HYMN XI
Yeshua, O Yeshua, legions
of demons are dying to drive
the Holy Spirit from many of us
living in this wilderness.
The more we turn our lives
to your desires, the more the legions
try to snuff our fires. We pray
the Holy Trinity
Bermuda Triangulates
the Adversary’s fiends,
even for one day and night,
since we need sleep,
since we need sleep,
we who strain ourselves so
joyously for you — you whose
glory is our driving force.
AMEN
Image: Marc Di Saverio
SONNET XIV
for Diane Windsor
When I was still the husband of the wind —
when I was Leopardi-sure I’d never
know a woman’s body’s ways — when I
was nineteen – when I was Prufrock-positive
of mermaids never singing to me, either,
of a life without betrothal or progeny –
– when I was one of the hideously-bodied —
– When I was still the husband of the wind,
– I would dream, like Pygmalion, of my donna perfetta,
– One whose soul was as beauteous as her body,
– One whose nature was sublime but unlikely,
– and I would dream that she would come to life,
– that she would meet me at the brow, and love me, and now,
– beside you, awake while you sleep, I see: she is you.
FRAGMENT FOR A HEAVEN-FARER
for Diane Windsor
According to that Acolyte who some say saw the Second Coming —
– no greater love can a man have than this —
– than to lay down his life for his friend;
According to that Acolyte who some say saw the Gallops of Glory —
no greater love can a man have than mine –
I’m warming outside James Street store-fronts where once
– our sea-sky-lips would,
stunning passers-by, horizon their romance-less eyes with
– each of our own perfect kisses;
I’m slumming throughout air-stung hoar-frosts where once
– our sea-sky lids would,
shunning passers-by, thunderclap their romance-less hearts with
– each of our own perfect visions –
Yet, take thought: the adversary’s maximum extensions are harpoons
– he swears are darts of amities knee-
– jerkingly flung automatically as beams toward their
– midnight moons, or smiles of mothers
– whose conditionless love so helplessly blooms in the faces
– of red-eyed teens all synch-ly slouching at their court-hearing.
I surmise The Devil has not heard, and I hope, Diane, you’ll finally know:
– calm can only come by the one called
– that violet-eye-light-beaming Jesus Christ –
– and, that, Lucifer, like a late autumn wasp with stinging wings
– frosting in the twilight, KNOWS his death is near,
– so he quavers in fright, privately, yet, publicly, like he does now,
jabs a maximum of souls, which he considers his birthright;
And, take thought: I often wonder if you,
yes, Job-long-suffering you, weeping-willow-boughs
-amid-the-winter-wind-unassuming you, ever
– owned the value to wonder: Might I be one to write as
fast as the Almighty
speaks, might I be the Stenographer of the Lord, never even needing
any breaks (O Lucifer, YOU believe
– that you will beat her hand at any sort
– of duel? Her hand is guided by the hand of God! O Lucifer,
– she is ready!) So, Di, when you face him, Eastwood-easy,
– DRAW!;
And, take thought: the force that drives my spirit drives your own,
yet the spirit of Satan dives
like Iscariot dove from the rope-ripped-bough throughout the Hour
– Of Shadows. Remember,
Satan, regardless of his wishes, despite being SMALL g god of this
world, is merely the prop-foil-prelude
secondary of so many myriad dualities created by
The Trinity, his eventual Bermuda Triangle, until whose disappearance,
– is the mere adversary, the saw-weight
– of the see-saw, the one alone the Lord esteems enough
– to consider the clearest, but maybe not His most fearsome opponent,
– who has darkness both behind and before
– him! So how, Diane, is he even a Light-Bearer,
– since, wherefrom comes his light? He KNOWS
– he is finite – he worships the finite, so how can he be
– bright — especially in the face of your light, woman-of-my-dreams-
– and-of-the-the-dreams-within-my-dreams?
SONNET XIII
For Diane Windsor
Even the time I spend apart from you
is yours. Even scarcely tenable
quavers of your smiles are seen to the
whole world inside my electric soul,
even the memory of your voice’s lower-
most echo, blasts away any noises, accompan-
ies me through the loneliest, hollow silences.
Even your Galatean shadow is bodied – and souled —
in my heart. Even the time I spend apart
from you is yours. Even others with
your name, are more forgivable
to me. Even Angels of the Light
discuss us, I believe. Even
awake beside you sleeping, I cannot dream.
A SONNET ON EPHESIANS 5:25
for Diane Windsor
And how you modern readers wonder why I call her thee?
It is because you’ve never seen or known her apogee.
And at the crucifixion-slow-mo-mentioning
of me and you, the lovers of future Valentine’s
Days will wonder, Romeo and who? No greater
love can a man have than this: than to lay down his life for his friend;
No greater love can a man have than mine; for you I laid
down my life, and for you I’d lay it again – able by
the aegis of the Lord, without whom I would be gone…
– If I did not, if I do not, if I
– would not so strive to love you just as Jesus
– loves His Bride, I’d flee from thee as the Devil
– fled the moment after he thirdly sought
– to tempt I AM; Calvary’s my only
– guide to loving thee, so my heart beats
– Di-ane, Di-ane, Di-ane, Di-ane, Di-ane.
ODE TO THE MOUNTAIN BROW
(dedicated to Richard Greene)
Cliff-topped at dawn in a euphoria so high
I Paradise-verily see your wan white Pisa-
Towering street-lights well-tipping utmost fealty
to me, one I electrify back toward
you with this Ode I compose under cadaver-
soullessly blackening clouds — street-lights well-tipping
with dew-new currency of gray-brown fogs and truth-
pellucid allusions to Expressionist movies I adore.
Now, forthwith, I live throughout those movies while I
stroll throughout you till I disremember
your entendres and see I’m new-born-baby tender, stepping
through actuality, through you, not a film-
set, O Mountain Brow, where I’ll never be panorama-
spoiling, nor granted-takingly peripheralizing
you, while I’m here with others; to others I sing
your graces and discuss your day, that I may sing my
soul-eternal ardour for you – for your verve in a time
of dying – so you may over-hear and feel
esteemed, welcome, invited, O Mountain Brow, where I sing
the Scenic mansions you visit in forms of flower-
blended balmy breezes. I whisperingly sing to
your peach-blooms flashback-fast-bursting in the stilling
air. Pilgrimaging you amid the crimsoning
Staghorn Sumacs swaying, I see: you mean
measurelessly more to me than city-views for
which most others come to you…Vultures,
after cliff-side-congregations – seemingly
free-wheeling feelingly — beat their wings in time
to the water-fall’s phantom-eerie hiccuping, to which
anyone may calibrate. O Mountain
Brow, remember those nights, at the Flat Rock, with the San
Boys who hallucinated hundreds of faces
on your Orcus-shadowy crags. How many
first kisses transpire at this look-out — beyond the Ravine-
bounds — where-on I behold the high-wind-blown-stone-for-a-second-
seeming roses, O Mountain Brow, whose Scenic
Drive is never littered as much as other parts
of Hamilton — sometimes Elysium-seemingly
clean? O Mountain Brow, the greying Italian bocce-
ballers playing in the twilight sometimes
soften their footfalls, as though they have concluded
you feel, as you do. O Mountain Brow, I even proposed
to a yes-exclaiming girl upon your north-most Ravine-
opposing bench, one time, O Mountain Brow,
where I kneel in prayer upon the purple-bluing pond-
shore sands, O Mountain Brow, where your back-to-life-
welcoming-warm wind once spoke to me through evening
rustles of the oak-leaves’: “life-long-seeming
kisses will electrify the lilies of
the cliff until they shiver in the fervour
you’ll soon feel in this same place.” O Mountain Brow,
let us share this daybreak before other
Mountain Browers come…crag-magnetized since boyhood,
I so wish to share this dawn with you, alone.
___________________________
A SONNET TO THE TRINITY
O Violet-Eye-Light-Beaming Trinity,
O how Your Bride of Saints so speed the butterfly-
turning of souls toward You; O how our slavery —
O Star-Far-Eye-Near One — twilights our children to infinity-
incalculably embracing their bondage — to proclaiming
they are free, when, all-the-astral-projection-immeasurable
while, they are slaves who will not free themselves —
slaves who’ll wish to rename constellations;
slaves who’ll wish for numbering to replace naming;
slaves who’ll wish to replace freedom with shaming;
slaves who’ll wish for their own cancellations;
therefore, O Redeemer, in your name I am reclaiming
myself for these slaves’ reclaimants; in your name I’d die as You’ve
in mine; help me die like a lion when time to prove!
________________
JUDGMENT DAY
When ray-right-rain-fair Judgment Day does break;
when, upon a purple carpet of cloud-bursts — the moon setting —
the Maker nears His aurora Throne in the wake
of Saint-Cecile-conducted Seraphim trumpeting
His every quintessential motion; When He does
sit on air and deem our every thought and action,
whose names among ours will be sung from the slim Book of Life?
How morning star-core-white-and-burning is your faith in the Son?
When the violet-eye-light-beaming Redeemer does
return, on whom among us will He shine his rife
rays? When you wake soon or sleep unto your
deaths — will you suffice for the Paradise of our Creator?
when Shadows will be cast but no sun will beam,
will you ascend in lonely Lord-light gleaming supreme?
_________________
A TRANSLATION OF EMILE NELLIGAN’S ‘WINTER SENTIMENTS’
So now I drink the liquors of your eyes!
Don’t soil yourself while gazing at the masses!
A blast from Norway turns the fields to steel!
May hearts turn warm when the cold wind passes!
Like soldiers mourning level sands at Thebes
so let us always court our rancours
and, despising life, with its sophistic song,
Let Death lead us to Orcus, where we belong.
You’ll visit like an icy spectre; we won’t be old,
but already so weary of living we will fold;
O Death, take us out on such an afternoon
when I’m etherized by my lover’s guitars,
whose dreamy motifs and ambient bars
keep time to our ennui on the waltz to the end!
__________________
WHILE BEGGING UNDER FEBRUARY STARS
While begging under February stars
that I might be my closest to the beggars
and scatter my soul through the forecasted storm
and brave them on toward the laze and warm
of spring, a stinging wind ascended and engraved
in my ear the whimper of a girl I had saved
from her own hand, inside her freshman dorm;
then nursed, at once, from her childhood wars.
She whispered, “please reverse the weather in my
eyes,” empty as two open sunless graves,
which simply realigned the little troth
I’d sided for the sewing of my wounds
back to the Father and the snow then falling
on the woman in my arms, no longer calling.
Marc di Saverio hails from Hamilton, Canada. His poems and translations have appeared internationally. In Issue 92 of Canadian Notes and Queries Magazine, di Saverio’s Sanatorium Songs (2013) was hailed as “the greatest poetry debut from the past 25 years.” In 2016 he received the City of Hamilton Arts Award for Best Emerging Writer. In 2017, his work was broadcasted on BBC Radio 3, his debut became a bestseller in both Canada and the United States, and he published his first book of translations: Ship of Gold: The Essential Poems of Emile Nelligan (Vehicule Press). On May 1st, 2020, Guernica Editions published Crito Di Volta. Di Saverio studied English and History at McMaster University, but never took a degree, due to illness. He is the son of Carlo Di Saverio, the scholar and teacher who studied Linguistics and Languages at University of Toronto (M.A.,1981). Di Saverio’s poem, “Weekend Pass”, was adapted into the movie, CANDY — directed by Cassandra Cronenberg, and starring the author himself — which was selected to the Toronto International Film Festival in 2013. In late 2020 he received Nobel Prize in Literature nominations, chiefly for CRITO DI VOLTA.
1. THE EIFFEL TOWER AMID KINGDOM COME (mixed media on board)
So, after a twenty year hiatus, I began painting and drawing again in 2018, due to a writer’s block that forced me into this earlier-studied realm of creativity. In this, one of my first of paintings, THE EIFFEL TOWER AMID KINGDOM COME, I envision Paris after the Second Coming of Christ, when peace, love and joy will reign supreme on earth, and there is no more war, famine, or strife. I portray a “Golden Age”, when Angels, saints, and believers in Christ will encompass the world during the thousand year period depicted in the Book of Revelation, in the New Testament of the Bible.
2. A CITY IN THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (marker on board)
In the painting, I imagine what a city in Heaven might look like, suspended on the air, the air of the sky moving under the bridge as though water. Of course, above the bridge, and below the bridge, we see the same colours, suggesting the elevation of this city-portion of Heaven. The structure in the painting came from my imagination, completely. I began to paint by imagination after seeing some of William Blake’s inspired paintings.
3. A FUTURE FARMHOUSE AND ITS LAND (marker and gouache on board)
This painting was, too, generated and painted from my imagination, wherein I saw what a future farmhouse and its land might look like in a hundred years, when there is a resurgence of divisionism, but not in just painting, but in reality, as displayed in this picture. Like a work by Escher, some parts seem impossible and both visually wonderful and visually impossible to fully understand or appreciate because of certain geometric anomalies in the painting, which was executed in late 2019, during a snowstorm.
4. CHRIST ON THE CROSS (soft pastel on board)
5. THE PANTHEON AFTER A SNOWFALL (marker and oil on board)
This painting was created in late 2019, during winter, in Canada. I had always wanted to see the Pantheon after a snowfall, so, I imagined just that, and then executed it upon a stretch of board. I added the white snow to lend the feeling of safety, peace and holiness to the viewer. Notice that, in contrast to the bland snow, the Pantheon and surrounding buildings are electrified with pure, neon colour, giving an updated, hyper-modern feel to the composition, while at the same time retaining the elegance and universality of the Pantheon.
6. THE FOUNTAIN OF IDENTITA IN RACALMUTO, SICILY (mixed media on board)
7. SELF-PORTRAIT WITH LONG HAIR (marker, oil and gouache on board)
In this, my first ever self-portrait — i painted it in 2019 — I attempted to transmit the image of my face from a photograph onto board. The photograph depicts me at the age of twenty-seven, when my hair, unlike today, was extremely “big”, thick, and long. Though I do not have the courage to grow my hair this long again, I figured I would at least capture it in painting. As you can see, I used to do my best to dress well in those days.
8. A VENETIAN CANAL WITH GONDOLAS (Oil on Board)
In this, my first pure oil painting in twenty years, I successfully, by way imitating a photograph i had taken in Venice, long ago, depicted two boats in a canal, at about sunset. The boats are not gonadliered, suggesting the day is at a close. I attempted to use an impasto style in the piece, in order to portray the denseness of the beauty in that immortal city.
9. LIAM GALLAGHER, 1995 (mixed media on paper mounted on board)
Here is a depiction of the Irish-blooded singer and superstar, Liam Gallagher, from the band Oasis (1991-2009) — a depiction of the rock star at his peak, in 1995, around the time when Wonderwall, their biggest hit, was released to the astonishment and happiness of Oasis fans. This is one of my few works that was BEGUN tweny years ago, but finished most recently, in 2020. My greatest challenge, here, was to truly achieve semblance of Gallagher, which I believe I have.
10. SELF-PORTRAIT WITH RED HAT AND WINTER JACKET (Oil and Pen on Board)
11. QUARANTINE (Mixed Media On Paper Mounted On Board)
12. ONE BLUE FLOWER (Watercolour on Paper)
Finally — and for old time’s sake — here is an example of one of my paintings from the old days — from tweny years ago — when I had recently discovered painting. In those days, I was in love with the delicacy of watercolour, and had not yet explored oil painting, or even drawing, for that matter. The sublime uncontrollability — the riskiness — of watercolour, enthralled me. In this particular painting of a blue flower, the viewer is hopefully taken aback by not only the precision, but the acquiescence of the colours of work therein. I consider this my first real painting. I hope that you find as much pleasure in viewing it as I had in creating it.