Biography
Franca Palmieri (Morolo, FR) lives and works in Aprilia (LT), where she currently teaches and conducts workshops in creative writing, poetry and acting. She holds a degree in Pedagogy and graduated in Pathophysiology; she holds two Qualifications in humanities.
She has taught at primary and secondary schools, where she held organizational assignments in Educational Projects.
She has published the following poetry books: “Arabeschi di luce” (2008), “Quando la vita profuma di nuovo” (2013) and “La coscienza e la vanità” (2015); more recently, the fairy tale “La fiamma del cuore” (Pellicano).
Finalist in several national and international contests, she has received numerous diplomas and honorable mentions. Many of her aphorisms are included in Giulio Perrone, personal organizers.
She appears in anthologies such as SignorNò (Poems and writings against the war, 2016) and LiberAzionepoEtica (2017) Pellicano. She promotes schools Meetings with poets. (Among these Naim Araidi and Beppe Costa).
She created and is in charge of the National Poetry Prize “Masio Lauretti” reserved for middle and high school students; the first edition was held in may 2016 with considerable success.
I will leave in the summer
I will leave in the summer
without clamors,
blended into sunset on the sea,
recumbent on a hill
amid the scent of pine trees,
walking on the top
of a mountain which borders on the sky.
I will follow the summer
with life’s enthusiasm,
the joy of the holidays’ end
spent happily.
I will scatter smiles and kind words
among the people I’ve loved.
I will dive in the nights’ silence,
in the light of the August stars
changing only perspective.
I will softly blow on autumn’s leaves
I will sleep on beds of untouched snow.
I will fly like a butterfly
letting the wind chase me.
I will sail the waves
that embrace the lands.
I will be born again in new Springs
amid newborn leaves.
I will blossom in every flower that surprises.
Wondering
Wondering
amid roots and branches
is to seek sharp thorns
stuck in dark corners.
It means shedding light on the nestled pain
abandoned among heavy stones.
My naked skin,
close to the sharp rind
of your scratched soul,
bleeds
inexorably.
My face rubs yours,
pitiful tears appear
on the glass of your eyes.
My spirit penetrates slowly
in the neglected crack
in search of lost sufferings
and, catching a glimpse of them, hits
a powerful wall.
Your back
is bottomless layered earth
to my big hug
Your chest tightens
behind an armor
that does not release any pity.
Night
Night comes when
every word disappears
and leaves the gaze suspended.
With a slow pace
someone walks in the avenue of remembrance
waiting for someone to follow him.
Night listens to breaths
making faces closer
and laying their hands on the skin.
It captivates vanished shadows
at the first moonlight.
Blind world
devouring innocent children
you are not time moving forward
you are time lacking.
Repeated massacres of astonished eyes
that extend their limbs
in wax sculptures
without knowing why.
Bulwarks for us
unable to move
or that do not wish to.
Predatory world
devastator of consciences
without doubt and truth,
full of inflicted pain
in order not to scream its own.
Monstrous world,
when will we stop collecting
drops of innocent blood
that you perpetually shed?
Alive to free the living
I’ll always be
melancholic.
I suffered from hunger and misery.
My unaware feet
have marked
lands bloodstained
in the rush for bread and salt
between impressive requests for help
in the impossibility of giving.
My eyes opened to horror
have closed with bitten lips
in order not to howl to violence.
I am dead among the dead
that covered the streets
amid the cries of fear
of those who were beneath the rubble.
Alive to free the living
buried by their own home.
Alive searching for food.
Hunger more than all was pursuing me
together with the shadow of breath
and the mourning of my baby girl
born despite an illogical
brutal moment
kidnapped by a merciless disease.
I always wanted to leave
with
my incurable
sadness.
I stayed without ever forgetting.
The forced silences, the cries and the crashes,
the aimed weapons, the gunpowder,
the strained faces, the barred eyes,
the pleas, the tears, the grief.
The war will stay.
Etched in my soul,
engraved in my flesh.
