Boarding the vaporetto for Torcello ...

I took the vaporetto for Torcello from the Fondamente Nuove -  

Waiting to board, one of a seething crowd, I heard again the words confusione and inferno - I'd not heard those words since Naples - 

I still dreamt about the wild disorder I'd witnessed at the Stazione Marittima - 

I'd learned there how to use my elbows in a crush - 

It was a Saint's Day - the whole of the ravaged beautiful city's population had wanted to go to Capri - 

*

Deftly barging my way up the gangway, I remembered anew that wonderful chaos - 

Soon I was sitting down, shamefully exulting in the fact that others were standing - 

All my life, I thought, I'd too often been a docile apparatchik - now I was wearing blue linen trousers, looking through rakish sunglasses at the world - 

The bow wave of the vaporetto sparkled in the wanton sunlight - water taxis swept past, swaggering youths at their helms - 

I admired the flawless skin of a Chinese girl - 

I heard the engines of the vaporetto hammering joyously like my heart -

Friday 21 August 2015

Fondamente Nuove

Venice