GREAT ARTISTS & THEIR IMMORTAL WORKS :
CONCLUDING ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN
VERSE.  -  By Raj Nandy, New Delhi.

Dear Readers, continuing my Story of Western Art in Verse chronologically, I had covered an Introduction to the Italian Renaissance previously. That background story was necessary to appreciate Renaissance Art fully. Now, I cover the Art of that period in a summarized form, mentioning mainly the salient features to curb the length. The cream here lies in the 'Art of the High Renaissance Period'! Hope you like it. Thanks, - Raj.

                          INTRODUCTION
“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, &
  Poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”
                                                        – Leonardo Da Vinci
In the domain of Renaissance Art, we notice the
enduring influence of the Classical touch!
Ancient Greek statues and Roman architectures,
Inspired the Renaissance artists in their innovative
ventures!
The pervasive spirit of Humanism influenced
creation of life-like human forms;
Adding ****** expressions and depth, deviating
from the earlier stiff Medieval norms.
While religious subjects continued to get depicted
in three-dimensional Renaissance Art;
Portraits, **** figures, and secular subjects, also
began to appear during this great ‘Re-birth’!
The artists of the Early and High Renaissance Era
are many who deserve our adoration and artistic
due.
Yet for the sake of brevity, I mention only the
Great Masters, who are handful and few.

EARLY RENAISSANCE ARTISTS & THEIR ART

GITTO THE PIONEER:
During early 13th Century we find, Dante’s
contemporary Gitto di Bondone the Florentine,
Painting human figures in all its beauty and form
for the first time!
His masterwork being the 40 fresco cycle in the
Arena Chapel in Padua, depicting the life of the
****** and Christ, completed in 1305.
Giotto made the symbolic Medieval spiritual art
appear more natural and realistic,
By depicting human emotion, depth with an
artistic perspective!
Art Scholars consider him to be the trailblazer
inspiring the later painters of the Renaissance;
They also refer to Giorgio Vasari’s “Lives Of
The Eminent Artists,” - as their main source.
Giotto had dared to break the shackles of earlier
Medieval two-dimensional art style,
By drawing lines which head towards a certain
focal point behind;
Like an illusionary vanishing point in space,
- opening up a 3-D ‘window into space’!
This ‘window technique’ got adopted by the
later artists with grace.
(Giorgio Vasari, a 16th Century painter, architect & Art
historian, was born in 1511 in Arezzy, a city under the
Florentine Republic, and painted during the High
Renaissance Period.)

VASARI’s book published in 1550 in Florence
was dedicated to Cosimo de Medici.
Forms an important document of Italian Art
History.
This valuable book covers a 250 year’s span.
Commencing with Cimabue the tutor of Giotto,
right up to Tizian, - better known as Titan!
Vasari also mentions four lesser known Female
Renaissance Artists; Sister Plantilla, Madonna
Lucrezia, Sofonista Anguissola, and Properzia
de Rossi;
And Rossi’s painting “Joseph and Potiphar’s
Wife”,
An impressive panel art which parallels the
unrequited love Rossi experienced in her own
life !
(Joseph the elder son of Jacob, taken captive by Potiphar
the Captain of Pharaoh’s guard, was desired by Potiphar’s
wife, whose advances Joseph repulsed. Rossi’s painting
of 1520s inspired later artists to paint their own versions
of this same Old Testament Story.)

Next I briefly mention architects Brunelleschi
and Ghiberti, and the sculptor Donatello;
Not forgetting the painters like Masaccio,
Verrocchio and Botticelli;
Those Early Renaissance Artists are known to
us today thanks to the Art historian Giorgio
Vasari .

BRUNELLESCHI has been mentioned in Section
One of my Renaissance Story.
His 114 meter high dome of Florence Cathedral
created artistic history!
This dome was constructed without supporting
buttresses with a double egg shaped structure;
Stands out as an unique feat of Florentine
Architecture!
The dome is larger than St Paul’s in London,
the Capitol Building of Washington DC, and
also the St Peters in the Vatican City!

GILBERTI is remembered for his massive
15 feet high gilded bronze doors for the
Baptistery of Florence,
Containing twenty carved panels with themes
from the Old Testament.
Which took a quarter century to complete,
working at his own convenience.
His exquisite naturalistic carved figures in the
true spirit of the Renaissance won him a prize;
And his gilded doors were renamed by Michel
Angelo as ‘The Gates of Paradise’!
(At the age of 23 yrs Lorenzo Ghiberti had won the
competition beating other Architects for craving the
doors of the Baptistery of Florence!)

DONATELLO’S full size bronze David was
commissioned by its patron Cosimo de’ Medici.
With its sensual contrapposto stance in the
classical Greek style with its torso bent slightly.
Is known as the first free standing **** statue
since the days of Classical Art history!
The Old Testament relates the story of David
the shepherd boy, who killed the giant Goliath
with a single sling shot;
Cutting off his head with Goliath’s own sword!
Thus saving the Israelites from Philistine’s wrath.
This unique statue inspired all later sculptors to
strive for similar artistic excellence;
Culminating in Michael Angelo’s **** statue of
David, known for its sculptured brilliance!

MASSACCIO (1401- 1428) joined Florentine
Artist’s Guild at the age of 21 years.
A talented artist who abandoned the old Gothic
Style, experimenting without fears!
Influenced by Giotto, he mastered the use of
perspective in art.
Introduced the vanishing point and the horizon
line, - while planning his artistic works.
In his paintings ‘The Expulsion from Eden’
and ‘The Temptation’,
He introduced the initial **** figures in Italian
Art without any inhibition!
Though up North in Flanders, Van Eyck the
painter had already made an artistic innovation,
By painting ‘Adam and Eve’ displaying their
****** in his artistic creation;
Thereby creating the first **** painting in Art
History!
But such figures greatly annoyed the Church,
Since nudes formed a part of pagan art!
So these Northern artists to pacify the Church
and pass its censorship,
Cleverly under a fig leaf cover made their art to
appear moralistic!
Van Eyck was also the innovator of oil-based paints,
Which later replaced the Medieval tempera, used to
paint angles and saints.

Masaccio’s fresco ‘The Tribute Money’ requires
here a special mention,
For his use of perspective with light and shade,
Where the blithe figure of the Roman tax collector
is artistically made.
Christ is painted with stern nobility, Peter in angry
majesty;
And every Apostle with individualized features,
attire, and pose;
With light coming from a single identifiable source!
“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,
and unto God things that are God’s”, said Christ;
Narrated in Mathew chapter 22 verse 21, which
cannot be denied.
Unfortunately, Masaccio died at an early age of
27 years.
Said to have been killed by a jealous rival artist,
who had shed no tears!

BOTTICELLI the Florentine was born half a
century after the Dutch Van Eyck;
Remembered even to this day for his painting
the ‘Birth of Venus’, an icon of Art History
making him famous.
This painting depicts goddess Venus rising out
of the sea on a conch shell,
And the glorious path of female **** painting
commenced in Italy, - casting a spell!
His full scale **** Venus shattered the Medieval
taboo on ******.
With a subject shift from religious art to Classical
Mythology;
Removing the ‘fig-leaf cover’ over Art permanently!

I end this Early Period with VERROCCHIO, born
in Florence in fourteen hundred and thirty five.
A trained goldsmith proficient in the skills of both
painting and sculpture;
Who under the patronage of the Medici family
had thrived.
He had set up his workshop in Florence were he
trained Leonardo Da Vinci, Botticelli, and other
famous Renaissance artists alike!

FOUR CANONICAL PAINTING MODES OF
THE RENAISSANCE:
During the Renaissance the four canonical painting
modes we get to see;
Are Chiaroscuro, Sfumato, Cangiante and Unione.
‘Chiaroscuro’ comes from an Italian word meaning
‘light and dark’, a painting technique of Leonardo,
Creating a three dimensional dramatic effect to
steal the show.
Later also used with great excellence by Rubens
and the Dutch Rembrandt as we know.
‘Sfumato’ from Italian ‘sfumare’, meaning to tone
down or evaporate like a smoke;
As seen in Leonardo’s ‘Mona Lisa’ where the
colors blend seamlessly like smoke!
‘Cangiante’ means to ‘change’, where a painter
changed to a lighter or a darker hue, when the
original hue could not be made light enough;
As seen in the transformation from green to
yellow in Prophet Daniel’s robe,
On the ceiling of Sistine Chapel in Rome.
‘Unione’ followed the ‘sfumato’ quality, but
maintained vibrant colors as we get to see;
In Raphael’s ‘Alba Madonna’ in Washington’s
National Gallery.

ART OF HIGH RENAISSANCE ERA - THE
GOLDEN AGE.

“Where the spirit does not work with the
hand there is no art.”- Leonardo

With Giotto during the Trecento period of the
14th century,
Painting dominated sculpture in the artistic
endeavor of Italy.
During the 15th century the Quattrocento, with
Donetello and Giberti,
Sculpture certainly dominated painting as we get to
see!
But during the 16th century or the Cinquecento,
Painting again took the lead commencing with
the great Leonardo!
This Era was cut short by the death of Lorenzo the
Magnificent to less than half a century; (Died in 1493)
But gifted great masterpieces to the world enriching
the world of Art tremendously!
The Medieval ‘halo’ was now replaced by a fresh
naturalness;
And both Madonna and Christ acquired a more
human likeness!
Portrait paintings began to be commissioned by
many rich patrons.
While artists acquired both recognition and a status
of their own.
But the artistic focus during this Era had shifted from
Florence,  - to Venice and Rome!
In the Vatican City, Pope Julius-II was followed by
Pope Leo the Tenth,
He commissioned many works of art which are
still cherished and maintained!
Now cutting short my story let me mention the
famous Italian Renaissance Superstar Trio;
Leonardo, Raphael, and Michael Angelo.

LEONARDO DA VINCI was born in 1452 in
the village of Vinci near the City of Florence,
Was deprived of a formal education being born
illegitimate!
He was left-handed, and wrote from right to left!
He soon excelled his teacher Varrocchio, by
introduced oil based paints into Italy;
Whose translucent colors with his innovative
techniques, enhanced his painting artistically.
Sigmund Freud had said, “Leonardo was like a
man who awoke too early in the darkness while
others were all still asleep,” - he was awake!
Leonardo’s  historic ‘Note Book’ has sketches of a
battle tank, a flying machine, a parachute, and many
other anatomical and technical sketches and designs;
Reflecting the ever probing mind of this versatile
genius who was far ahead of his time!
His ‘Vituvian Man’, ‘The Last Supper’, and ‘Mona Lisa’,
Remain as his enduring works of art and more popular
than the Leaning Tower of Pisa!
Pen and ink sketch of the ‘Vitruvian Man’ with arms
and leg apart inside a square and a circle, also known
as the ‘Proportion of Man’;
Where his height correspondence to the length
of his outstretched hands;
Became symbolic of the true Renaissance spirit
of Man.
‘The Last Supper’ a 15ft by 29ft fresco work on
the refectory wall of Santa Maria, commissioned
by Duke of Milan Ludovic,
Is the most reproduced religious painting which
took three years to complete!
Leonardo searched the streets of Milan before
painting Judas’ face;
And individualized each figure with competence!
‘Mona Lisa’ with her enigmatic smile continues
to inspire artists, poets, and her viewers alike,
since its creation;
Which Leonardo took four years to complete
with utmost devotion.
Leonardo used oil on poplar wood panel, unique
during those days,
With ‘sfumato’ blending of translucent colors with
light and shade;
Creating depth, volume, and form, with a timeless
expression on Mona Lisa’s countenance!
Art Historian George Varasi says that it is the face
of one Lisa Gherardini,
Wife of a wealthy Florentine merchant of Italy.
Insurance Companies failed to make any estimation
of this portrait, declaring its value as priceless!
Today it remains housed inside an air-conditioned,
de-humidified chamber, within a triple bullet-proof
glass, in Louvre France.
“It is the ultimate symbol of human civilization”,
- exclaimed President Kennedy;
And with this I pay my humble tribute to our
Leonardo da Vinci!

MICHEL ANGELO BUONARROTI (1475-1564):
This Tuscan born sculptor, painter, architect, and
poet, was a versatile man,
Worthy to be called the archetype of the true
‘Renaissance Man’!
At the age of twelve was placed under the famous
painter Ghirlandio,
Where his inclination for sculpting began to show.
Under the liberal patronage of Lorenzo de Medici,
He developed his talent as a sculptor as we get
to see.
In the Medici Palace, he was struck by his rival
Torregiano on the nose with a mallet;
Disfiguring permanently his handsome face!
His statue of ‘Bacchus’ of 1497 and the very
beauty of the figure,
Earned him the commission for the ‘PIETA’ in
St Peter’s Basilica;
Where from a single piece of Carrara marble he
carved out the figure of ****** Mary grieving
over the dead body of Christ;
This iconic piece of sculpture which along with
his ‘David’ earned him the ‘Superstar rights’!

Michel Angelo’s **** ‘DAVID’ weighed 6.4 tons
and stood 17 feet in height;
Unlike the bronze David of Donatello, which
shows him victorious after the fight!
Michel’s David an epitome of strength and
youthful vigour with a Classical Greek touch;
Displayed an uncircumcised ***** which had
shocked the viewers very much!
But it was consistent with the Mannerism in Art,
in keeping with the Renaissance spirit as such!
David displays an attitude of placid calm with
his knitted eyebrows and sidelong glance;
With his left hand over the left shoulder
holding a sling,
Coolly surveys the giant Goliath before his
single sling shot fatally stings!
This iconic sculpture has a timeless appeal even
after 500 years, depicting the ‘Renaissance Man’
at his best;
Vigorous, healthy, beautiful, rational and fully
competent!
Finally we come to the Ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel of Rome,
Where Pope Julius-II’s persistence resulted in the
creation of world’s greatest single fresco that was
ever known!
Covering some 5000 square feet, took five years
to complete.
Special scaffoldings had to be erected for painting
scenes from ‘The Creation’ till the ‘Day of Judgment’
on a 20 meter’s high ceiling;
Where the Central portion had nine scenes from
the ‘Book of Genesis’,
With ‘Creation of Adam’ having an iconic significance!
Like Leonardo, Michel Angelo was left-handed and died
a bachelor - pursuing his art with devotion;
A man with caustic wit, proud reserve, and sublimity
of imagination!

RAFFAELLO SANZIO (1483-1520):
This last of the famous High Renaissance trio was
born in 1483 in Urbino,
Some eight years after Michel Angelo.
His Madonna series and decorative frescos
glorified the Library of Pope Julius the Second;
Who was impressed by his fresco ‘The School
of Athens’;
And commissioned Raphael to decorate his
Study in the Vatican.
Raphael painted this large fresco between 1510
and 1511, initially named as the ‘Knowledge of
Causes’,
But the 17th century guide books referred to it
as ‘The School of Athens’.
Here Plato and Aristotle are the central figures
surrounded by a host of ancient Greek scholars
and philosophers.
The bare footed Plato is seen pointing skywards,
In his left hand holds his book ‘Timaeus’;
His upward hand gesture indicating his ‘World
of Forms’ and transcendental ideas!
Aristotle is seen pointing downwards, his left
hand holds his famous book the ‘Ethics’;
His blue dress symbolizes water and earth
with an earthly fix.
The painting illustrates the historic continuance
of Platonic thoughts,
In keeping with the spirit of the Renaissance!
Raphael’s last masterpiece ‘Transfiguration’
depicts the resurrected Christ,
Flanked by prophets

There's a painting by Botticelli
I've always loved,
showing Venus being born naked
from the ocean and
not fearing the current.
Those around her renounce her body,
scrambling to clothe her,
turn her virginal,
contain the way her eyes cross galaxies,
shine all the way to Pluto.
But she is soft, unwavering,
not noticing the mortals' concern
about her *******
and bare collarbone that could catch water
at its base.

I found you halfway across the world on the steps of the Uffizi
and in the 3 hours it took you
to show me some of the best art on earth,
I was transfixed only
on the orbits of planets in your eyes.
Shortly before the sun set,
you took me through the secret corridor
Cosimo de' Medici built to walk across the
rooftops of the city
where you kissed me but
told me you didn't believe in love,
that all you needed was art,
and Michelangelo,
and in that moment
I saw Venus in your collarbone.
Saw a shell under your feet,
saw the universe in the way your freckles connected,
saw how you immortalize yourself
among the rest of the art in Florence
so no human can bring you down to earth,
can make your heart stop,
show you what it's like to cross timezones
with a single touch.
And here I am,
wanting to be your Botticelli,
to paint the uneven ***** of your shoulders,
the crookedness of your right ankle,
your fear of exposing yourself to someone
who could love you.
It must be lonely out there, Venus,
on your little fishing boat by the sea.

Botticelli's painting was found
long after his death,
laid into the floor of
an abandoned villa in the south of Tuscany.
Venus looking lost and mortal
between cracked paint and chipping walls,
like the way you hide between
the dusty statues of the dead statesmen and fading portraits
long after the museum closes,
just you with only history to hold.
You want to believe in love
as past-tense,
like you've lost faith in present participles and the fact
that art is still being made,
and people are running barefoot into future conjugations
together.

Don't come back to land, Venus. Vanessa.
I won't be here waiting with a towel
or an art critic
or a spaceship.
But maybe,
just make a little room for me on your shell
under the sun,
atop steady waves or Florentine rooftops.
Throw the map overboard.
Let's forget the shore.

And Michelangelo and the rest of them
will smile as they see us off.

The violence of roses tangled
In redolent blooms throughout her hair.
“Forgive me,” Venus said to herself,
As she struggled with the piercing layers.

She parted her tangled strands
Like the turbulent sea had parted her shell,
Within this brume around curly waves
Of blood and blonde so frail.

"So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

Shall I compare thee...

...to the Iguazú Falls River, where legend serves that a serpent; Boi, demanded a sacrifice each year of a young female, and the day two lovers; Tarobá and his beautiful maid Naipí, took to escape, and in revenge of such an act, Boi exuded such anger that he parted the river, thus forming the Iguazú Falls, splitting the river and condemning to two lovers to the falls.

or

...to Cristo Redentor; Christ the Redeemer, the Art Deco statue, protecting and looking over the city of Rio de Janeiro, to whom in all its glory cannot escape the force of nature, struck by lightning, causing damage irreplaceable.

or

…to The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, hundreds of metres into the sky, a place that to this day is unknown, myth being that King Nebuchadnezzar recreated the homeland of his precious wife Amyitis, who was deeply depressed and homesick, allowing her to find comfort and happiness.

or

…the Taj Mahal, of Pradesh, constructed using marble by the emperor Shah Jahan, in loving memory of his third wife; Mumtaz Mahal, the *jewel of Muslim art, a calligraphy written Great Gate reading; "O Soul, thou art at rest. Return to the Lord at peace with Him, and He at peace with you.

or

…the Temple of Artemis; Istambul, on sacred land in honour of the Greek goddess Artemis, the most apotheosized of Greek deities, the supposed daughter of Zeus and Leto, the temple also known as Diana, one of the goddesses who vouched never to marry; alongside Minerva and Vesta.

or

… the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, of the Persian Empire, whereby Mausolus ornamented four sculptures created in relief for his wife (and also his sister); Artemisia II of Caria, generating an above ground tomb that would become to be listed as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

But of all,
I compare thee to the Goddess of Love, Beauty and Sexuality; Aphrodite
arising from the sea, floating ashore on a shell;
Venus rising from the sea,
a lover of many,
later depicted as a painting of the Birth of Venus,
by the sufferer of unrequited love; Botticelli,
using his muse Simonetta Vespucci as a model.

© Sia Jane

Look here.  I've been admiring the spectacle  
of Ng’s bare ****. Yes,
this is simply because I have to say
Ng’s bare **** is magnificent.
It’s not a bouncing Botticelli but it’s
a slim, firm bottom, subtly rounded,
real split peach and cream stuff.
And Ng at the other end
is a real nice girl, too!
She's my friend, see?

But back to Ng’s bare ****. Let's stay focused.
I contemplate this vision,
along with the meaning of life,
quite often in broad daylight
with a slash of sunlight across her little buns.
This is more profound than the Tait, the Louvre,
the Met, the Frick, the Neue, the Helly, the Hermitage or even
the Natty Portrait Gallery all bunged in together.
Ng's bare **** is also better, by far,
than anything you'll see at the Bolshoi or La Scala.

I’m amazed at how much I’m amazed by
this work of art. It’s awesome.
And I betcha the most famous galleries would
fall over themselves to display this finest little ****, that is,
if the world wasn't so hung up with hypocrisy and hysteria,
yeah, it'd be heaps more famous than the Mona Lisa.

Mike T Minehan

[In which Aphrodite ponders monogamy, 21st century style]


She’d come far since that whole Botticelli scandal,

astride a shell, hair tumbled about her ******,  

sensuality and a taste for illicit thrill (a real wild myth)

but now the candid canvas only required a google by the Book Club’s prying judgment,

she’d since traded Olympus for a semi-detached.  


All his shirts were folded, perfectly pressed,

ham and chips congealing by the microwave  

and he should have been back before Hollyoaks.  

They met in their local, he bought her a pint and mused

over Milton of all people, his degree finally put to use,

justifying the ways of God to men.  

Impressed and tipsy his back was soon against the wall, no tricks needed.  


He kissed all over her divinity,  

admired the quote encircling her ankle, from a trip round Asia

to find herself, at age nine thousand and nineteen.  

As they made love a spell fell on her for once in a millennia

Married in months, too young, well he was,  

and her face had always been twenty-two.  

Then came the mortgage, the Labrador, the kids, the affairs.  


At the bottom of a wine glass she pondered on the irony

after all what was the point of an eternity weaving passion into the world  

with your husband’s ‘lunch meetings’ equating to rolls on Travelodge sheets?

Not her style at all, too tacky.  

She could work her charms, make everything rose-tinted,  

but the bitterness intoxicated.


On the sofa, her side, she dwelled again on Botticelli,  

spilling her beauty on a page,

passion and dexterity, a lost breed- this century was so unpromising.  

Aphrodite thought on her conquests- Ares, Poseidon, Adonis

gods between her thighs, making her mountains move,  

oceans boiling madly, bruised skies crackling with fire,  

tangled bedsheets,  

hair,

hands caressing skin and creating worlds, and…


…and on her mortal, a balding, a boring, a bland  

disappointment.


Off came the clothes, the wedding ring and the phone from its hook.  


Imagine the pizza boy’s confusion as the door opened to the sound of the heavens singing  

rays of ethereal light warming his pubescent, pock-scarred face.  

A naked, pearly goddess,

and those golden, flaxen locks snaking, seducing, ensnaring as he staggered into the rosy blur.


It was impossible, after all, to justify the ways of gods to men.  


But how clichéd.

I love you, as a saint
with an aureole of gleaming autumn-burnt hair
an ecstatic shining and bright as the sun,
spilling forth with holy oil
with the face of a white-rose angel from Botticelli's brush,
with the heart of a tar-black demon, a serpent in the fiery bush,
a heavy pink blossom all dripping with honey
a sinuous and serpentine moth-silk scarf, fluttering in the summer air.

and I love you, loving and knowing that
I love you, as a painter
loves a streaked and bright tempura paint
here, sun-kissed as a yellow flower today,
revealing its thin translucent colours the next
and I love you, as one can only love
another who can only love a mirror
whether one made from moon-struck volcanic glass
or drawn from the lips of another.

Behind the sweetie shop,
under the reproductions,
Leonardo, Botticelli -
Dark haired girl in shorts
hides the softness of a rabbit in her heart.
And across the stone wall,
love is riding a
borrowed bike.

- From the grey as sky jackets,
From the strange eyes...
I'll remember you

Cinnamon, dandelions and rain.
Sundays silently glittering walls.
Dark haired girl in shorts
drinks coffee and herds dusty tones.
And across the stone wall -
summer street
and souls bound.

- From the trembling fingers,
From the hats -
I'll remember you

Jacques de Rouge

The wandering pilgrim

Of poetic seekings

Drifted away once again

Oppose the Homeland Paris

And into the Heart of Italy

Known for many feats

Though,

One was in particular

Unmistakable

It is the City of Dante



Firenze, in a frenzy

Have manifested itself

In the Golden Light

Of heavenly stars to be

Alive with all characters

Past and passed.

Opening wide behind

Lorenzo Ghiberti’s

The Gates of Paradise

Dante himself emerged

From the centre

Of the Florence Baptistery

And ascended toward the light

The opening of Hope and Stars

Among the rings of Heaven

Jacques de Rouge followed,

In pursuit.

And kneeled before him,

As Dante stopped and stood

With the Eagle!

In Piazza di Santa Croce.



When Jacques de Rouge stood

In a shadow at Palazzo Vecchio

The shadow revolved like

Da Vinci’s Helicopter

With what seemed like

A bulging knot at the end.

Barely missed his head

Jacques de Rouge

Realized the swings

Were from the slingshot

Of none other than

That of the one masculinity

Of all masculinity

Michelangelo's David.



His marble complexion transformed

Almost ever so light and faintly

Into a smooth and pale flesh.

Jacques cast his eyes down

In an unavoidable instinct of shame.

When he looked up, the flesh

Is now a single dangling foot

Seconds from stepping into

The Niche of Orsanmichele

And approaching his beloved Christ.

Amen, and he proceeded.

Discreetly into the Secrets of Sandro Botticelli,

That which is secured marvelously

As the Standing Monument of

Giotto’s Bell Tower

And

Brunelleschi's Dome.



The Three Graces danced

The Venus stood in the classical position.

And one woman looked wearily at Jacques

Staring into his eyes.

And yes, Heaven it was.

As Jacques stood in the illusion of the weightless contrapposto.

My father once told me
he wouldn’t hold it against me if
I were to fall in love
with a woman

And I asked him how he’s so sure
it’s going to happen to me
He looked me straight in the eye,
stopped peeling my apples
and pointed at me with his knife,
“Duks, it’s because you’re me.”

And that terrified me to no end.
Not even because he looked
ready to stab me
but because I didn’t want
to be like my father

Yet here I am
seven years later
following every little footprint
he left for me in the sand
because he may be a lying,
cheating, fickle-minded swine
— but he is a good man
and he is half of me

And this half of me
left me a breadcrumb trail
leading to the part of myself
I will offer to you

He once told me
to never let someone you love
walk out the door angry
and I met this girl
(because there’s always a girl)
who walks in the room
and plants sunflowers in fields
of goosebump-riddled skin and waters them
with the tears of boys who think
their shark-grins and googly eyes
would make up for their
inability to hide their ****** during her shows
and they still have the audacity to think
their half-assed existence
would be good enough for her

This girl —

She picks the best and brightest
sunflowers and hands them to me
wrapped in a peach-colored smile
on the days the sun doesn’t shine for me
and even after the longest days,
I’d tiptoe through her field
until she hugs me goodbye and sends me off
with petals tangled in my hair
and pollen clinging to my fingertips

She turns me into a haven
for bees and hummingbirds alike.

My father once told me
I was named after a revolutionary
and that if I were to love another,
I would have to raise my banners high
and shout over the cries of the crowd
I would have to prove
I am worthy
of my namesake — I am the fulfillment
of the prophecy left shattered
by a hail of bullets

Dad, I’ll tell you now,
I won’t be starting any wars
for this girl — I won’t be
risking my life to save hers

She’ll be at the battlefront
already going head-to-head
with the pigs in blue while she’s red in the face
and she won’t have a problem
if you shove her against the barricades
and blast her with the water cannons
but no god will save you
if you so much as touch her eyebrows

Dad, if you’re looking for revolutionary,
I’ve found it
in the way she says my name
when we’re standing on the cusp of change
and just about ready
to claim justice
from those who so gleefully
took it from us

My father once told me
that I should appreciate classical music more
when we watched an orchestra play in the mall
and the musicians that poured their hearts
into their craft

At the time, I didn’t see the appeal
of music without words
And I wish you could see me now, dad,
because I finally appreciate
the little things that I never noticed before —
like how Botticelli’s Birth of Venus
is just a painting
until you tell her you never knew
she was Botticelli’s muse
(because who the **** looks like that
without being mistaken for a goddess
meant to be immortalized through art and poetry?)
like how poetry is only poetry
if you take the mundane
and turn it into something grandiose —
a pretentious way of saying
you have to be pretentious —
but honey, you already do this
well enough on your own
(so are you really the Muse
or the Poet?)
like how love isn’t always trembling —
sometimes it’s just staying still.
Root me into place
and tell me there can be nobody else
and I’ll tell you, dearest,
there hasn’t been anyone else
since I found out you want to be a teacher
since I held your hand in prayer
and simultaneously turned into a devout Catholic
since I told you promises are meant to be broken,
but not mine —
never mine.

Dad, it takes the right person
to show me what’s there to love
in the most minute of things.

My father once told me
to love with everything I am
till I have nothing left
“To hell with it!” he’d say.

Until now, I still take the last
slice of graham cake on Christmas Eve
even when I’ve taken more than I can stomach
I still give away
the stuffed animals that are broken and tattered
because I don’t want to be left with
things I no longer find the beauty in
I still find myself in relationships
where I have one foot out the door
because I know the exact route
to the fire exit and I’d only planned
to stay until intermission

But then, there’s you —
you take from me
only what you know I can give.
Without even noticing, I’ve given you
more than what I thought I had in me.

If I could, I’d tie a string
around the sun and carry it around
with me like a balloon
so when I come home,
your sunflowers would grow and by then
I’d have picked the ones that bloomed
on my way back to you

If I could take you to the moon,
I’d build a rocketship that uses my words
for fuel so, honey, you’ll never have to worry
about making it back home
I can take you to the Milky Way
amusement park and make
a merry-go-round of the planets
and I’d still have enough words for you
to keep as souvenirs when you land back home

Honey, I’ll never run out
of things to give you
and I take my time savoring what I have
because I know it’ll take me three times
asking you if you want the last piece
for you to try and take it from me
without me noticing
(You always fail.)

Dad, I am the end of your trail.
Let me tell you now
that you have led me to my death —
indeed, I am doomed!

Here lies the body
that was once your selfish daughter!

Now, father, watch her lay
sunflowers on my grave:

Dearest —
here rises the body
of who’ll love you
with all the tremble it took to get to you
with all the honey still sticky
and seeping into the pages
with all the faith one could afford
to give with arms outflung

Dearest —
here is when I tell you
there are no accidents.
You were meant to find me
in this exact spot.
Now, come take me home
and root me into place.


//A.Z.//

alessandro
botticelli said
let there be venus
(said
let there be you.)

you
running your hands down your own curves
blind;
the mirrors are all broken here.

it doesn’t matter
if you want this.
i want this
dotted i
(crossed t)
wants this

****
is this, for instance.
a pear:
bruised
muscled like
holy breaststhighs
completely inmoving
(outmoving)
breathe—
celebrate
the words
going upward to the sky and the
strawberry-red hair cascading down
it hungers
(like you)
to touch my back
gently
curl around my shoulders like your cold fingers in January

**** not
skeletal.

let there be
me.

let there be—here is where
the words stop mattering to me—
let there be caramelchocolate skin of sunlit honey tint
melting into itself on the wooden floor
(we all
scream
for ice cream)

titian and
anadyomene me
wringing long wet
raven hair
my legs are covered in salt
sand
once the sea goes dry.

almond eyes
upturned
(angular)

marvel at your own geometry.

lips of salome
drawn upward into a not-yet-smile
(cherubic)

to the women who give their thin
pale bodies
to muscular men with perfect
arms to hold them down:
i am for you.

i
with my
******* that blossom at your winter touch
my thighs
scarred by ivory teeth—no.
i
with
******* in full bloom
(orchids)
thighs sculpted by
God himself
don’t you want to make love to me?
doesn’t the world
want to make
love?


love that tastes
more metallic than the blood behind my lips
don’t you want to bite it out?
taste the sweetness behind them?
run your hands over
the elysian fields of my thighs
and the valley between them
don’t you want
my legs slung over your shoulders
don’t you want
your tongue
on my vast skin
sweat made of sugar
and salt.
(bittersweet)

you want
lips crashed against yours like
w
a ves
eyelashes sweeping your cheeks
you want
don’t you want
me
**** with nothing to cover me but my
blanket of raven hair
for immodesty’s sake!

perhaps
i am (is) small.

but
the mirrors are all broke}n here

She is blue raspberry slushee tongue
Meets feminist rant.

She is Moon Pie wrapper personified.
She is purple lipstick stains on wine glasses
Filled to the brim with cranberry juice.
She is three cats, one bed.

She is a scratch in your favorite record during your favorite song.
She is bubblegum bubble pop,
She is the definition of hypochondriac.

Curiosity didn’t **** her,
She killed curiosity.

She is dry heaving into the toilet bowl,
Claw marks on the inside of her stomach.
She is naproxen sodium
Swirling down throat,
Gagging up bullet sized pills.

She is the other side of unrequited.

She is no ones favorite poem.
She is her own favorite poem.

She is perpetual headache.
She is screaming for justice.
She is the jersey devil episode of the X-Files,
In other words,
She is a hot mess.

She is nature walks cut short due to laziness.
She is laziness.
She is lay in bed all day,
Drown in the sheets.
She is too many books, not enough time.

She is funeral song at a wedding.
She is dethorned rose, declawed cat.
She is waking the dead.

She is a renaissance painting come to life.
Botticelli would cry if he saw her,
His Venus,
Splashing in the water.

She is Jezebel mourning Ahab.
She is Jezebel being eaten alive.

She is ankle deep dimple.
She is never could quite get the words out.
She is lip bite, blood drip.
She is covered in bruises and she likes it.

She is listerine flavored whiskey,
She is a shot glass of formaldehyde.

She is an oak tree,
Thats what her sister tells her.

She is the x on the back of an 18 year olds hand.
She is conspiracy theory.
She is playing possum.

She is change the subject.
She is cry when being yelled at,
Cry when no one is looking,
Cry when everyone is looking,
Cry because theres nothing else to do.

She is leather jacket in july.
She is crop top and mini skirt.
She is lullaby.
She is dancing to the Law and Order theme song.
She is 8,000 tweets.

She is see how long she can go without talking.
She is goes so long without talking
That now she can’t talk.
She is novocaine needle pock mark.

She is her own mythology,
Her own god.
She is fire breathing dragon.
She is knocking on god’s door
Until blood erupts from her knuckles.
She is asking why.
She is Persephone feasting on pomegranate seeds.

She is two siblings in the hospital.
She is “call if you don’t feel right”.
She is disassociative personality disorder,
At least thats what she’s convinced she is.

She is anxious laughter,
Anxious smile.
She is sewing her lips shut.

She is only 11 Instagram likes.
She is learning to love herself with the lights on.
She is sleep to much,
Sleep too little.
She is curl on cheekbone.
She is protruding rib bone.
She is hip bones cutting glass.

She is Lilith saying no.
She is leading the serpent to the garden.

She is vegetarian on moral grounds.
She is not telling her doctor she is a vegetarian
Because what if its bad for her?

She is fate and destiny making out under the bleachers.
She is making nooses out of ****** strings.
She is choke on your own saliva.
She is burnt tongue tip.
She is puking in the parking lot of her dentist’s office.
She is a 1997 themed mixtape.

She is a stanza curving like a lovers back.
She is chapped lips.
She is brick through the window.
She is suffocating on suburban ideals.

She is Anne Sextons ***** bottle.
She is Maya Angelou’s silence.
She is Lucien Carr’s ****** knife.
She is Sylvia Plath’s last manuscript before
She stuck her head in the oven.

She is three am,
Get out of bed.
She is snow in september.

She is poetry.
She is poet.
She is music in fingertips,
Songs molded from simile.
She is metaphor flavored kisses
And a witchcraft tongue.

She is a girl crafted of stories.
A collection of make believe.
She is breathing passion.
She is daughter of nothing,
Lover of everything.
She is afraid of scorpions.
She is the venom.

She is a violin heart screeching out its last note.

Like Winston Smith,
I think it’s time to start a diary.
Follow me now:  it’s April in Oceania,
The cruelest month,
The silly season, printemps,
A regular I see London, I see France.
I see Winston’s Underpants.
If you catch my drift?
La Primavera: Vivaldi’s rocking the
Juke box and the vote, Botticelli’s painting,
A mural on Jerusalem's wailing wall.
My diary will be hard evidence of thought crime.
Thought crime: one of the more severe varieties of
Religious experience & the most psychotic form of mental illness,
In a category known as antisocial personality disorders.
Thought crime means never getting into any serious trouble,
Until you’re caught, can we at least agree on that?
So, we'd better add the DSM to our stack of essential literary classics.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,
Published by the American Psychiatric Association,
Providing a common language,
A shrink’s Esperanto.
DSM-IV codes classify mental disorders.
The DSM: a Frommer’s travel guide &
User’s manual for life on planet Earth.
So, like Orwell's Winston, I start a diary of my own; but
Unlike Mr. Smith, I address my message to the here &
What’s happening now, not the future, not the past but
N-a-zayer, N-a-zither NOW.
That's right, I write for the present:
“If thought was ever free, it is not free now."
If truth exists it is a closely guarded secret,
Although McLuhan’s observations hide in plain sight:
“The new electronic interdependence, recreates
The world in the image of a global village.”
Which makes us all global village idiots.
We are no longer different from one another;
The age of groupthink is here.
I write to you from an age of security & surveillance,
Warrantless search and predator drones,
An age where no man is ever truly alone.
From an age of standardization, replaceable parts,
Whirling dervishes, dabblers in spin control,
Newspeak and doublespeak,
Atlas shrugged, drugged and fugged,
The new world order:
All but the faint of heart need apply, …
*"I send greetings.”

Vernarth says: “Nocturnal mutism, nocturnal stuttering, goes from the fragile phrasing, peripheral phrase, hovering last word, where my loudspeaker hits, dissonant Sagittarius, I must prepare my denarius, not but, beforehand, cheers of hope to Zion, who among the bush of the millionaire wind that travels from Pluto to Mercury, each day that we map ourselves, trying to be more earth than in its own flowering. Paradiso Omega, nap of the oldest dream, adobe path. My  to fly Anne genuflects her heart towards Mariah from Heaven, in the title of hundreds of throats and gargles of the pyogenic sediment rambling. Oh so long night!, so clear firmament born of the fallen ether of the great Heaven so clear and enlightening Compass 37 on the quilt of God, three by three towards one, linking above the easy pit and dreams, dying Paradiso, Agonizing Horcondising, a fragile mass disoriented, discouraged, with numeral letters and quadruple letters, stone after stone of forage falling on the cinnabar sky "

Joshua de Piedra from the high pinnacle exclaimed…: “Stone after stone in its correction is born of a new silence eternal bond. It eats it during the day, it eats at night, just like the galaxies licking the frivolous awakening from a starless night, but being the substance of stars liquefied with a whip. Pilgrimage or Path of the Cross, on the stony ground of Uncle Hugh's house, in the other similar, my Anne's house, further on in the hidden and clayey chaos, the last Indigenous in Western clothing, working and stuffing the wells with green size, distributing alms for his apprentices, I keep looking from the high hill earlier. Kaitelka the whale and a Dwarf Leviathan; steward of the unnameable, perhaps of an unknown Cyprian squirrel censoring Noah in his animals empowered to tell him about a magnificent episode.  Each species balancing its essence to make the most grandiloquent dossier in the world, to join them and value them towards the unknown peasant world. The big apple to go, with its tailcoat worms, well dressed and united by the march of the rock sentinel Evangelus. Kaitelca alpha and omega cetacean, fluffy with bast for all the most lost seas of the watery world. She so down cetacean, she throws herself into the sea in fears in this gloomy space, exhausted warehouse, lifesaver between lives of lives, like wishes without delay, to beat the divergent period, falling on the flat ceiling. Enter to sail through the mud of Iodine, of this great Parnassus of all iodine, the Messiah was squeezing his robe of love all over the upper margin of the face, Jesus light, loving great pilgrims who helped me to urbanize the skeleton of this great demolition, of a great geyser on its oceanic back, distributing gifts through the tangled brow of the Horcón and Cantillana massif.  Freshwater meringue, fluffy flowers, incense, fuchsias, and Calypso smoke migrating from house to house in Sudpichi.  Adelimpia, holding the cord of the axis of the fatigued planet, Queen Anne restored the acute respiratory meridians, which moved her heart from the sinister side encompassed, cursed globe moving to another galaxy towards its 9600 years of expansion. The stumbling of the sun's rays, crowded on the back of the Jacinta, which multiplied on her bank of meek ideas, to reside above all the assemblages of millions of benefits, since the world is an improper world. The world has no end, God is a beautiful mute world, where we make mistakes every day believing that we are ..., being less true. Rather, we are the waste of the almost noise that tried to leave us as a legacy of the first noise of creation that was felt wandering, perhaps it was its breathing, of its lipped wise crater, in the most irresistible protoforms, devoutly preparing turgid liquids for driving through every dinner, without stars tasting their multi-polygonal sandwiches. Memory is a raging waste, every time we try to get to lick his honey-like him, we run out of a famished minute of life not lived”

Says the spirit Leiak:

“Without a doubt, without drooling, without Buddha… the tendrils of the universe flamed, like rolling pickets within his hearing sea ear.  Striped with wounded marks in zigzag, by the middle row between the unarmed infidels.  Filled with the greatest amazement, massacred with laughter riddled with the non-shining meteor. From temple to temple, without Buddha close to him, he continues lost on the path of valleys among several, by the waves of chimneys like the snout of a mastiff with typhus, infected badly that detonates a thousand times, circular or macrocosmic chemistry in submissive grounds, to drink, where no one is wrong. Pendency of the lymphatic jellyfish, among the meek otolith of Kaitelka, almost deaf, of so many prayers of impious savages to hunt her ..., she continues begging for mercy as a species, she shakes and shakes as if eliminating the supposed flea jellyfish in whirlwinds of babies in her ears of children's stories. Anne came out of her basket as if she had been picked up from the Nile, but in reality, she was close to Chocalan, Popeta, or Polulo, lit up like coal from a steppe oven. I continued walking shirtless on an insomniac night, waiting in the decimals of the full moon, some indebted Solaris of the evangelist, in a space that slowly locked the crooked tongue of sleep, locked by the treacherous luck of doubt. Plague and doubt, plague and nail, which opens the vast sea, unsanitary radio, from the messianic ****** of the muses to Botticelli blaspheming. Anne, a diva of the division of past lives, does not die in misapplication against all odds like a thousand sperms of an ensign, making her stipends simple, to buy sensitive chaste little flowers in suitcases of her super-saucy folds ..., there is no probing look similar to the ocean Cousteau's journey, through which the lost retina drains, lies the selective gaze, covered by the Guardian, who looks before the denigrated sap unfolds, which wears away scarlet fever, the gaze of substance, in front of thousands of sayings, plagiarizing Tramontane rumors "

Queen Anne rolls up her sleeves, collects ashes from the ill-fated victims sifted, by the tobacco, a very good service from the fumes of venerable lost in disbelief, this painting becomes vague and with a sordid diametric image and silent cataclysm. The confine of evil godson in a duo and verse of the Universe, of the concrete displaced with pieces of the tobacco, has been spoiled. Joshua de Piedra with filings in his stomach was with hundreds of particles tickling the metaverse on the beards of extraterrestrial comets. Heaven and Hell, interrupted sleep, fatal nap, draconian wind, Ultrasensitive Glory of austere forces, as long as you are alive, you are prey to it. Ignorance continues to spend the night in the empty vapors of the valley of chaos, duels of masses of sleeping consciences underlying the erosive *****, Queen Anne, is gathered at a gallop by Joshua de Piedra, blindfolds him so that he does not numb more body incense and set on a spring flower. By the knees, they are incinerated, but sometimes they are half-burned, burning like incense with Joshua in reversible adulation, of the rawest exquisiteness of essence of escapes of blossoming in chains, with the drama of carcinoma petals in anti-carcinoma times and of eternal life external. At the Post Office, the postman envelopes the new vignettes, new gardens of relevant highlights. The friend Joshua links the trough of flames escaping from his domain, at a faster pace for other readings, varying in shreds of first-time, delineating, and walking breaths that are lost in the misty vividness.

Says Leiak: “After making a round, Adelimpia with Hugh and Bernardolipo, restart their adventure, almost at the top of the Horcondising massif, collecting riches from between stranded galleys, and vaults dragged by the cataclysm towards this consistent mountainous ..., The amounts of coins from different origins were countless, from all those wealthy who stole from all their belongings, the tainted and intrepid wisdom, getting rid of everything before confronting the thunderous flashes of the Guardian, to subtract intelligent action from the oppressive limit in maintaining the Gnostic parallel. Adelimpia saw how the thousands of nausea cleaned themselves, before liquids and gastric ills, of which they are the bad residences, deciding to die acidly or spiritually towards an alkaline light.  Karmic oppression, anhydrous bubbles, carbonating every breathing capsule of compassionate life. Every day there is more foul-smelling hunger in men of acid rust, for the good spirits of the dipsomaniac in the diet of the most lost undefeated blind, a universal record of walking impoverished at the end of his objectivity. Adelimpia…., And Carmina; maiden of the extravagant silence is linked to the ox Xenon, master of his pumpkin ox, collects bubbling fragments from their stomachs of acid and fragmented, with unfortunate applicants to obtain him, all of them exalted before his prayers, as well as that fleece that the other possessed ox; Cricket that was grazing in the radiant spaces of the grasslands, ruminating lost ties for the good of all and being able to observe in the distance going beyond all sensitive imagination, being me Leiak, the spirit of Vernarth who looks over where he does not it does, sometimes incomprehensibly because of its purging. "

Joshua de Piedra says: “Horcondising, land of Spa, of beautification to correct your beautiful osteological inhabitant, your beautiful pro-lieutenant inhabitant, I believed that wealth would flow from my hands to finance my own poverty. Horcondising, is my nurse Luz, tracing with her blood the route of the Talami reign, everything continues without direction, the lustrín lost his paste of ruby cream and powders, of the conductor who governs their destinies in my hands ..., and it is required. Horcondising, badly and fearfully I say genuflected, here are my riches, but I swear by the most sacred, that I never thought I was so poor at the same time, in the presence of the almighty. Karmic planet, you come like bread and honey from a dazzled bee, you come to fill us with light through the horns of the cat, mounted on the back of the rooster, mounted on the roan bovine. Horcondising ... What a memory! When I was running fast through good waters and Sudpichi, I saw in line some swindlers in uncertain Faith, loudly dismantling the stunning consciousness of possessing without letting those who do not have know, and what it is to lack, what is the love of the slightest doubled second, until it brings honey and milk to the mouth of the beggar and with new clothes, around the circular saffron, the light of isolation and God's judgment on Hommo Sapiens. Baba, Vrja Ananda, I know that to ascend you have to put clean, white clothes on the wind, lavender with druid purple and stuffed on the petioles that fell on the stumpy back of the little elephant. I never got tired, I always laughed and the manly wind stretched my cheeks of purple roses, to laugh at the feminine world like a new man being born from the darkness of loneliness, in a new man, with a new life, in a deranged valley of Solitude, gaseous, ulcerative and asphaltic soil, of Horcondising, in the blaze of a fierce virtuous lantern ..., lying with its lost light on the rich and poor, entangled in resin from a hopper and a villain with feet tired from walking. As immeasurable to act I continue, although there is too much, among which nothing was ever forbidden from an ominous advance. But more awaits me, whoever wants numb oppressive anti-libertarian oppression, I will continue to ruin myself after this world, in the jaws of the rogue armchair of emptiness, with strong and pious prayer, strong and pious karmic augury to ruin the ruffian, that he holds and looks at you like a kitchen log in his dispensary. Karma comes to without and are, with are without are, with dream sounds, hallucinated sounds to realize the truth of accuracy. I have no vocabulary when I am hungry or thirsty for Faith or equanimity, but rather, more than all the power of the high massif to fall on the despotic ripper and cutthroat, accursed beings of the night darkness! I decree worse evil than all the bad curses to which it provokes by a glance, and stuns you like an ant in the fragrant countryside. Karma, baba nam kevalam, anti-karmic, to anyone who doubles your life, to **** you more than three times, without falling into the arms of Forgione or a Buddhist Monk tired of getting tired, self-love and improper Karma from now on everyone and all who with their deeds and gaze invade them with disloyal flatteries and evils, the true triumph of Truth and Equality so that it is equal to all resigned, looking less like the worldly offering of goodness, but rather bad at last of counts. Francesco, are you coming right...? Here I wait for you, low-cut I will also get in line to be supplanted. My story will be vital and oppressive, full of capital, anti-charitable because I have never been able to understand it. I know that powerful affiliations will come, and I will be in your lap, and all those who process your consummation and death will fall, a bad omen of their whim like any piece. Force the spirit that outside is evil, always yours, Master...! I am going, I am going, each one who looks at me as his prey will have to govern and feed him, for better or for worse, and otherwise, I will be eternally burned along with all his progeny in the Horcondising. "


So Joshua spoke when making a wooden whistle. He cut his index finger with transparent grease, and saw a viscous bleeding liquid fall into the constant complaint, from each head of frustrated saboteurs, and mercilessly squandered by those who aim at you every day to finish you and beg your entire eternal psychic substance, without Numbers or paternal letters, Vernarth and the Hexagonal Birthright, attended with great enthusiasm this regression, knowing that he was in their nation and domains where their mythological beings accompanied them beyond all vision. They all remain normal; doing everyday things, but Vernarth's voice accompanied them from an altar in a vivid voice and with great clarity in the voice that expressed their pilgrimage.

Vernath says with an infernal tone: “The Horcondising rack runs out of people benches, to attend to their requests the sky has become convex and unattended, to walk down the fragile plateau crouching down, weightless trees rub their bruised roots on the scrubbed Living spirits over each parlor, each present master along with his present consort seemed like perfect strangers, each separated by name in their new and uncertain divided destiny. All by putting the hand where the ulcer makes intermittent unhealthy purulence, on whether we are and correspond what we are or those who manage to have in this twisted life without a surplus, and what would it be if we had surplus ...? Rows of speakers and auditors are compressed, trying to want to be understood, but the words are keys and conclaves of high architecture sifted, of the wild despair in which we are beasts escaping from an eternal safari of thunder and cannon, vaping fumaroles of ancestry and drinking Bourbon to the thunder of the steely ***** on the orphanage of looming. Here Fray Andresito unfolds his body, you know it here is…! Right here he aimed at the weakest, the strongest, perhaps being a slave. What a difficult word to define... This cell without adjoining limits, called Atman, or female soul engendering another female soul, in the arms of the sorcerer, whose packaging and the serial knot would be made by a novice, who did not know if it was tightly closed, so as not to know if it would be fine in the future and reopen it with light in Gandhi's eyes, or by a child in care appointments without his arms to approach his mother cradle, perhaps being ivy or algae that sway his breaths vain…, from the flickering of the dotted throbbing of the Sun in flight through the lost night of the altarpiece, putting silicone because it comes out of the picture. Today a being was born in the arms of the almighty, a being anointed in the placenta of golden liquid and augrum, filling everyone and everyone leaving them speechless… ”.

Its ancestry of eternal way comes from mutual funds, equivalent prices in promoting values, on falls and rises, in franc growth, and various financial statements to beat dividends. The lines of people obediently migrated to the Horcondising, they never thought that they would be a great family, all in chains of multicolored and endless shapes, all in the high mountain at more than three thousand meters, and no higher, because in this Age again life, I cannot count more than thousands, in which the hundreds stay up late every day on this streetcar called the alliance. Branches of salty puree and ammonite soups with coriander, in the transversal valleys, to the southeast, with verve envelopes and their large moral excess on their backs and their hope of leaving all their treasures on the sidelines, before entering the muddy showers. when swarming with turbulent regrets and losing all ego money, highlighting a new epidermis, with an unprotected but opulent soul. Each being devoid of the word and thought, was trans walking through the heavenly ranks, with buzzing in their hearing aids attenuated and a smelly shanghai screeching, nothing would be left to pour into the channels near the almighty, the one who picked them up from the ground satin in some small sulfur coins and bleeding hollow, nothing will charge to their accounts or in their excess pride, only white skin in dark skin, and dark turning to dawn gray dermis, for exclusiveness, only lost in the jungle of ignorance shipwrecked tundra. Grandmother Adelimpia cleaned with sweepers and pine feather dusters, wormwood trunk and molle, and with the ceiling. My Anne, swept the flat floor with her wedding dress, years ago seasoned ..., Hugh and Bernardolipo laced some wines pigeonholed in the devil's segment, so as not to lose track of the high hill, which could be seen falling on the witnesses of the fallen Calvary Before the world ends for many, but not for the Huasos. The auction continued; Anne still had an end-of-the-world fever, with so many degrees…. Don't worry Anne, a Mapu aboriginal boy; the one with the sinister ..., brings a good herb to improve you, it is said that he comes from less to more, with his face like a beautiful farm landscape, stream water that quiets fevers and ills of charm. Have faith, says the elder Sylph Angelita Huenuman, reborn to Anne…: “The bark of that oak will be demolished and crumbled to cover you from evil and worse evil charm. Tomorrow on the high snow-covered peak, sweet cakes will fall steamed with berries and flavored almonds in your Word, which always deserves to smile to the limit, you are the omega star stele that will know how to smile, you will see it just like your Joshua de Piedra; which is an eternal incense of ruse, you will be dressed as a coco channel between aromas of eternity like spring light and first communion, between your snowy new garland of sap and in which you are always like a web-footed dreamy bird, moving away from the Aculeo lagoon, away from the giant hermit emerging from a nucleus of water and its pool, sobbing on each step of lake light of ascending sketch and of a lagoon avoiding new despised damage "

Miss Haversham has shaken
off the cobwebs and the deadly dust.
tore down the tattered curtains
moth-eaten and frayed
She’s flung open the windows
thrown away the detritus of decay
into the path of passing winds
napery tossed down to the garden.
Even the mice have run for cover
as she tears off the raggedy sheds
of stained satin and be-ribboned lace.

She stands naked in the barren room
Estella has prepared a soothing bath
perfumed rich with oils and fragrant attars
to steal the acris stench of unwashed years
coaxing the arid brittle crust away
saving the soft delicate skin beneath
viciousness, sloughed smooth
and vengeful purpose passes.

She is reborn a Botticelli Venus
standing in an open shell
long hair shining and wrapping around
her creamy skin, voluptuous
curvaceous, slippery with life
newborn yet wiser for the years
of reflection, ready to deflect
romantic nonsense and live
free and breathe again.

© M.L.Emmett

I didn't have the right shirt on so she sent me home to change into something more appropriate because the people throwing the party were a little bit more than just well-to-do and I did because I generally don't like to argue but my second choice was no better than the first so I left again and then once more until she was exasperated enough to let my apparel go even though I was still less than presentable and I followed her through room after cavernous room adorned with Botticelli and Goncharova, way too expensive furniture, cutting edge electronics wired to speakers that screamed "nah nah na nah nah to ground trembling base until finally we emptied out  into acres and acres of back yard where there were scores of people milling about and a pet killer whale swimming around that would occasionally rise up out of the water to splash guests to their amusement, sometimes grabbing one of them by the leg or arm and gently pulling them down to the bottom before releasing them and back up they would come to break the water gasping and giggling which tickled those wandering about but I didn't get what was so funny at all so my face was that of consternation which in hindsight might have been that last straw because she was looking at me, not with the smile she once had of someone completely enamored and enthralled but instead, her countenance was that of someone entirely perturbed and she certainly was with my ****-poor etiquette, lack of insight and my rather limited wardrobe and it was just then that that whale rose up and crashed down again sending a massive wave that totally enveloped us making me realize in an instant that she might have been right about my shirt, for mine was made of silk and certainly it would have been better to be sporting nylon or rayon or,  at least,  something as wrinkle resistant as polyester for she still looked quite perfect smiling back plastic at the raucousness of those watching and I knew then that I wouldn't be seeing these people at the next big party which weighed on me more heavy than that wet shirt and the loss of her crushed me more than if that mighty mammal had landed on my chest but, oddly enough,  when I awoke from that dream, it was with a lightness of relief finding myself lucid again in a world for which I am far better suited.

He makes me feel beautiful. Not Vogue beautiful that can be washed away with soap and water. No, he makes me feel Botticelli angel beautiful. Venus de Milo. Starry Night... He makes me feel like art in his private gallery. He looks at me with all the wonder and amazement children have before the world turns them cold. I am a fairy tale and all his wishes come true. A fine wine to be savored; taking in all my subtle notes with each sip his eyes take of me...

your hair
reminds me
of a storm
in Ireland

you face
reminds me
of Botticelli's
Venus

Your eyes
remind me
of unsolved
mysteries

Your lips
remind me
of stolen
kisses

Your smile
reminds me
I am still
alive

~mce

He had been working for days
A simple man
With rough hands
An eye for beauty that rivaled
Botticelli's
Dukes and Duchesses had paid well
For flattering statuary that would
Live on in granite repose
Chisel and hammer tapped away
Sweat poring his brow
He worked in silence
Though the square below him
Played the symphony of daily life
It was his hands that listened for him
He may have been born deaf but cherished he was
Treasured
By a woman who could have no more
God's gift she had prayed for
Then thanked for every day after
He knew the story
Lived her gratitude
As he finished the final curve
Placing tools on the side table
He stood back to survey his work
Realizing it was his greatest piece yet
For it was the brightest memory
Of his mother
In her face he saw God's grace

Queen,
I am.
My crown may not adorned with the largest sapphires and the most sparkling diamonds
Silver or gold or rose or platinum
Crookedly a top my head
It may possess bumps and caverns, the ones in my road
No Michelangelo and no Botticelli
Just essentially me, melted down by fire and molded by ambition and brain.
You may doubt and question,
Resurrection of the inquisition
(Do we sit under the Barcelona sky?)
But under the eyes of your God,
I am truthful always
To myself.
a broken promise is a crack in the earth so please keep your feet
Because I promise you
I am a queen and I bow
To nothing
But what I wish

.I: the minotaur teased at the labyrinth and the tornado

i was readying myself to keep these words stashed
long enough for the drawer to be overflowing with them,
i waited for the closet to grit teeth and give
birth to a skeleton - i waited and waited and i felt
like being a dam no more -
i wanted to keep the waters like i might keep
a foetus - but of man and pregnancy -
only a tapeworm at the end of this alley of wishing...
after all... what is a the umbilical chord without
a mouth - what is a tapeworm this hyper-reality
of scientific synonyms...
                              i wanted to write a few, a words...
like i might be a tourist in Dublin... mouth made into...
gob gloryhole having my teeth removed...
some sand poured into a sock the sock shoved into
the abyss whenever some ref. to Joyce might be noted...
ah yes... succinct beauty in words....
never that rambling narrative...
space!
                               cascading words... and...
better no myopia... reading congested paragraphs
of Kafka...
it will be duly noted later...
                    a short poem about...
drinking 13: hop house lager... and a diet of bushmills...
making it up to 12 units per night...
and the full dosage of amytryptyline 25mg and
250mg of naproxen...
   and saying: better finding the dead...
the gun club - jeffrey lee pierce...
                   and just drinking... putting on the radio
and no longer... foraging for the d.j. headset...
as ever... sticking to new rules... nothing posted...
social media "grit"... attention ******* -
like counting falling stars of a niche viewing...
or some other grand muddle of things...
as i once told the doctor:
there was once a "carpe diem" narrative lodged
in my head...
there was the squirrel impetus for thoughts
the nuts that would become an entire tree and a day...
now? only shrapnel... riding the betting beast
of day-by-decay-by-day...
               if attempting to cook with hops...
i'd recommend sticking to hop lager...
stay away from the ale... stay away from the ale...
ale overpowers... with the hops...
i love hops more than i might ever love chocolate...
i love hops more than i might ever love chocolate...
but not when it's an indian pale ale...
it has to be a hop feast of a mr. guinness' lager...
and next to his stout... there's no other beer on
these isles i would be found drinking...
you learn to talk by talking...
you learn to walk by walking...
you learn to write by keeping your mouth shut...
keen eye - one eye blind...
as i have been...
walking under a constellation -
i call it scorpio or rather...
the exfoliating-צ (tsade) - and so too up-side down...
i too might have mistook the constellation
as... ayin (ע) but there's a spine to this up-side down
letter...
they dare not say the word: n•••••
but dare to say the name of the name:
ha-shem: tetragrammaton - as easily as the fizzy
fizzling out to a stalemate of jesus: hey'zeus!
just saying: there's not a kippah on me or a snippet
of ******* to be made into an earring "missing"...
i have no gamble in this...
perhaps... this is farewell poetry...
the adieu poetry of: what began with Casimir III
when the YIDS were given asylum in the north...
this musst be farewell poetry...

i never liked the word: jew... and yew: well...
that's a tree... well: to borrow from the ******* german
of the hebrew slang...
yiddish... and ergo... you have the yids...
which i find a more pleasing word to hear...
after all: a jew sounds a menace when...
compared to dew: due...   a matter of:
do i mind the sound of fork on porcelain?
do i mind the sound of nail on a blackboard?

how i once complained: the english and
their cats and kettles...
                                  and then... their cysts...
the greeks and their omicron and omega...
their (F) twins: theta and phi...
of course... no diacritical marks were harmed
in the process: since none were used!
what's not to like about 'ebrew and their
   two vowels that act as consonants
(ע) ayin and aleph (א) -
even if the argument stands:
the letters have a name, unique...
but we use the first letter of their name...
the prefix A- and discard the rest...
have i ever mentioned the minor a in 'ebrew...
the kametz? oh yes... there are five minor vowels...
well... there's only one minor vowel the 'a'...
given ayin and aleph...
the rest remain in the sheol of diacritical
marks... yes: left to right
               (ש)(ל)
                            indeed: where is tzere (e) and
cholem (o)?
         me too... can't see them...
because... they're not there...
just like a spanish... abajeño - abahenyo...
acompañada - (panyada)...
          there i see the equivalent of the hebrew vowels
in that halo and pentagram...
not in latin, in greek... the rubric...
A)lpha - a...
B)eta - b
G)amma - g
D)elta - d...         the prefix rule of letters
having names...
exceptions? a bit like roman numerals...
6,6,6    - X)i - 600 (χ)
            - Ξ)ι - 60 (ξ)
            - Σ(igma - the exception -
then again... a cardinal number...
             -    6 (ς') and that's always written
with an apostrophe...
akin to how... braille numbers are
                                         prefixed with ⠼

          why not expect the same prefix rules to apply
to hebrew?
    after all (א)lef ≠ (ל)ef
                          given (ל)amed
                otherwise... (ב)et, (ג)imel, (ד)alet,
                  and how did the other "adam"
get tangled up?
        well... he became tangled as a suffix...
                  of (ז)ayin... hitting the snoozzzzzze
button...  (L, B, G, D) respectively
                      and... (ע)yin ≠ (י)in
                                                        given... (י)od
           so much for pandering - cucking out...
                                      while... comparing the name of
the name within the name: ha-shem tetragrammaton
Æ: adam ******* eve...
but a minor "threat"!

II: change of pace

there had to come about a change of pace -
no point drowning in the fast paced logistics
of reacting to almost every opinion -
what words to describe drinking and sitting
these videos - a silent masochsim of sorts...

that and the cheap *****... waking up stinking
of ferret / cats' **** - which:
is what you end up perfumed as...
esp. after calling beer: the gods' ... same old...

one can simply tire of going to bed at 5am
with not much and still: not really admiring the sunrise
come the right month...
i won't even publish this now...
i'll publish it tomorrow...
why? it's a very niche observation...

******* until you're running on empty...
at least to imagine ******* is better than seeing
what i sometimes see...
imagine a sausage factor harem...
and picasso and dali contortions of flesh to boot...
imagine a human centipede...
i can't imagine a need to fall to sleep
fully celibate and "pure"...
unlucky me that i have to manually dispose
of the ***** that's not going to be used
for an egg... unlike a woman who does so...
automatically...
i have to manually dispose of the ***** that's
not going to be used...
otherwise: sperma ut caput!
         i'm empty down below... i'm somewhat
empty in the middle - the heart beats
but is numb - i'll go down and forrage
for a snack after the dosages are complete
after an hour's worth of toil...
then i'll bumilia it out the old fashioned
way... ticking the uvula and the third tonsil
with an index and *******...
till i feel a pinch between my **** and my
*****... that slit of skin that would sometimes
be called: how the coccyx was formed
from the scolded dog's tail...

and of course turn on fama.radio.pl -
between 10pm GMT and 6am GMT...
i don't mind the music they're playing -
when i'm aiming for a KO when it comes to getting
a 6h shift in the land of Nod...
i'm not going to play the pretentious high fidelity
d.j.            (either)...

i could be sitting up with these content
creators... by the way... since i leave no comments
on these type of videos...
having read the blood sports the beefeaters
and meathead bashing in general for the crab crown...
for an up-vote...
a commentary of "concerns"...

i could be doing that and waiting for a blitzkrieg
blah blah i'm usually prone to...
but...
there is an alternative... the radio.fama.pl alternative
of autopilot d.j. and no adverts...
rare footage of me choosing to sleep on
the other side of the bed...
for over 3 years i've only been sleeping on
one side of the bed... but the bed is made for two...
and through the radio and in between
twilight and deep nox "consciousness"
of still hearing the music, feeling myself breath...
the voice as if saying:
now i know what it feels like to sleep
with you: on the other side of the bed...

and other lyrics flooded my head -
each song became a solipsistic advent of only me...
nearing deep sleep or...
that period of the throes...
but i hardly death is knowing -
just somehow "me" telling: fall into the body...
turn the lights off...

i could waste my time with cheap *****
on all these people are are alive...
bogus alive... clickbait alive... video alive...
not exactly blockbuster friendly...
sure... competing with news channels...
but... these are not the good old blockbuster days
of VIDEO...
competing on the medium of opinions...
i binged on that...
but then i had a moment of revelation...
try looking for the dead...
drinking better alcohol...

so i came across the gun club -
notably jeffrey lee pierce - well... he's no bono...
or a kurt cobain... and even if he wanted
to be a chris isaacs... it doesn't matter...
i'll be in bed before midnight...
and all i will have accumulated...
no - no liter of cheap whiskey...
no 4 cheap 8% iders and roughly 35cl of
co-op brand whiskey...
i will have drunk...
what's better than an IPA?
what isn't better than budweiser? the HOPS!
the HOPS! but what's better than
an indian pale ale?

              a HOP HOUSE LAGER...
because you have more of the carbon dioxide...
and less of the staleness of an ale...
because it's a lager...
and... unless you're asking for...
a guinness... there's no better hop lager
than 13... which... is again a guinness...
every bottle every story...
i won't ditto what the bottle reads...

so i'll be drinking two bottles of that...
and... 5cl + 5cl.... let's say... roughly 150ml
of... BUSHMILLS irish whiskey...
yes... come to think of it...
who brews the best lager on these isles?
the irish do...
and who brews the best whiskey
on these isles? the irish do...
that's settle... i will write this before i take
to nod... but i will not...
imagine going to sleep with someone's
eyes prying in on this...
it would be like bedding something
worse than a ghost...
a voyeuristic c.c.t.v. mob-machine
i need my sleep - the reactions are not necessary...
lazily done in the day...
and i'll have forogtten about it...
occupying myself with... trying to remember
a word in braille... or something...
like making silesian dumplings...

it doesn't matter... niche writer for a niche
readership... let's not get too excited;
i'm not going to **** for a viral video
or a viral tweet or etc.

a youtube algorithm can still be found – from the good old days –
compliments: the gun club, mother of earth
followed by… the black angels, young men dead…
and if supposed to feel, less “puritanical” about *******,
while the girl has her ***** at the ready and a video-cam
broadcast… the cure’s album ******* while
watching a sasha foxx  VICE documentary…
before setting on… doing it over still photos imagining…
well… a crude Botticelli… visceral Matisse…
when Lucian Freud met up with Egon Schiele…

just empty empty before a good night’s and 7am beginning
of tomorrow’s borrowed time.

III: revelation 1:0 on the River Niger

i'll be very sensible for for little piece of trash -
i just hope it's worse than a column from
some tabloid newspaper!

honestly... i will bring out all the "self-cencorship"
sensibilities for this one...
it feels that the need has to be fed...

but... i'm sorry that you will not see
it as bi••er - you will see 2 bulls...
and the 2 hexes: &#x2022...

  or you would see motherf•••••...
then again: ck is not an acronym for calvin klein...
nor would it be a... crawling fahrenheit...

not even a Σ(νιγγερ) helps...
and because of all of that... you are ready
to watch pornographic material
and whatever floats your boat over on
rotten.com -

back in the day - we the first explorers
would come across such sites without any parental
control...
but i figured... if everyone is having
a hot day over a sour toothache bound
to the crunch of a pickle...

but if Σ(νιγγερ) is already crossing the deathpit
of sjw wrath...
either you, or i, do not deserve to see greek...
let's see who's ⠎⠝⠊⠛⠛⠑⠗⠊⠝⠛ in the dark then...
will you pluck out my eyes...
or will i pluck your eyes out?
or perhaps: you pluck your eyes
out and i'll just cut-out my tongue, how's that?

- i'll be honest... i'm not even going to compete
with will alexander's enclyclopedia lexicon...
and it's not like i have some...
repressed tauret's syndrome to boot...

   (tokens! tokens! tokens! they say...)

but i figured: you know...
i can listen to patti smith and her rock & roll
'igger...
              but because patti smith can...
doesn't mean that american head charge
can cover it...

but i did come back disappointed when
i put on... Grachan Moncur III's 1963 debut...
the çymbals got to me...
avant-garde jazz... it's no acid jazz...
and there i was thinking that
"too much" of alt-sax is bad enough...
                 not even i can stomach Mahler...
unless i want to self-harm...
holding a cat in my hands...
who's nails have not been clipped
imitating a sufi dervish while Mahler
is playing with the cat in my hands...
i'm terrible at such times...
when it comes to blinking with my eyes...
for fear? for fear of them being gauged
out by the cat... i prefer the scratches
on my hands...

     why would an östlichmann
why would an østligmann come to these isles
and no see a K in plain sight of (Plaid) Cymru?
why not immediately see:
Cornwall - as south Wales?
instead... he comes and attaches a tail...
calls it...                Çyrmru....

why oh why... perhaps because...
the word for dragon... for the östlichmann...
is... smok... the flag does the duty of:
in plain sight...

because there's a revelation at the end of this...
just today i thought: there are non-negotiable
historical events...
i was wrong... notably because of the holocaust
deniers...
you might think that some events in history
are non-negotiable...
i would think some things in life are tinged
with: non-negotiable standards of moving
forward...
                    
but if there's a word that one black man can slander
another black man...
because... whatever the etymology...
someone giggling on the River Niger...
or someone giggling in Nigeria...
the time in nigh... a sigh prior to the gig of giggles...
i get it...

but if a black man can have his own term...
to call another black man with a wink of...
ridicule... then as one: this being black on white...
i should have my word too...
and that's without a screetching mob of leftist
propaganda tools...
or whatever you want to call "them"...

now the eyes can be flooded with all the *****
films and all the masterchef episodes of
how the chinese prepare streetfood...
how a dog has to be beaten dead...
so it will taste more tender...
no... the actual cuts of meat of the dog
are not cured... made tender while the animal
is dead... the animal has to die by:
a softening of a good beating...
some would say that...
europeans didn't become wholly barbaric...
and changed their ways...
because... in them... there was something
of an animal-lover... a safety-net...

             but if a black man can call another black
man a n••••• in a rap song...
it came... via a song by m.d.c. (millions of dead
cops) - john wayne was a... n•••...
communist is dry... although some in the former
eastern bloc would find that offensive...
offensive enough to not speak an apology
to a fellow family member and vice versus
with regards to a papist and born again catholic...
etc. (born again under communism)...
and take that apology / non-apology to the grave
or otherwise stand over the grave and say:
and where was god for you, papist...
as he is for me, your supposed "communist"
brother-in-law? now standing over your grave?

a ****** revelation... come to think of it...
it will never catch on...
if a black man can call another black man a née-ni-ni...
i should be able to call another pig in blanket
a na-na-na...
but no... it will never catch on...

IV: No brainer brain-dead hard-on

i just have come to expect anything
by the standards "western chauvanism":
the world is no privy over my output
come a certain hour...
11pm is the cut-off point...

everytime they mention "eastern european" -
eastern... as in... 1 hour ahead of
gmt?
not the sort of sodden bed-fellows just
30 years ago... and the whole death of communism
bonanza of the early 90s dried up...
"our" women were just "your" women...

clearly: the **** of the sabine women
turned out to be: the revenge of the sons...
or... how the mothers would play off...
the daughters and the sons of the rapists...
against them... if not first generation...
then at least one... down the line...

accents accents... spoken by people with
no diacritical markers...
today i visited a vet... with two cats...
he still spoke of Velencia as if there
was a Greek phi or theta lodged in his teeth...
not a whisper... not a lisp...
an F where a C is embedded into text...

the world is not welcome after 11pm...
therefore this will remain a draft...
until tomorrow, or maybe not tomorrow...
i want to have a good night's sleep...
i'll be waking up at 10 to 7 in the morning
in order to properly shuffle my feet...
and... catch-my-shadow-off-guard...
because i will not be boxing the alpha-to-beta
alphabet of ontology with regards to
man- and -hood...
as one might... at least the circumcised
yids don't gloat...
about their circumcision...
no waving the h'american flag as there's
no waving of the kippah...
or throwing a kippah like a mortarboard
upon a high-school graduation...

does exactly what it says on the tin:
you already did your college graduation early...
*******... tool...
i still need my "beauty" sleep...
no output after hours...
like those laws in germany...
no work related phones, text or emails
after 5pm...
none! no obligation to reply!

england... the country of workoholics...
pish-poor russian alcholism does not
compensate... and that's really stretching
the sterotype canvas...

all i have to do, is think of tomorrow...
and how... i'll suddenly be thrown into
my neighbour's house... the eddie gain no more
to let the dog out...
albeit... there's no immaculate locked-off
room where the mother slept...
even by "western" standards...
they're not quiet sure what to make of me...
a doctor needs an assistant when he "tries"
to help me...
whenever solipsism is mentioned as a cipher...
a cipher is given because:
something needs to be deciphered...

now i'm writing for the drawer... the shelf...
the closet... the skeleton...
it's not much of an "in-crowd" to begin with...
the goalposts keep changing...
once it was a turkish kebab...
soon it was the curry... then the persian sour
grapes... then came the sushi...
then some chinese noodle soup...
sooner or later a pizza sputnik...
old rivals... but i'm not money...
i need to sleep...

p.s. and as much of this last "verse": poo'etics...
is anger: grrrr gritty and how much of
it is a response to niche comedy?
the in-club the breakfast club...
the pandering to the rubber-ears?
        the regurgitated - well once upon a time
they would meet in secret...
but now... they meet in the open...
and anyone can just... sift themselves in...

and this whole... identifying the periphery
of western culture... in eastern europe...
no... not in greece... or the balkans...
eastern europe...
from under the iron curtain... immediately
shoved under a silicon veil...
change of masters...
once a satellite state of the soviets...
warsaw pact blah blah... now...
the leftovers from: and what if the mongols
and the ottomans just... walked all over us...
why didn't ****** start digging the EUROTUNNEL
instead having that hard-on for the luftwaffe?!
thought like an elf...
or... ang...         never took notice of any dwarfish
grit... hey! daydreaming....
fifty shades of black vs. 50 shades of bleach...
there's the cinnamon man,
the chocolate man...
the star anise man... the oak man...
the auburn autumn man...
there's all that:
                 − · 
                 · · 
                 − − · 
                 − − · 
                 · 
                 · − ·             since i'm the ham man...
the piglet pink ms. cuck...
   no... for anyone who goes blind later in life...
i don't see the point of braille...
morse-braille yes... you need tender fingers
to read braille, ergo: you can't even learn
to play the guitar... perhaps piano...
               coco? 'coz' what?
                          i'm a... *******                − · 
                                                                    · −
                                                                    − − · · 
                                                                    · · 
an NZ (נ)(ז)... yes yes... a new... zealander...
which is the hook bait... and sinker...
for that alt. r.e.m. song...
the one that goes... shiny happy pep... pep...
trigger happy woke zombie b-listers...
     there's a name for almost anything in this
shitshow of what a Hamleys Regent St....
boutique of toys would look like...
when you used to play with toys like a puppeteer...
aye'up! as they say in york-shyre.

TN 2008

There is a girl in my cabin.
She sits on my 70s brown, velour
*****-couch with her long legs
tucked beneath her
like folded promises.
She wears nothing but a pair
of wool socks and an old, flannel
shirt of mine.  The wood fire blazes.
Her honest blond hair
cascades to the small of her lovely back.
Her skin is the flawless pink
of an unexpected spring sunrise.
Her eyes are emeralds that blaze
like novas when we make love.
Botticelli might have painted her.
I am reading Harrison to her aloud.
She imbibes his words like a toddler
learning language for the first time.
I light her cigarette and she laughs,
radiating the shameless pleasure
only the very young experience.
She expects nothing of me,
but this one evening,
and that is all she will get.
She tells me her name;
she is all of twenty-one.
Perhaps I am a ***** old man;
perhaps I am incorrigible;
perhaps I will burn in Hell;
perhaps I am a casualty of Eros;
or, perhaps, I am simply
still alive.
- mce

If you were Any Other Girl......
I wouldn't be writing this

If you were Any Other Grl......
All of these thoughts that stumble around my head like drunk men trying to find their way home wouldn't exist
And I say drunk men because it's easy to understand sober men
Yet these thoughts seem inexplicably intricate....

If you were Any Other Girl......
I'd be able to decipher all of these emotions and realize that after seven drafts of a poem I should probably give up on trying to explain that if I could I would nail my hands to the very stars themself if only it would give me a tongue crafted of pure gold....
Maybe then I'd be able to explain to every passing stranger how I can see a masterpiece in your very smile

If you were Any Other Girl.....
I wouldn't stumble over wanting to kiss you

If you were Any Other Girl.....
I wouldn't want to brush your hair back slowly, acting like a walking cliché in the desperate hope that your smile would inject my pitiful heart with enough courage to lean in and just be close to you

If you were Any Other Girl....
I would have kissed you a hundred times over

But you see the truth is that......
You're not Any Other Girl
You're gorgeous
Your smile seeps into me like water soaks into the parched land and gives it new life
Your hair seems to have a life of its own and I can't help but think that if you were Medusa's daughter, being turned into stone would be worth it because the last thing imprinted on my vision would be a walking artwork
And what I want you to know is that when you smile I feel the precious bud of bravery blossom within my chest
And I manage to convince myself that I will kiss the most beautiful girl I've ever had the privilege of knowing
Yet when confronted with a face as pure as a Mondrian painting
And more beautiful than a Vermeer or a Botticelli
Massive waves seem to form over me and I stand beneath behemoths of beauty and I laugh.....as these waves crash over me
My inconsequential bravery is washed away in the face of your beauty as I realize for the first time that this girl is....... worth the frustration
She is worth the wait
Worth the energy
Worth the embarrassment of letting an awkard attempt at a kiss melt into a more awkward hug....
But the simple truth is.....
You are not Any Other girl
You.
Are.
Worth.
The.
Journey.
And I can not wait to savour as much of it as I can with you

Jacques de Rouge

The wandering pilgrim

Of poetic seekings

Drifted away once again

Oppose the Homeland Paris

And into the Heart of Italy

Known for many feats

Though,

One was in particular

Unmistakable

It is the City of Dante



Firenze, in a frenzy

Have manifested itself

In the Golden Light

Of heavenly stars to be

Alive with all characters

Past and passed.

Opening wide behind

Lorenzo Ghiberti’s

The Gates of Paradise

Dante himself emerged

From the centre

Of the Florence Baptistery

And ascended toward the light

The opening of Hope and Stars

Among the rings of Heaven

Jacques de Rouge followed,

In pursuit.

And kneeled before him,

As Dante stopped and stood

With the Eagle!

In Piazza di Santa Croce.



When Jacques de Rouge stood

In a shadow at Palazzo Vecchio

The shadow revolved like

Da Vinci’s Helicopter

With what seemed like

A bulging knot at the end.

Barely missed his head

Jacques de Rouge

Realized the swings

Were from the slingshot

Of none other than

That of the one masculinity

Of all masculinity

Michelangelo's David.



His marble complexion transformed

Almost ever so light and faintly

Into a smooth and pale flesh.

Jacques cast his eyes down

In an unavoidable instinct of shame.

When he looked up, the flesh

Is now a single dangling foot

Seconds from stepping into

The Niche of Orsanmichele

And approaching his beloved Christ.

Amen, and he proceeded.

Discreetly into the Secrets of Sandro Botticelli,

That which is secured marvelously

As the Standing Monument of

Giotto’s Bell Tower

And

Brunelleschi's Dome.



The Three Graces danced

The Venus stood in the classical position.

And one woman looked wearily at Jacques

Staring into his eyes.

And yes, Heaven it was.

As Jacques stood in the illusion of the weightless contrapposto.