Valentina Ventura
2019
Teatro Eschilo, Gela

October 10th, 2021
Trento, Italy

O’clock

Old math professors,
and perhaps even their students—
those whose minds
have yet to harden
from either scientific
triumphs or failures in life—
will say a musician’s heart
isn’t a metronome
you can follow
to learn the tempo
of love,
and would their logic
really be wrong?
But why is age
so convinced,
while youth
may hesitate
to agree?
Is it not certainty—
hanging
like a noose
around the neck
of an innocent person—
that’s eager to judge
the one whose language
it has no interest in learning?
For there are no numbers,
or even equations
which equal them,
that have ever doubted
what they are,
even when they certainly
doubt them,
but four fingers
moving on a fretboard
can be both precise
and make mistakes
in the same moment—
like writers who send
perfectly addressed letters
to the wrong people,
or artists who paint
exact portraits
of people they hate,
never hiding their flaws
or sharpening their beauty.
And who can claim
not to have been
that artist or writer
at least once in their lives?
Indeed, do we not rest
like the most faithful watches—
either on the arms
or in the pockets
of those who always
want our time,
but never bother
to look where we came from,
or where it is we want to go?

About David Garyan

David Garyan has published three chapbooks with Main Street Rag, along with (DISS)INFORMATION, a full collection with the same publisher. He holds an MA and MFA from Cal State Long Beach, where he associated himself with the Stand Up Poets. He recently graduated from the University of Bologna with a degree in International Cooperation on Human Rights and Intercultural Heritage. He lives in Trento.