Nitro Nights

W.S. Di Piero

W.S. Di Piero’s Nitro Nights is a chronicle of daily existence lived at the nerve-ends. From the apocalyptic aura of a Fourth of July on the streets of San Francisco to jazzed-out nightlife to a box full of howling secrets, Di Piero fills his world with wanderers, lowriders, and a mysterious woman who “carries fire in a brown paper bag,” never once failing to see the beauty in them all.

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ISBN: 9781556593802

Format: Paperback

The Day After Tomorrow

A woman in silk dressing gown carries fire in a brown paper bag. 

 

Ravens silent on roof flashing and ridges lift one leg then another. 

 

A car built of coal gleams in the sun near the bus stop and ignites.

 

Slimed water climbs sides of houses where the hundred ravens sit. 

 

The sunset pools on housetops and liquefies the fog’s groggy eye.

 

Magic time for the fire-bearing priestess and astute nervous ravens. 

 

In one another’s eyes we see endtimes in flames along the horizon. 

 

On cornea and iris and roofs and trees the fatigued sun settles fast

 

into our blood that feels like heavy fire before the changes come. 

About the Author

W.S. Di Piero is the author of numerous volumes of poetry, essays on culture and personal experience, and translations. Recent publications include Chinese Apples: New and Selected Poems, When Can I See You Again? and Night of Shooting Stars: The Selected Poems of Leonardo Sinisgalli. He is a frequent contributor to The Threepenny Review and writes a regular column on art for an independent weekly newspaper, San Diego Reader. He lives in San Francisco.

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Reviews

“[Di Piero] has caught our American voices in all their glory and banality, our diction and our inflections, even when we’re talking to ourselves. By some magic—let’s call it inspiration—he knows us even when there’s almost nothing to know.” —Philip Levine, Ploughshares