Venezia, Travel Notes -- Free-verse (just for your reading enjoyment) Options

[Ali zonak]

Travel Notes
Venezia

Past midnight in a cheap hotel room.
Some night owl plays his mandolin;
endless stops and starts of elevators,
two drunks return late from the bar.

Where is my restful sans souci,
the grotto that gleams in sapphire’s
royal blue as I attempt to submerge
myself in Capri dreams?

I close my eyes, imagine stars beneath
Heaven’s girth and listen to Puccini’s aria
“Nessum Dorma,” ‘Tonight no one must sleep,”
to drown out the elevators’ humming.

I try to ignore the pounding of a neighbor’s
headboard against the wall that divides our rooms.
Finally, his door opens and shuts--
I hear the giggling of la puttana as she leaves.
Then, sleep’s trance. In the morn, Capri.