Here you will find the Poem Bologna: A Poem About Gold of poet James Wright
Give me this time, my first and severe Italian, a poem about gold, The left corners of eyes, and the heavy Night of the locomotives that brought me here, And the heavy wine in the old green body, The glass that so many have drunk from. I have brought my bottle back home every day To the cool cave, and come forth Golden on the left corner of a cathedral's wing: White wine of Bologna, And the knowing golden shadows At the left corners of Mary Magdalene's eyes, While St. Cecilia stands Smirking in the center of a blank wall, The saint letting her silly pipes wilt down, Adoring Herself, while the lowly and richest of all women eyes Me the beholder, with a knowing sympathy, her love For the golden body of the earth, she knows me, Her halo faintly askew, And no despair in her gold That drags thrones down And then makes them pay for it. Oh, She may look sorry to Cecilia And The right-hand saint on the tree, But She didn't look sorry to Raphael, And I bet she didn't look sorry to Jesus, And She doesn't look sorry to me. (Who would?) She doesn't look sorry to me. She looks like only the heavy deep gold That drags thrones down All day long on the vine. Mary in Bologna, sunlight I gathered all morning And pressed in my hands all afternoon And drank all day with my golden-breasted Love in my arms.
