LUCIO PICCOLO

Like me
you played the baroque
from your violin
listened to Wagner's
Tristan and Isolde,
loved the mystics
like Juan de la Cruz
and St. Teresa,
and the philosophy
in an existential mad swirl
of influential Husserl,
studied the classics
read Latin and Greek
corresponded with
your cousin Lampedusa
whom you inspired
who wrote The Leopard
which we admired
and found posthumously
by Giorgio Bassani
and conspired
with great poets
like the Irish bard Yeats
you had your own force
in the occultic source
of middle aged sorcery
in an energy of tangibility
which took you on high
unlike St. Teresa
whom God levitated
you relied on Lucifer
to follow her
and your own shadow
weighing you down below
and dying like Proserpina
in the underworld and rising
on your favorite balcony
in beautiful Messina.