buzz, those moths
those black scribbled wings
who live in his brain
confuse him
they make the same noise
—a blender of souls—
of those people crowded
sweating, looking at his big shoes
at the round scars on the neck
counting his bestiality.

The garden, the exhausted willows
pots filled with skulls of snails
a bike without chain, the new roof
his sister, her big boobs
the nest of a spider in her red hair
long, tired as the willows
agonizing on her shoulders
a crucifix who can't breathe
in that niche of flesh
under her goitre:
the man arrived home
smiling toothless.

The TV is on, blaring
a pissed preacher
covered by a black silk armour
shoots large calibre prayers
with his baptized kalashnikov.
His sister doesn’t smile
she sits back down in the chair
her velvet spaceship to heaven
and whispers to him:
There’s something to eat in the fridge
get what you want.

The man with the big head
sticks his head inside
he  looks at the lights, the colored packaging
the bottles of beer and holy water.
He feels the fresh stinging his face
then the moths resume to flap their wings.
Those flying bastards
have formed a black halo around his head
they came out from the brain
through his mouth, nose, ears
—they want his sister, now—
to go into her holes.

The man grabs a knife
sunk in an apple pie, a holy cake
turn off the TV and comes close to his sister
still hypnotized by the electric preacher
an— electroshock without scars—
He rips her throat, freeing her from the moths
from those dark insects that eat brains
of the family Stone, for generations.
She will not cross the iron gate
as he did, a long time ago
as their son did, after him
the boy whom everyone called
the monkey with the big head
his deformed angel
flew away
after the last electric shake.

The man opens his backpack
pulls out a silver frame
there is no picture inside
he puts it on the belly of his sister
which should always remain empty
then he leaves the house
slowly approaching the bus stop.

Alessandro Manzetti is a horror, SF, weird fiction and dark poetry writer, editor, translator, and editorial consultant. As a writer, he is published in Italian, using his name and the pseudonym of Caleb Battiago, two novels (Naraka, Shanti), three long stories (Mictlan, Vessel, Kiki ), six short stories collections (Malanima, Acrux, Parigi Sud 5, Limbus, I Giorni della Gallina Nera, Weird West Blues), an interviews collection (Monster Masters) four anthologies (Naraka Kollection, Red Kollection, Black Kollection, Apocalyptic Kollection) and a dark poems collection (Uterus), as well as a lot of short stories published in anthologies.

English publications: The Smaman and other shadows, a horror/weird short stories collection, Venus Intervention (Kipple Officina Libraria Editions) a dark poems collection with Corrine De Winter as co-author and the introduction by Benjamin Kane Ethridge, Dark Gates - Roads to Hell and Limbo (Kipple Officina Libraria Editions), with Paolo di Orazio as co-author and the Introduction by Gene O’Neill, that contains his stories Lu’lu and Limbus, Bones III Anthology, (James Ward Kirk Publications) that contains his story “The Shaman,” and stories and poems published on printed and online magazines. He is member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA), The Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA) and the British Fantasy Society (BFS).

He lives in Rome, Italy, with his doppelganger. Website: www.alessandromanzetti.net

shaman