carnevale
by Joseph A. Farina
faux cavaliere
and belle contesse
wear rapiers and satin gowns
faces masked
white and black
masks with plumes
and daemon horns
savage-exquisite
well-heeled patrons
playing carnivale
against a backdrop
of giant photographs
— the grand canal
and st. marks square
venice recreated
in kodachromatic slides —
savage-exquisite
replicated gondolas
sit still on concrete floor lagoons
as gondoliers songs
play from speakers above the
crowded room —
all shadows of the actual
masks-rapiers-revelers
fluttering gowns —
the intoxicating liaisons
quick hands under black cloaks
lovers liquid
in the shadows of sighing bridges
above starlit canals
where waves kiss
the gondolas lacquered black
reflecting this night’s pagan moon
savage-exquisite
above San Marco’s crucifix
above the Doge’s palace
a throng of masks — black and white
moving in and out of shadows
meeting — parting — becoming shadows on the piazza
urgency in their searching
a frenzy of rustling costumes and clattering heels
ending at the coming dawn
savage-exquisite
PHOTO: Mask shop (Venice, Italy) by Joseph A. Farina.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph A Farina is a retired lawyer in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. Several of his poems have been published in Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine, Ascent, Subterranean Blue, The Tower Poetry Magazine, Inscribed, The Windsor Review, Boxcar Poetry Revue , and appears in the anthology Sweet Lemons: Writings with a Sicilian Accent, and in the anthology Witness from Serengeti Press. He has had poems published in the U.S. magazines Mobius, Pyramid Arts, Arabesques, Fiele-Festa, Philedelphia Poets, and Memoir (and) as well as in the Silver Birch Press “Me, at Seventeen” Series. He has had two books of poetry published—The Cancer Chronicles and The Ghosts of Water Street.
Silver Birch Press 