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| Poet David Giannini |
In
A Moment We May Be Strangely Blended
Poems
in Four Sets
By
David Giannini
Dos
Madres Press
Loveland,
Ohio
ISBN:
978-1-948017-30-5
85
Pages
Review
by Dennis Daly
Sucked into the
circular stir of worldly playtime and metaphoric toads, the reader of
David Giannini’s new collection of poems, In A Moment We May Be
Strangely Blended, seeks out objects of solidity like a book or a
sofa or a bed or an arctic poppy for balance in the midst of
indeterminacy. But to no avail. Giannini is just too good at what he
does.
Joy
emanates from these poems in classical cacophonies and word waves. In
addition, this poet appears to actually like what he does. He amuses
his audience with mortality’s imaginings and historical
absurdities. Some of these poems need to be bottled and thrown into
the space-time sea for other generations in other universes to
grimace and chuckle at. That is, if there ever are future
generations. The poet seems to entertain some doubts on that score.
In
his very first poem, Process At the End of Winter, Giannini, after
sorting out his sense of cosmic time with an absurd opening irony-- a
metaphoric (and amusing) semantic slip, relates a self-to-self
conversation in which he beautifully describes the creation process.
The poet says,
…I
talked and insisted
to
the man inside, in his plot,
let’s
make some progress, you know,
a
seed toward sequoia, an imp
into
cougar, chimneys refusing
carcinogen-ghosts,
or map-
lessness
an actual destination,
and
then just got gobsmacked
by
the imminent task—I sat
at
my desk and sensed the fangs
of
something stalking.
Giannini’s
extraordinary poem, In Defense of Magic and Black Hats, Transcendent
Illusion and Delusion, an Assay, rises up from the murky waters of
the past, both literary and naturally rooted, with a paean to wonder
and mysticism (at least the rabbit-pulling kind), holier-than-thou
snollygosters not included. Religions that spark human imaginations
enter this worldly magic show with good intentions, at least at
first. Giannini considers Christianity in context here,
People
sensed rain. Saw streams. And that lake, the Sea
of
Galilee. Many black days. They entered Galilee, hatless
in
that capital of fish, their doubts cast, until that
magician
pulled one, then another and another, rare bit out.
Before
and after that, many magicians pulled worlds
from
the World, each with different hats. Orient
and
Occident. Black cats of worship. Scylla
and
Charybdis swirled. The Romans. Rumi. Full World.
As
his protagonist-skeptic bemoans humanity’s position and weed-like
commonality and comeliness in his piece entitled The Cynic’s Daily
Bell, Giannini welcomes the exhilarating freedom that accompanies the
meaningless of one’s life. His pessimism in the face of unchanging
biology goes over the top a bit, but he does have a compelling point
to make, as did poet John Donne and novelist Ernest Hemingway. He
makes it this way,
I’m
not chary of crash blossoms
or
asemic texts which make me laugh and give
delight
even as I hear the tocsin toll its toxic tell:
in
the past 10,000 years or so next to nothing
has
been learned well enough to truly implement
ourselves
as better beings. Await cells to change?
Every
perception blights the thing perceived. Hell,
it’s
likely too late for genes, so ringeth the bell.
Word
repetition and alliteration, among other verbal mannerisms, serve the
poet well in many of his poems. Giannini obviously loves wordplay and
appreciates both the sophisticated and childish sides to such play.
Boy of Pilgrims, a piece that mulls humanity’s rush to adulthood in
the face of brutish barriers and an often shortened life, emblemizes
Gianini’s rhetorical romping. Here the poet, with grimness, charms
his reader,
…
ice up his sleeve,
a
knee he skinned
slipping
on rock.
And
he wasn’t
even
someone
not
anyone, not
yet,
not set
with
so many,
so
many bled
from
the harshness,
so
many dead.
Giannin
lacks a logician’s knack for knitting disparate things together by
their shared traits in order to show a sense of transcendental
oneness. Worse, or perhaps better, he has found an outlet in Dadaism.
This poet seems to enjoy tearing into nature’s comfortable fabric
to see the abysmal truths that lie behind. It’s not pretty, but
sometimes it’s very funny. Giannini’s poem Great Dane begins with
a police officer interviewing a woman while she restrains Wallace,
her very protective and very large dog. The woman sensibly explains
her position as a matter-of-fact fait accompli,
Well,
my husband, his name was Wallace, too,
used
to beat me, a real abuser, a skinny brute.
He
was only skin-and-bones, you know, so one
day
our dog felt encouraged and carried him
off.
No one stalls in ecstasy or its prospects, not
even
a dog, right, officer?
“Where
is your husband?”
I
don’t know, said the wife, prob’ly buried
somewhere
in the yard. I fought the flaw but
the
flaw won.
“You’re
under arrest, mam. You have the right
to
remains, I mean remain…
Gianini’s
poems are a perfect antidote to the humorless, self-important
troubles thrust upon nature’s once simple, now befuddled, plan for
the incremental happiness of our species—not. Instead read Giannini
for the marvelous fun of it.
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