Fiume, Seductive Power

for Baritone, Piano and Mezzo Soprano Page Turner

Setting, an empty stage at d’Annunzio’s Villa Vittoriale, 1938.  He is surrounded by urns, caught in his memories of the past.  He remembers the end of the First World War and his seizure of the Adriatic Port, Fiume.

1. Saintly War

How can this saintly war be over?

Too short a reprieve from idle desire.

Italian sheep search for a drover

Like mutton on hoof dressed for the buyer.


The room is emptied of war's light.

In darkness I write, yes still I write.

The difficulty lies not in the first line, 

But in the second, for those without sight.


Without war,

What have we left?

Without fury,

Alone, bereft.


The gods depart, and I, left-over, remain

Idle, with no more bombs ready to launch.

My diction, a more arcane campaign,

Pleads for an Italy, virile, staunch.


Hemingway claims I get heightened kick

From half a million fallen Wops 

Each in penance for my falt’ring prick

As passion's piano fades and stops.


(The pianist stops, the page turner turns the page, and the pianist resumes the refrain.)


Without war

What have we left?

Without fury

Alone, bereft.


We must stage our air show once again

Lest airfield be loaded with cackling hens.

We'll drop our leaflets with fit refrain,

These solvents to rile and then to cleanse.


I call on all ye hungering youths,

Stop this cowardly, festering peace,

And find in Italy other truths

Of redeeming war that may never cease.


Without war,

What have we left?

Without fury,

Alone, bereft.


Un-nail me from here and I shall lead,

Hale our enemies in ruddy war,

Court victory that can’t be cut up

Marshal again our crusading corps.


I, the demon of our history,

The genius of Italy’s nation,

Cry my Credo in spirit and blood

That tumult wins its proper ration.


Without war,

What have we left?

Without fury,

Alone, bereft.


This slow boredom of motionless peace,

Its repose a stale, unwieldy mass,

We miss mane-d movement of fevered steed,

Its rapidity of volcanic glass.


Blood no longer retains its brilliance

In this mutilated victory. 

The mocking, inelegant figure

Of peace caves in contradictory.


Without war,

What have we left?

Without fury,

Alone, bereft.


2. The Pianist and the Page Turner


What a charming piano plays for me,

Helps pitch my prick to a higher key?

And who this page turner that I spy,

That lures rogue eye to her flesh-bound thigh?


Piano's tempo is set for me.

Her keyboard cues too rigid, not free,

Set to an air we've sung too often

Its repetition makes me soften.

(Addresses the page turner.)


Intone some tune as you turn the page

Earn the melody of higher wage,

Halt the boredom of a duet stale,

Nail the triad of a minor scale.


(The page turner with low, voluptuous, Kundry like tones.)


d'Annunzio

Il Duce d'amore.


(The baritone resumes.)


Loiter in the Venice of Wagner

Call across its lingering lagoons.

Let harmonies waver, modulate,

As our trio pauses, then communes.


(The page turner sings as the pianist looks annoyed.)


d'Annunzio

Il Duce d'amore.


(The baritone resumes.)


I will dictate our lithe lovemaking,

Choose for each every position,

Pianist, pager, supple muses

Stoke my flagging, failing ambition.


An enchantment, yet un-remembered, 

Taken, not granted, un-imagined,

Your two scents freed to intermingle,

A fair freshness yet un-examined.


(The page turner sings as the pianist stops playing in disgust.)


d'Annunzio

Il Duce d'amore.


(The pianist resumes resigned.)


I’ll forge a curl of your maidenhairs,

One, then the other, parted, apart,

Freed by new-sprung pleasure, let us weep

Unrehearsed music, now let it start.


(d’Annunzio moves towards the pianist and the page turner as if ready to tear the music from the piano.  The pianist shudders.  The page turner sings alone as the pianist gives up.)


d'Annunzio

Il Duce d'amore.



(d’Annunzio and the pianist grapple with what to do next.  The pianist turns the page to the next song herself.)


3. Fiume Calls Me to Action


Fiume calls me to action.

Italian port Adriatic

Seeks a leader charismatic.

We will start with fair Fiume

Then make claim in terms dramatic

To our rightful lake autocratic.


Await me, comely Fiume,

I fail not you, not destiny

I hear your call for Italy.

I set sail from swollen Venice,

In march from baseless Italy

Across our own most lustful sea.


This driving Italian city,

You've ransomed in vain, vile Versailles,

Your verdict we firmly defy.

Fiume, to the slavish Slavs given,

Betrayed by friends led by Wilson,

Rise up, your rescue has begun.


Fiume, purest, most holy,

Your gulfs fashioned like a lyre,

Show me the way with blessed byre.

O Fiume, O Fiume,

Magic city of quickening fire,

Flame higher, aspire, flame higher.


(The page turner brings flowers and puts them in one of the urns near d’Annunzio.)


4. A First Harangue


The stage is set for public oration,

The songs, the hymns, 

A torrent of flowers.

Piazza Dante is filled with sirens 

Dressed in finest 

Intoning the hours.


On the glorious Twelfth of September

We left Ronchi

Two thousand men strong.

Youthful Arditi, warlike in splendor,

Marching freely

(The piano alludes to the tune of "Giovinezza".)

Alive in fevered song.


People’s Arditi, our shock of troops,

Armbands blackened

With flames to the eye,

Flaunt black and silver, indifferent to peace,

“Me ne frego “

Tauntingly they cry.


Another wave is born, then another,

To rinse the ear

With strong splash and crash.

They thunder and roar in lustful chorus

In a stretta

Not to lilt, but lash.


The bell of the people proclaims battle

No call of bronze,

Now of reddest fire, 

Rings to the summit of this Latin sky

Of added season 

May we never tire!


I sing of marble statues not yet born,

(d’Annunzio turns to address a pedestal.)

Oh raw block of marble ready to sculpt, 

The man within

On this sacred morn,

A marble statue yet to be chiseled

New man unknown,

He yet to be born.


(d’Annunzio puts a bloodied flag over the pedestal.  He throws some seeds on the flag.)


By sacred Banner of Randaccio, 

Relic of battle 

Ended much too soon,

I consecrate Patria Fiume, 

Plant new seedlings

To thresh opportune.


5. Song of the Aviators

(d’Annunzio pauses and then continues as if continuing the logic of the previous ceremony with another of Death.)


Glory to the winged pair,

Twin pilots who did not fear 

The judging Sun.

Too close, too high, they took flight

And amputated their wings 

Where Death was won.


In peaks where lithe lightning 

Sparks ageless conflagration,

Young winged couple,

These yet scarcely bearded ones,

Youths un-conquered, bold and free,

Found Death supple.


They fell, these wise, comely men,

As spears that fall from heaven,

Arch salted sand,

With their hair matted, held firm

By foam, not gore, chosen as

So apt a brand.


(d’Annunzio places more flowers on the top of the flag.)


Our silence but effigy,

An altar without victims,

On red-green flag,

White jonquils armed for Victory,

Whose slender garlands ask not

That Death might brag. 


Bards, stretch out your quiet strings

To sing of their famous fate,

They died by sea.

Not cross-bred by vainest earth,

But launched airborne to die

Aloft, quite free.

(d’Annunzio closes the flag over the flowers.)

My pilots, cloak these coffins.  

Make a cross of the shadowy.  

Wing-ed machine, 

Consign the first of our dead 

Without any sacred earth

To stand between.  


6. Aphrodisia of Death


Sacral Death,

Thy smell sings out to me.

Your soothing voice feeds me,

Sates me full, sets me free,


(Duet with page turner)

Launches our duet on one breath,

Aphrodisia of death.


Holy Death

Dances to its melody

Of naked, pagan youth

With reeded pipe set free.


(Duet with page turner)

Accompaniment in breath,

Aphrodisia of death.


Virile Death,

Stokes this hotbed of desire.

Loved/lover on grassy bed,

Each ministrant cannot tire.


(Duet with page turner)

Ignoring thy fetid breath,

Aphrodisia of death.


Prideful Death,

We seize your darkening hair,

As black as grapes at harvest,

Toast thy nectar we must dare,


(Duet with page turner toasting each other)


Drink it down without a breath,

Aphrodisia of death.

(The page turner strews three more pedestals with white, pink and red flowers.)


7. City of Dreams


Surrounded by massed flowers,

Exchanged thrice daily,

White for morn,

Pink for noon,

Red for eve,

City of Dreams, may you

Never leave.


City of purest passion.

Lyric disorder,

Full of noise,

Superworld,

Drunkenness.

A thousand Dreams. may you

Never rest.


City of source, river without banks, 

The plane-tree's shadow, 

Quaking reeds, 

Velvet moss,

Flowing friend,

One hundred days, may you

Never end.


City of More, then Again,

Your repetition

The purest,

Most holy.

Orpheus,

For Christian rites, may you

Never thirst.


City of Light, Clear yet Harsh,

Motherland’s altar,

Bolt awake,

Stand erect,

Ever firm,

For Italy may you yet

Be the germ.


8. Keller's Wondrous World


(d’Annunzio starts to playfully march on the stage.  He stops at another pedestal.)


On a hike in Keller's Wondrous World

He and his playful pirate spirits

Threaten my pianist with kidnap 

To guarantee that my song has snap.


Keller, my Action Secretary,

Keeps me, his unseeing Calypso,

Set on a wilder, anarchic path,

Fixed one eye firm on Fiume’s wrath.


He marches naked with pet eagle.

He flies with a sly, stolen donkey 

Lashed to the struts of his landing gear.

He taunts them with his wild want of fear.


He drops a chamber pot of carrots,

Dripping rude onto Rome’s rotting rogues

Aligned with American race of prey.

He taunts them with donkey’s brassy bray.


He rummages the cargo of the Persia.

Bound for the enemies of our friends,

Our kindred Russian Bolsheviks,

Stops oppressors, holds up their tricks.


(He pauses at a pedestal as if addressing Keller’s tomb.  No longer caught in the past.)


Who knew then what be Left, what be Right?

We stood for the lifeblood, the future.

With soldiers of the Left, and of the Right,

Each adding to the other's might.


9. Lubricious


(The mezzo soprano page turner calls him back to the past.)

Lubricious

(dAnnunzio pauses and then answers.)

Let the waters of the past return.

(The mezzo soprano page turner.)

Ambitious

(dAnnunzio.)

Let us remember that we did yearn. 

(The mezzo soprano page turner.)

Propitious

(dAnnunzio.)

Let them know it was Italy’s turn. 

(The mezzo soprano page turner.)

Capricious

(dAnnunzio.)

Let not our dreams of then be too stern.

(The mezzo soprano page turner looks doubtfully at d’Annunzio.)

Suspicious

(dAnnunzio.)

Let our ensemble never adjourn.

(The mezzo soprano page turner gets into the spirit.)

Delicious

(dAnnunzio includes the pianist and the page turner.)

Let each mimic a grassy fern.

(The mezzo soprano page turner.)

Judicious

(dAnnunzio.)

Let us forget whate’er we did learn.

(The mezzo soprano page turner slyly.)

Nutritious

(dAnnunzio.)

Let us sip together slick Sauterne.

(The mezzo soprano page turner.)

Fictitious

(dAnnunzio.)

Let’s not be stuck with what we discern.

(The mezzo soprano page turner and d’Annunzio join together.  If she can, the pianist should also join them.)

Lubricious

Let the waters of the past return.

10. All Italy Calls to Me


All Italy calls to me.

We, who might march on raw Rome

Our three hundred thousand strong,

Instead sing boisterous choral song. 


Each guest their art so grateful

Makes pilgrimage to our font.

They beg me to act and pounce,

Cry the call that does announce.


Maestro Toscanini

Tunes orchestra in homage,

(Include a reference to Sinigaglia’s song based on a d’Annunzio poem, Canto dell’ospite, Song of the Guest.  This is ironic in that the composer died when being arrested as Jewish).

La Scala's raging Lion 

Courts Fiume as Zion.

(d’Annunzio apes pinning a medal on the conductor.  The pianist blurs the music with the sustaining pedal.)

Hic manebimus optime,

We remain here splendidly.

Fiume grants thee medal

Music, our sustaining pedal.  


I must mount the podium, 

Marshal orchestra, chorus

Elected, an artist free,

To annex, fix Italy.


(d’Annunzio turns to another pedestal with another medal.)


Mighty Wizard Marconi,

Transmit proud Fiume’s call

From yonder ship Electra

From our modern day Palaestra.


Broadcast Fiume's answers

To a willing, waiting world.

It’s time, Latinus, awake,

Of dawn of blood we partake.


Wooed by magical music,

Sought by accosting science,

All Italy calls to me.

What will my last answer be?


11. Stay, Gabriele, Stay


The women of Fiume and all Italy

Prize my blessed bayonet.

O'er enemies its victories must rent.

(Page Turner sings calling him away from his duty.)

Stay, Gabriele, stay.

A light down adorns your cheeks,

Shades upper lip ever lightly,

Harks claim to homage nightly.

(Page Turner sings.)

Stay, Gabriele, stay.

You circle the toes of your narrow feet.

Book passage to something benign 

Your luminous face ever gives sign.

(Page Turner sings.)

Stay, Gabriele, stay.

What love can remain unadulterated from vileness?

Desperate poetry becomes my very flesh.

Mocks youth with age un-fresh.

(Page Turner sings)

Stay, Gabriele, stay.

Your flesh is changed.

That which was sweet and soft

Turns tart and hard, scoffed.

(Page Turner sings.)

Stay, Gabriele, stay.

I fear the scales and brambles

On the marble of your legs.

One page unturned begs.

(Page Turner sings.)

Stay, Gabriele, stay.


(d’Annunzio throws all the flowers from their vases and pedestals.  This silences the Page Turner. )

There are no more flowers for Fiume.

Our vases are empty.

There is no time left for idle love 

Only savage sex remains.

(To Pianist.)

You know you are my one remaining delight.

How can you flee me

To concertize?

How can mere music

Forget our sighs?


12.  The Second Harangue on Roman Shit

(d’Annunzio is angry.  He is beyond rhyme.)


Roman shit,

Treaty?   Yugoslavia?

Vilest Rapallo!

How can you treat with phantom?


Cagoia, 

You low, crapulous creatures 

Without a country

Who think just of your stomach.


Barbarity,

Coupled only with the wind,

Roman foreigners

Gorging on American gold.


Impurity,

Who dares betray Fiume?

Bartered Fiume,

Flushed away like so much crap!


Slavery,

Do you seek country or not?

Can a shitty slave 

Fathom freest Fiume?


Underpants,

Soiled shit on a brown white flag

Drink golden nectar,

Earn well your glutted nausea.


Mongrel dog,

You maggot-ridden bounder

Fouling your hovel

With pact but pile of garbage.


Roman shit,

You have used our dearest dead,

Fiume’s martyrs,

As the manure for turnips.



13. A Triumphant Death Denied


(d’Annunzio runs around toppling pedestals.)


How can an Italian cannonball 

Pierce these walls?

The windows cave in,

The plaster falls.


How can Italy turn upon us?

A holocaust

Consumed by fire.

Poetry lost.


Ideal of Death, come find me,

I strive for pyre,

Ever un-scorned,

Darkened attire.


The fire is like a tattered flag,

On blackened tree,

Scorched to the crown,

Needleless plea.


The bitter salted waves cascade.

Sale amaro 

Our dreadful doom,

Italian woe.


Let bitter wounds bare my body.

Resplendent Blood.

My time has come.

Run out, Cruel Blood.


(d’Annunzio stops, turns and pauses in defeat.)


Here alone again, after,

Christmas of Blood.

Too few are dead

In peace like mud.


The world grows larger, what next

Fiume lost?

What is future?

Reckoning cost?


14.  That Ape, That Actor


A false Duce apes my style,

Usurps my role,

Intones without meaning.

He has learned my stagecraft

But the drama lacks substance.

He steals our song and blackens the lyrics. 

(Set to a sour Giovenezza).   

He robs my symbols

Without understanding them.

A bit player left too long on his stage.

He extends his lines past all endurance.

Each actor presents his true aspect just once.

After that everything is tiresome recapitulation.


The bad actor courts that German

Whose ignoble face is splattered 

Full of whitewash and glue.

What a fitting pair they make!

May they bed down together,

To bugger each other.


I, a true hero,

Spied on by buffoons.

I was not ruthless enough to grasp my chance.

I was not severe enough.

Cast as a Duce with too many lines.

Ever the poet, I sang, rather than acted.


But who can tell a servant from a spy?

Some listen to my stories, some oblige my seduction.

I've been made a Prince

He of the Snowy Mountain,

The Prince of ill-named Vittoriale.

I, a captive leper, construct my own prison.


15.  Let My Tired Horn Be Silent


I do not want adventures any more.

No Fiume's, please,

Never again.

This is my last song.

After this let silence 

Be the only music

That I can endure.


Life seems so thin,

A greedy witch,

Wingless,

Pallid, restless.

I am bent over a bitter wound 

Fiume, so far away,

That fading song of yesterday.


(d’Annunzio gestures at Keller’s pedestal.)


Keller, 

My Action Secretary,

Is buried here,

In this play set of my inaction.

Not for me a profound, virile serenity.

My flute, hoarse and tired,

Its notes indifferent and out of tune.


Oh Sadness, Sadness

Why bring back to me

From so far away,

Fairest Fiume,

That distant hope

That I have often found

So heavy to bear?


My nostrils quiver with pleasure.

A mad stanza comes to mind.

But then the lyrics are lost,

The verses start and stop.

I feel exhausted as my fever falls.

No more I suck thy feeble lips.

The peach has rotted, the roses shriveled.


(The Page Turner looks at d’Annunzio with disgust.)


The music pauses, 

I hear my fear,

Shade to shade,

You move away.

No pages left to turn,

The open keyboard,

The last page turned.


(The Page Turner turns the final page and exits indifferently.)

(d’Annunzio flits about arranging the urns searching for one desperate rhyme as a slow postlude plays.)


Alone with my pianist

No pages left to turn

I build my mausoleum

I place the proper urn.


The piano pursues me in its lust and fury,

And now it does not want me, 

Lost and unlucky,

Save me in honor of the lust we've lost.



I see the open keyboard, the last page turned.

I stop and stare at the mute ivory.

I make night within myself.

I cover my eyes.

There is no deep song left

In this tempered heart.

Without accompaniment 

Where is the harmony?

Stop playing, Papessa,

My female pope,

For how can chords cover

This silent incessant search for poetry?


(d’Annunzio closes the piano top.)

THE END