Tridents of Glass and Other Poems

By David Antonelli

A collection of poetry spanning several decades from 1980 until the present. Tridents of Glass is a 24 part poem from 2021 about the search for intimacy in an increasingly alienating world. Each poem can be taken in its own, or viewed as a part of the whole. Every fourth poem acts as a kind of dystopian chorus to set the background for the poems before and after it. The other poems are culled from David Antonelli's youth from the 1980s as well as a body written in 2022 after Tridents of Glass. The latter go in a different direction than Tridents of Glass, exploring lighter moods and more divergent styles. Influences for all poems are as varied as Rilke, Rimbaud, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, René Char, Louise Gluck, and modern pop music from Bob Dylan and the Beatles to Hip Hop and Drake.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Antonelli
• Release date: May 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005956561

David Antonelli

David Antonelli was born in Chicago in 1963. He was educated at The University of Alberta, Oxford, Caltech, and MIT. In 2010 he published his first novel The Narcissist, followed by The False Man in 2011. His film credits include Inbetween (2008), which was nominated for awards at several international film festivals, Finding Rudolf Steiner (Documentary, Official Selection Calgary International Film Festival 2006, now available on DVD), Lucifer Gnosis (short), Forever (16 mm short), Dreaming (16 mm short, named in top three at the Montreal International Student Film Festival, 1989), La Toyson D’Or (16 mm short), and The Chalk Elephant (16 mm short). He currently lives in Cardiff and teaches at the University of Glamorgan.

Book preview

TRIDENTS OF GLASS

AND OTHER POEMS

By David M. Antonelli

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

David Antonelli on Smashwords

Tridents of Glass and Other Poems

Copyright © 2022 by David M. Antonelli

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of poetry. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

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The cover page shows an image taken by the NASA Voyager probe in 1989.

Paula Baticioto Benato is thanked for help in designing the cover page and for encouraging me to continue writing poetry.

Tridents of Glass

For Paula

Neptune is the coldest and most remote planet in the solar

system, but also has its most violent storms

I

I watch my days

searching 

for the transcendental

a moment in time

or better

a wing of a bird

somewhere on that dark wall

fluttering

a kind of dance

speaking to my yearning

but always 

an island

unable to reach me

II

Where was that dark chord

first struck?

On some broken bell

submerged

out there,

forever concealed

from human vision?

And when I last kissed 

you, was your hair

not blonde enough

or my eyes too blue?

This was the night

I knew it would be,

a place of torpedoes

and lozenges,

where the sick

collect their thermometers

speaking of rebellion,

A hovering black chalice

hammered out

from some bland humidity,

which taunts me

to this day.

Yet still I would take

your lips,

a door to regret,

wet without velvet

or caprice,

on that journey

to forever –

whatever that means.

III

Startled by the cable cars

I turned to see two children

Playing in the street -

Lightning in their hair,

As though the soil was no longer

Pleasurable, or the rain

Suddenly too perilous

To risk a pathway to the stars.

Speak to me, speak to me:

Tell me who you are

And what dreams still devour

The cradle of your nights,

So nothing can reclaim you

And drag you back into

That yet deeper cradle

From which you once emerged.

There, on the Unter den Linden,

It seemed we all converged

On that silence, where

Night was swallowed once again

By more impatient minds,

And we spun like rings

Around a fabulous Saturn

Of our own creation.

And when the children

Finally noticed me watching,

They recoiled - or was it just a laugh? –

and disappeared into a crowd.