beauty delux

To Rome with Love…from me and some talented people.

Last year, Woody Allen released one of his most successful films to date, Midnight in Paris, but the ex-funny man turned filmmaker admits he has no clue why people liked it…It was a cute film although it seemed he had already done it a least half a dozen times before,  in some reincarnation of the same subject matter or another   ”By sheer capriciousness, everyone seemed to love Midnight in Paris. I’m not saying it was a bad film, but I don’t know why they went crazy over it all over the world—I really don’t know why,” he said at New York’s Paris Theatre, where he was showing  his follow-up, To Rome with Love, last night.  “It was an accident it was so successful.  I made it the same way I make all of my movies and no one came to see some of those, “   If Allen is now doing postcard films, I think that’s just swell.

It sure beats going on a cruise with a bunch of people you don’t even know wearing bad outfits.  Maybe he can do Hello Bangkok next time or Goodnight Athens…

If you peg  Roma with Love against the great films about the city of Rome that have been made in the past, by the likes of directors like Roberto Rossellini with Roma Citta Aperta, or Pasolini’s Accattone or Fellini’s Roma…you will probably feel that this is just another coke commercial gone a bit too long.

But hey It has Roberto Benigni in it so it cannot be all bad….I love Rome personally I grew up there.

I thought what better time than to pay homage to a city I love even though I didn’t do it like Allen and there was no premiere but just some pages and a pen and a few memories…

Here is to you  Roma con Amore…

There must be a fortune

at the bottom of this fountain,

Omaha says to Nebraska.

While the nuns are studying Neptune’s

genitalia, a boy dressed in Valentino

is sucking on an ice cream cone

looking lonesome and long at the

Lady from Buenos Aires.

 

Toto’ is sitting on a chair searching

For a piece of evening sky

Past the statues and the

Broken down palaces.

 

He is wishing for a new pair of shoes

But all he gets is a little fire in the

Middle of October and one more

Day without rain.

Person to person call, I get a dial tone

And I am gone…

I left my useless confessions with a

Franciscan, I told him about you,

How you looked at me after wiping

Away the tears from your eyes,

How your breasts take me home,

Your face pallid and flawless,

Your legs, my kisses, your moans,

He asked if we were married

I told him no.

 

I said I couldn’t;

I had thrown you down the

Stairs two nights before,

I didn’t know how long you

Would last.

 

I called out for room service:

Scrambled eggs and coffee;

Sat once again by the door

Waited for a knock, opened it

And let the porter in.

I told him to put the glass of water

On the night stand,

He said he was from a village

By the sea somewhere near

Amalfi.

I showed him the bathroom door

it doesn’t lock, I said,

He told me, I didn’t need to lock it.

I suppose he was right.

 

I thought about getting home,

All those papers to recycle,

All the books I never read,

The bed were we laid.

All the bills I had to pay.

A silly toy you called Willie,

Your cunt, my face, milk and coffee.

I kept thinking back to all the things

I should of said and done,

All the promises made and never kept.

Like the raindrops that falling into this

Ancient River turn into ocean…

Everything must come to its end,

To begin again.

 

In the house of worship

Where the silent prayer of

The outcast is served

As blood sacrifice, I want to

See the lion eat the lamb.

I come to buy cheap underwear,

And expensive sunglasses.

I come to hear the singing of

the Sirens calling to Ulysses,

I want to be with the angels all

dressed in white hitching

A ride to the periphery,

I want to hear you scream high

Atop this sacred altar and

Be your guide trough this

Tainted after life.

 

From these hills, I spring like

Water, into you I spill…

I will never let go, this time, I will

Find you and take you back to the

Last time that there was truth in

Your kiss…

We will drink to the Old man

selling candles in the rain…

to this Eternal City,

To her fountains and her Churches.

 

We will walk past the shops.

You will gently squeeze my hand

Your skin so soft, your eyes so blue

We will smell the roasting chestnuts

And feel new again.