Italy beneath the wings, bright babble
Of voices, passports please, what century
Have we landed in? Sono inglese,
Sono studente, do they understand?
Taxi-drivers, spivs, ask them, passers-by,
Which way from here the eternal city?

One line or another, count on it, will
Set us down in the Pantheon of the
Minute – squeeze in by the bella donnas,
Sweat and perfume tangled knots of arms on
The heaving Metro, bright rivers of flesh,
Transported and baptised they set us down –
Avanti, avanti my friends, time is
Short, we have many Romes to build today!

Bustle of bright voices, sun through closed lids,
Ooze of traffic, we hear them distantly –
Babble of bright voices of the past behind
Our eyes Catullus Virgil Cicero
The saints and patrons the household gods
On our shoulders have we borne them – sono
Inglese, non capisco signore!

These petrol-drunken tides lapping at the
Piazza, sunlight, sudden face tossed up
From the surge, Anadyomene, she
Wanders off pouting; – surely there is the
Madonna with the buggy, wheeling her
Fat bambino through the pines, Armani
Blue on gold, chastely fingering the bracelet
On her tanned wrist –

Bright babble of signs and boards, celluloid
Suavity of silk on the old avatars,
Per mangiare, signore, ho tre bambini!
No sense, no sense this cluttered pageant, no
Sense but presence, per favore, haughty
Facades, plush painted martyrs, these we shall
Remember, svelte-eyed shop-girls, scootering
Braggadocios, these our crumbs of radiance,
Per favore, our tender fragments of
Tradition, snap them, snap around the clock,
We will have this to show, per favore,
This album, this loose bundle, this Roman
Relic, this curio.