Tony D'Arpino

Fetish

Gutenberg’s first machine

Was made from a wine press

And Arabic chessboard

Of elbows and silk ink

A theatre of manners

Glop of grass illuminated later

In typeface phonics

Before the tyranny of the title page

Eclipsed by the monumental

Forest scenes more stone

Bridges than people

Pinecones in the sand

Wonder drain and palace reservoir

I am the dry feathers

A printer’s devil

Blue song of your handprint

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Commentary

Word pictures inspired by some works of Albrecht Dürer (especially his watercolour Great Piece of Turf), as well as the handprints of ancestors at Lascaux and Pech Merle caves. Fetish was published in Poetry Salzburg during lockdown.