Anzio Poem by robert dickerson

Sad port of Anzio
you sadden me
Gardens and flowers
bathed in brindisi
melancholy.

Fragola cloud
dissolving around
grotto and villa.
Stone feeding billow
lapping stone.

Sad, strange elegy
of wind and sea-spray
entangled by
gone laughter and
the lovers' cry.

Drowsy rose
abed in salt air
far too heavy for
your stem to bear
with dewy tear.

And you sad, scintillating
scythe of moon,
you ship adrift,
bewitched, without a port
without a home

wound and bless
with homesickness;
chill like a breath
from the vast abyss
my heavy heart.

Sad port of Anzio
into my soul you send
resistless restlessness
and such imperfect peace
that in the end

I'm like a man
in an alien tomb
buried beyond repair
in a foreign land
in a soil not his own.