STAY! -- NO, GO, GO; HOW CAN YOU LEAVE ME, NOW
Stay! -- no, go, go; how can you leave me now
I've already so expressly finger-
snap-fastly saved you from your own hands,
then treated you like a heritage site?! I,
now, too, need deliverance, from you,
or else my thought-line will soon be
one long wound until the end
of my funeral-danceless life, whose marrow
is inside you; now music is merely
a sound -- a painting is simply a sight;
why must I feel the full-circle of my life
in my prime -- in this last-like moment?!
What more could anyone have done for you?
Go! -- no, stay, stay; how can you leave me, how?!
2006, 2021
THE OOHS
AND COOS OF MOURNING DOVES STILL SOOTHE
The oohs
and coos of mourning doves still soothe,
yet not
as your laughter's lowermost echoes --
yet not
as your spirit's dimmest afterglows.
You,
despite my saving you with my own hands --
You,
despite my saving you from your own hands --
forsake
me now I need you to save me?! Smooth.
I'm blind
from after-flashes true love casts
the
moment lovers rive forevermore.
Did you
really jeer me, calling me a dreamer?
Those
without dreams are like ships without masts --
You
blinked our memories into our pasts,
yet when
you sleep you will see me, you schemer.
Forgiving
you shall be this fool's last will,
yet would
you even go to my funeral?
2006,
2021
I WOULD WEEP YOUR TEARS AND MOURN
for Paul di Saverio
I would
weep your tears and mourn
your
errors -- I would live your nightmares
and feel
your terrors; I would taste
the
wastelanding waters of your soul
if I
could only see your eyes
sunrise-serene,
again, could only
see you
wear a world-wide smile;
to see
your return I would live out
your
exile. I will not dance
until,
again, you play your aurora
borealis
violin.
I will
not dance until you sing;
I will
not dance with any other.
I would
die your death for you, my brother.
2021
ODE TO
THE MOMENT OUR EYES FIRST LOCKED
That time
our eyes first locked I swear I saw
in your
starless, moonless soul, night-to-day-turning
steady-striking-yellow-vipers-seeming
lightning
illumining
wasteland-dust-dunes while a raw
neon
sewage slithered through the level sands --
while,
whereon both sides of a soaring, stringless,
lonely
kite, two paintings -- two portraits, stroke by stroke,
one of
you and one of me -- materialized, over no town-folk,
over
badlands we'd full-flower with our infinite bliss-blossoms.
O what is
there to dream if you lie next to me, dreamless?
O what is
there to see if you are in my sight, seamless?
That time
our eyes first locked me in your life
you swore
you saw, in my soul, oases.
With you
all prisons are fair as your skin, my soon-to-be wife.
2006,
2021
IF WE RECEIVED THE THREE
ALMIGHTY-GIVEN
If we’d received the three Almighty-given
wishes we envisaged in Montreal,
après Layton's funeral, in the hotel?
(or motel? it never mattered where we were,
so long as we were together; whether inside
wide open clearings, or Sanatoriums,
we, when one, resided in one place:
our early Heaven -- with nothing more to dream.)
After Cohen, ultra-awed in the face
of your visage, bowed, we, to my whistling,
waltzed -- even through the dolorous slums --
toward our room, where we'd speak of wishes.
Now would you wish us back to one at once,
as I'd, or are these verses of a dunce?
2006, 2021
THE SOLDIERS OF THE
LORD, THE LIGHT BRIGADES
The Soldiers of the Lord -- the Light Brigades
of the Almighty -- like snow melting from peaks,
will run from mountain-tops into the glades
of blasted woods without one bloom. He speaks
my voice -- my voice speaks the Lord --
to you -- are you listening? -- while I record
these words so solemnly as the seraphim
of the Saviour, who penned, in His blood, all the names
in the Book of Life. Love, let's not be grim
when the brownouts come -- let's not reproof
our fates, but, rather, by dim candle-flames,
dance to beats of rain-drops on the roof
accompanied by trumpets of the sky
played by measured winds of the Most High.
2020
A
TRANSLATION OF ARTHUR
RIMBAUD'S AU CABARET VERT.
After one week of the
road-stones ripping my
boots to shreds, Charleroi,
where I ordered some bread at the Cabaret-
Vert—and butter, and half-chilled ham—and, happy,
I stretched my legs out beneath a green table,
I gazed into the basic tapestries—
and O, it was exquisite, when the girl
with lovely boobs and lively eyes,
-- she's never one to stiffen when she's kissed --
laughing, brought me bread and butter
and tepid ham on a florid dish,
ham that was garlic-scented, white and rose—
and filled my giant mug with beer
whose suds an evening beam turned gold.
2001, 2021
I SHALL NOT HAVE IT SUCH THAT YOU SHOULD SIGH
(for Carlo Di Saverio)
I shall not have it such that you should sigh
every time we must speak of the future.
I shall not have it such that you would lie
on your deathbed, I in catatonic stupor
one room over, where I have been sleeping
since I spirit-soaringly dreamt of being
a whole man, my heart then beating inside a whole boy
with the health of a demi-god -- a whole boy.
Though souls exceed themselves throughout their sorrows
Joy’s dew must be sipped to prosper tomorrows.
Considering my life after yours yields
“must stop like wilful sin,” your spirits cry!
How could I have it such that you would die
considering the lilies of the fields?!
2020
SONNET TO THE READER
Do you taste the dusty airs of Orcus
when you're struck by a breeze of flower-blends?
Do you feel the fleering stares of the circus
when you wait for a bus while the sun ascends? --
a circus held in Hell by live incisions?
Do you overlook my holy visions?
Some read His words as jewellers do their jewels.
Some read His words as foolers do their fools.
Some read His words like throwing-stones at a wall
where sinners wait to die without a stall.
O reader of these stepping-stones, I'm lonely --
O reader of my spirit's fever, do I
question you for naught, or am I the only
one who hears the trumpeters of the sky?
2020
Nobel Prize nominee Marc di Saverio's Sanatorium Songs was hailed as "The greatest poetry debut in 25 years," in Canadian Notes and Queries Magazine. Di Saverio won a City of Hamilton Arts Award for Best Emerging Writer, and his work has beenbroadcast by BBC Radio 3. Publications include translations: Ship of Gold:The Essential Poems of Emile Nelligan (Vehicule Press,) and an epic poem, Crito Di Volta, to international critical acclaim. Di Saverio's poem, "Weekend Pass," was adapted for film. CANDY, directed by Cassandra Cronenberg, stars the author himself, and was selected for the Toronto International Film Festival. Marc di Saverio lives in Ontario, where he's writing his first novel,The Daymaker.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Marc-Di-Saverio/s?rh=n%3A266239%2Cp_27%3AMarc+Di+Saverio
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crito-VOLTA-Epic-Essential-Poets/dp/1771835214/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&qid=1628800015&refinements=p_27%3AMarc+Di+Saverio&s=books&sr=1-4
No comments:
Post a Comment