Eugene Melino

I live, write and photograph in New York City. My poems have appeared in Contemporary Ghazals, Blue Lake Review, Burningword, Grape Press and Medium.com.

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"Beautiful" by Eugene Melino, Eastside, New York City, Summer 2018

"Beautiful" by Eugene Melino, Eastside, New York City, Summer 2018

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Street Photographer Like Garry Winogrand | The Beloved Infidel

I’m walking downtown,taking pictures, trying to be like Garry Winogrand when you step out into the August dusk, the low sun shining through your dress...

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"Concentration" by Eugene Melino, Eastside, NYC, Summer 2018

"Concentration" by Eugene A. Melino, Eastside, NYC, Summer 2018

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American Idol American Gun | The Beloved Infidel

"American Idol American Gun" is a poem about the American obsession with guns. Set in NYC, the poem reflects on the 2017 Las Vegas shooting...

I carry... says the father interviewed on the radio as I shave. He's come to see his daughter in Las Vegas.

the rifle round that slid up her thigh and into her belly now snuggles her spine.  I'm still a Second Amendment person, he says... 

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“The object of art is not to make salable pictures. It is to save yourself… Most people remain all of their lives in a stupor. The point of being an artist is that you may live.”

— On Fathers Day, the beautiful letter of advice on art and life Sherwood Anderson sent to his young son when he left home to be an artist.

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“Ghazal: The Wall” first published in Contemporary Ghazals No.6, Winter 2016. Online on AmericanGhazal, a Transmedia Lyric. 

[deadpools-girlfriend]

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My translation and the Spanish original of Federico García Lorca’s ghazal from his last collection of poems, Diván del Tamarit. He completed it around 1934. Two years later, in August 1936, he was executed by Spanish fascists. Originally published in Selections from Lorca’s Diván del Tamarit at AmericanGhazal.com. 

Graphic is a public domain image of Lorca’s actual signature.

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"Woman with Smartphone @ e-Sign"

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First published on The Beloved Infidel, a transmdedia lyric.

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St. Lannes' Sculpture "American Boy" Watching Over American Boys at Play

“American Boy” by the French sculptor Louis St. Lannes orginally adorned Rice Stadium in Bronx NY’s Pelham Bay Park. The plaque reads:

"Youth is entitled to freedom. The future of our civilization depends on our children. It is essential, if we can hope for human progress, that children should be unfettered by the domination and the conventions of the past. We owe to youth an untrammeled happiness guided but not stultified by stern obedience to rigid rules set down by their elders. The proper spirit of play must be encouraged. It is the natural instinct of the young. A healthy clean mind in a strong clean body is the ideal for which we should strive."

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“Ghazal: My Love” by E.A.Melino, from American Ghazal. 

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"Foxtrotting with Desirée" #lovepoems #marriage #poetry #poetsofinstagram #poetryisnotdead #lyricpoetry #ballroomdance #ballroom #ballroomdancing #newyorkcity #washingtonsquarepark

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The Beloved Infidel

The last time my father and I argued politics he told me I was lost. You’ll never learn, he said, pointing his cane at my chest, then hobbled off to his room.

Now he rarely leaves it, nodding out in his chair, cane at his feet, talk radio softly droning endless litanies against the world, never any music, the walls of shelves a citadel of plastic sports figurines like small colorful household gods, and among them me, the beloved infidel at sixteen clad in the maroon and gold of a champion.

You need money? he asks, suddenly wakened when I kiss him goodbye. He does not wait for my refusal. I love you, he mumbles, cold rough fingers  fondling my hand before drifting off. Above us the figurines revel on, his hero Willie Mays still making that famous catch,  hands raised forever toward heaven and the American dream. I set his cane where he can reach,  then leave him before the dreams return that make him whimper in his sleep.  

- Eugene A. Melino

Poem was originally published on The Beloved Infidel. 

Image of the author at 16, first string center for the Pelham Spartans, Bronx Umpire Association league champions three years in a row, 1973, 1974 and 1975.

[quillnscroll89]

[eamelinopoet]

My favorite is #9. 

[the-sleepy-poet]

maybe it’s more valuable than anything

i can’t help  feeling like i’m wasting  something  valuable when  i read poem  after poem,  after poem.  i could be  learning Greek,  i could be  learning higher principles of marketing,  formulas for copywriting and business success,  more… 

what makes me feel better, though, is when you  follow that  stuff to  the end, it all leads to the same place.  and poems  are a kind of shortcut, 

they get you to the gorgeous brains you  want to love in Greece,  with money or success, 

as a writer, maybe a gardener. 

poems are beyond  flesh, plastic, 

they’re under layers of makeup  and jeans  that make your ass look good,  they’re  under one  more sit-up, 

they’re heads sawed down the noseline,  wishes pouring out, sadness like waterfalls hidden   in the woods. love in the optic nerve.

everything  in front of us,  behind,  around, 

it all started with poemstuff.

now how can that be a waste? 

[eamelinopoet]

Poetry’s value proposition well sung.