Pic and a Word Challenge #183 & Day 20: Risk-taking

The featured photo is called Beauty and the Beast and is one of my favourites of all times. I took it in 2012 during my first visit to the parts that now I call home. How did this come about, you ask? Not without certain risks.

This post is also for Patrick’s Pic and a Word challenge. If you like Morocco, colour blue and heartfelt poetry, I recommend you his latest posts.

First let’s see about the poem for NaPoWriMo which has just moved into its final third.

Challenge 20: “Write a poem that ‘talks.’ What does that mean? … Try to write a poem grounded in language as it is spoken – not necessarily the grand, dramatic speech of a monologue or play, but the messy, fractured, slangy way people speak in real life.”

*Mumbles something about how there is spoken word in my poems on an average April day as it is, and how hard it is for speakers of English as a second/foreign language to nail the differences. If I was to translate the Iliad into English – why? – Achilles would sound like a punk. My poems are merely me talking to myself. Better believe it it’s spoken, messy and fractured.*

Risk-taking
 
How did I tell them?  
 How does one tell anybody anything?

 “Parents, I’m going to Italy for two weeks,  
 alone. In the meantime  
 you can feed my boyfriend.”

 I didn’t say this last.

 The departure date was closing in  
 and I still hadn’t figured it out.

 Then there was my card tournament  
 where I fix the prizes for top five, yah?
    
 I printed out my train ticket  
 and put it in an envelope.
 Just in case. I came third.

 Quite a prize for coming third.

 Only one man knew
 that I wouldn’t be as alone.

 Well, two.

 One was a friend with all the data
 of the other:
 telephone numbers,
 addresses,
 work info.  

 You know,  
 in case I don’t return.

 And the other was a man  
 who asked me a few days  
 before departure:

 “How do you say No in your language?”  
 “Ne. Why do you ask?”  
 “Oh, just to know,  
 in case you really won’t like it.”  

---

Here are twenty glimpses from those 13 days. It was my first time in Rome and Tuscany. Seven months later I arrived for good. Be careful with the risks you take or you might go places.

Rome was first. Stadio dei Marmi. That bow was about to launch the arrow.

Circus Maximus. This is where Ben Hur races were shot.

Castel Sant’Angelo from the boat.

“Who drinks too much does not see clearly.” Booze ad.

I don’t remember this church. Then I noticed the inscription above the door: Chiesa Valdese. Grazie!

Piazza del Popolo.

Il Mesaggero daily. I grew up surrounded by newspapers and studied journalism. Since moving to Italy, I haven’t held a single newspaper.

Amore took me to meet his father and his cat Angie on Day 3. Father made lunch. I am here again, but the cat is no more.

Piazza Navona, mom’s and artists’ favourite.

Villa d’Este in Tivoli: all one wants from water features.

My first visit continued in Tuscany. This is the last beach in Tuscany. My beach now.

The grin says it all, even in such weather.

Bear in mind: “Waters not sured for unsafety service.”

The next day it was better and we got sunburned.

Peculiar architecture of Porto Santo Stefano.

Spanish Fort, Porto Santo Stefano.

A woman reading standing in the sea on her own beach on the Giglio island.

One of Orbetello’s water doors.

Monte Argentario peninsula is a pretty marvellous place.

Beauty and the Beast. Talamone.

In response to Patrick Jennings’ Pic and a Word Challenge #183: Risk

and for Day 20 of NaPoWriMo