"A Failed Synonym For Love:" Introducing the Poetry of Marc Alan Di Martino
I was born in the shadow of the Holocaust; as a child it was all around me. Yet in my life I have never experienced such darkness in the world as I have in the last fifteen months in Israel and in the last ten days in the United States. Today on social media I saw a friend in America who received their new passport with an “F” to signify the gender they were born with, not the one they live. Another was a photo of a child’s letter to his friend, “If ICE takes me, don’t forget me.” Here, eight hostages were released. One was a nineteen year old girl who stood alone, dressed in a fake soldier uniform, on a stage waving to a Hamas crowd. You could see the fear and embarrassment in her eyes. Later another young woman was escorted by men with helmets and covered faces through a screaming mob. As the crowd pushed in on her, yelling terrible things, she was so scared she began to cry. Still, still, eight people have been returned to safety. Especially Gadi Moses, who next month will turn eighty-one. He too made his way through the crowd on his feet. A blessing. Eight blessings. Darkness and light for all of us all over the world who are trying to make our way despite our evil leaders.
I saw this darkness and light in the poetry of Marc Alan Di Martino: mourning and joy, beauty and fear. “A failed synonym for love.”
Happiness
These could be the last days of happiness,
a feeling that’s already been strained
by knowledge of good and evil.
Things change, yet somehow stay the same.
Call it an odd sort of miracle
if you will. For many, change
is a sharp blade drawn across the skin
of the neck. A bit of blood, but eventually
the pain recedes. Afterwards, we’re left
with an imperceptible little scar
at the pressure point. For some,
though, the whole head falls cleanly off. 
In Scorpio Sun enters Scorpio, dips below the horizon— a pearl earring in a glass of wine. Pincers poised. Don’t dare take No for an answer. Persuade. Elicit. Cajole, if need be. Disarm, disable the threat. Be capable of taking the bull by the horns. Swing him by his swollen thorns. Be empathetic, fearless as you reach across the aisle. Your enemies are out for blood. What good is eye for an eye? Take heart and brood on this truth. In other words, Virgo: rest. Embrace your daily disarray as you contemplate the fray of countless choices. Love brute chaos as yourself. Remove the label on the mattress. Glum? Persist.
Beautiful
She was a thing I’d never seen before—
a dying animal. Coughing, wheezing,
she’d bring each narrow MS Extra-Light
to her lips as if receiving communion:
eyes closed, her body summoned to the task,
rapt in the ruthless absolution of cancer.
Day in, day out she burned them down
to bare marrow. Her body burned, too,
a little further each time I saw her,
bits of it turning to ash at my touch.
I have a photograph of her at age sixteen
standing in front of the local church,
cigarette balanced between her fingertips,
feigning the allure of a Sophia Loren
or Monica Vitti, her great moonlike face
beaming beneath a beehive of black curls.
Growing up, we’d worshipped her, our father’s
beautiful sister. 
Regeneration I hated math, loved Greek mythology. The Hydra with its seven necks enchanted me, its seven heads and seven lashing tongues— a fearful dragon-demon. Now, imagine you are the hero in this story. Sword and shield, you find yourself face to face, tasked with the elimination of the monster. Sidestepping its viperous darting mouths you score a hit, sever a snakelike neck. Another two sprout in its place. They call this regeneration, posing the further problem that no one then or now has yet understood: how best to properly eliminate the Hydra—barring Hercules, a god. But who today believes in divine intervention? I used to sit for hours at my Greek Gods & Heroes Coloring Book. The Hydra was green, of course, being a serpent. The color of jealousy, greed and envy. Yet also inexperience, possibility and growth. I guess was learning that every problem in life has two sides— perhaps more, perhaps an infinite number. But what about the Hydra? It, too, must have a perspective, a need to eat and sleep, love for another seven-headed thing in this world. Because, after all is said and done—barring gods from the equation— we have little choice but to learn to suffer, if not exactly love, our enemies— a hard lesson schools never bothered to teach.
Yahrzeit
I knew this day would come and I’d forget
the day you died. It took me five years.
Yesterday, I lit a candle, but not
for you. I mourned, but it wasn’t for you.
Am I a bad son? I have a life to live,
a wife to love and a daughter to raise.
The mind wanders. Besides, there is no ‘you’
anymore, no one to remember or forget.
You are a cloud, a wave, a drop of rain,
not a body strapped into a wheelchair
bristling with resentment. “Talk to me,”
you say, and I write you a line of verse.
“Stay with me,” you plead. I take a breath,
each gesture a failed synonym for love.
Marc Alan Di Martino is the author of Day Lasts Forever: Selected Poems of Mario dell'Arco (World Poetry, 2024 - translator), Love Poem with Pomegranate (Ghost City, 2023), Still Life with City (Pski's Porch, 2022) and Unburial (Kelsay, 2019). His poems and translations appear in Rattle, iamb, Palette Poetry and many other journals and anthologies. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Currently a reader for Baltimore Review, he lives in Italy. More at www.marcalandimartino.com.
Delights!
Five Tiny Delights
1. Finding the mot juste that unlocks a stubborn poem.
2. Browsing a good used bookstore.
3. Hearing a song I love on the radio unexpectedly while driving. Extra points if it's a rare song.
4. Finding something in common with another person. For example, that we both love the same writer or band.
5. Reading without having to worry about time. The permission to get lost in a book.
Five Tiny Jewish Delights
1. Bagels and lox.
2. The ability to read a text in Yiddish.
3. The Klezmatics' album Possessed.
4. The word rachmones. It sounds like what it means.
5. Jewish comedians.
How gorgeous. So much gratitude.
I love every word of this! After reading all of them, I notice that I’m sitting here watching my breath, and I’ve wrapped myself in a warm hug. Thank you!