And before I begin my prolonged discussion about the strange series of coincidences which occurred during my slavish adherence to this week's challenge (in order to divert you from my own work) all the other passenger poets can be found here: http://pjnolan.blogspot.com/
Right, to begin. First, the old "pick a number between 1 and 14" trick. Let husband select for fear I might cheat. He picked 7.
So off I trot to Flikr Commons, and what do I get but The National Galleries of Scotland. Not looking good already. First photo - His Faither's Breeks and I'm starting to perspire. Break into a sweat at the next, Castle Street, Dundee. A tad relieved when I get to Macgregor, the legless sheep, which at least has some comic potential and relevance to my life. And then as if by magic, what appears at number 7?
This does, that's what.
Which is described as "Palazzo Contarini della Scala or Dal Bovolo", taken by Carlo Ponti in the "1850s?". Now I knew he was old when he married Sophia Loren, but not that old.
And I smiled, because I knew exactly where it was.
Exhibit A.
Off on tour of Italian cities in 1995. In Paris at first major stop after London, ready to board the night train to Rome. Forgotten how much I liked that handbag (navy leather, Jaegar).
After Rome (where we got cursed by a gypsy so that it rained for the whole holiday) and Florence we continued on to Venice.
Who is we?
Exhibit B. Probably Milan.
That's Julie, ex-colleague and now e-mail, letters, Birthday and Christmas card friend.
What had arrived not 1/2 an hour before I did the Flikr Commons task?
Exhibit C.
Banksy Birthday Card from Julie (still in Bristol and she got to see his installations at the City Museum).
Now on our 1995 Italian tour we had pre-booked nothing except the travel-when-you-want-where-you-want train tickets which lasted for a month. So we found accommodation when we got to a city we wanted to stay at, and in Venice we rang round from the station and found a place in what I now know is described as "a hidden, obscure little alley known as the Calle della Vida". There are many important facts about Venice, but one thing no one mentions is that it has this really bizarre system of having no street names anywhere, but red and blue markers that tell you something (odd or even, left or right, I can't quite remember). This fact is compounded by the more famous one that it is riddled with... canals. Big, medium, little and teeny-tiny ones, so if you're the wrong side of a stretch of water, you've got to find a way to a bridge. Thankfully, myself and Julie were both fully trained surveillance officers for whom map-reading is a key skill, so it only took us four hours, two ice-creams and a couple of coffees to find the by-now-we-were-suspecting-it-mythical Calle della Vida. And the entrance to it was hidden, and very obscure.
When we enter the courtyard, what is the first thing our eyes are drawn to?
Exhibit D.
Yes, that 16th Century staircase attached to that 15th Century Palace. Our pensione was two doors up. Thus the Twilight Zone theme was once again going off in my head. Sorry for the long, rambling tale, and if it makes no sense it's because we've been 48 hour party people this weekend, which is why the poem is (thankfully) short.
La Serenissima’s Spiral Lie
Plot a complex valued
exponential function
taking imaginary arguments.
The miasma of mathematics
rises before you, smell the city
in a language you understand.
Palazzo Contarini Minelli
dal Bovolo. Of the snail.
Yet this is no spiral,
you will not locate
centre point.
Here the helix, hard to find,
tells you all and nothing
of what you are
or what your will be.
Life ever revolves;
rises up, then down
so that we may begin again,
none the wiser.
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