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

(poems from the Chinese translated by Arthur Waley)

Last night the clouds scattered away;
A thousand leagues, the same moonlight scene.
When dawn came, I dreamt I saw your face;
It must have been that you were thinking of me.
In my dream, I thought I held your hand
And asked you to tell me what your thoughts were.
And you said: ‘I miss you bitterly . . . “

As Helen drifted into sleep the source of that imagined voice in her last conscious moment was waking several hundred miles away. For so long now she was his first and only waking thought. He stretched his hand out to touch her side with his fingertips, not a touch more the lightest brush: he did not wish to wake her. But she was elsewhere. He was alone. His imagination had to bring her to him instead. Sometimes she was so vivid a thought, a presence more like, that he felt her body surround him, her hand stroke the back of his neck, her ******* fall and spread against his chest, her breath kiss his nose and cheek. He felt conscious he had yet to shave, conscious his rough face should not touch her delicate freckled complexion . . . but he was alone and his body ached for her.

It was always like this when they were apart, and particularly so when she was away from home and full to the brim with the variously rich activities and opportunities that made up her life. He knew she might think of him, but there was this feeling he was missing a part of her living he would never see or know. True, she would speak to him on the phone, but sadly he still longed to read her once bright descriptions that had in the past enabled him to enter her solo experiences in a way no image seemed to allow. But he had resolved to put such possible gifts to one side. So instead he would invent such descriptions himself: a good, if time-consuming compromise. He would give himself an hour at his desk; an hour, had he been with her, they might have spent in each other’s arms welcoming the day with such a love-making he could hardly bare to think about: it was always, always more wonderful than he could possibly have imagined.

He had been at a concert the previous evening. He’d taken the train to a nearby town and chosen to hear just one work in the second part. Before the interval there had been a strange confection of Bernstein, Vaughan-Williams and Saint-Saens. He had preferred to listen to *The Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz. There was something a little special about attending a concert to hear a single work. You could properly prepare yourself for the experience and take away a clear memory of the music. He had read the score on the train journey, a journey across a once industrial and mining heartland that had become an abandoned wasteland: a river and canal running in tandem, a vast but empty marshalling yard, acres of water-filled gravel pits, factory and mill buildings standing empty and in decay. On this early evening of a thoroughly wet and cold June day he would lift his gaze to the window to observe this sad landscape shrouded in a grey mist tinted with mottled green.

Andrew often considered Berlioz a kind of fellow-traveller on his life’s journey of music. Berlioz too had been a guitarist in his teenage years and had been largely self-taught as a composer. He had been an innovator in his use of the orchestra and developed a body of work that closely mirrored the literature and political mores of his time.  The Symphonie Fantastique was the ultimate love letter: to the adorable Harriet Smithson, the Irish actress. Berlioz had seen her play Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (see above) and immediately imagined her as his muse and life’s partner. He wrote hundreds of letters to her before eventually meeting her to declare his love and admiration in person. A friend took her to hear the Symphonie after it had got about that this radical work was dedicated to her. She was appalled! But, when Berlioz wrote Lélio or The Return to Life, a kind of sequel to his Symphonie, she relented and agreed to meet him. They married in 1833 but parted after a tempestuous seven years. It had surprised Andrew to discover Lélio, about which, until quite recently, he had known nothing. The Berlioz scholar David Cairns had written fully and quite lovingly about the composition, but reading the synopsis in Wikipedia he began to understand it might be a trifle embarrassing to present in a concert.

The programme of Lélio describes the artist wakening from these dreams, musing on Shakespeare, his sad life, and not having a woman. He decides that if he can't put this unrequited love out of his head, he will immerse himself in music. He then leads an orchestra to a successful performance of one of his new compositions and the story ends peacefully.

Lélio consists of six musical pieces presented by an actor who stands on stage in front of a curtain concealing the orchestra. The actor's dramatic monologues explain the meaning of the music in the life of the artist. The work begins and ends with the idée fixe theme, linking Lélio to Symphonie fantastique.

Thoughts of the lovely Harriet brought him to thoughts of his own muse, far away. He had written so many letters to his muse, and now he wrote her little stories instead, often imagining moments in their still separate lives. He had written music for her and about her – a Quintet for piano and winds (after Mozart) based on a poem he’d written about a languorous summer afternoon beside a river in the Yorkshire Dales; a book of songs called Pleasing Myself (his first venture into setting his own words). Strangely enough he had read through those very songs just the other day. How they captured the onset of both his regard and his passion for her! He had written poetic words in her voice, and for her clear voice to sing:

As the light dies
I pace the field edge
to the square pond
enclosed, hedged and treed.
The water,
once revealed,
lies cold
in the still air.

At its bank,
solitary,
I let my thoughts of you
float on the surface.
And like two boats
moored abreast
at the season’s end,
our reflections merge
in one dark form.

His words he felt were true to the model of the Chinese poetry he had loved as a teenager, verse that had helped him fashion his fledgling thoughts in music.

And so it was that while she dined brightly with her team in a Devon country pub, he sat alone in a town hall in West Yorkshire listening to Berlioz’ autobiographical and unrequited work.

A young musician of extraordinary sensibility and abundant imagination, in the depths of despair because of hopeless love, has poisoned himself with *****. The drug is too feeble to **** him but plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by weird visions. His sensations, emotions, and memories, as they pass through his affected mind, are transformed into musical images and ideas. The beloved one herself becomes to him a melody, a recurrent theme [idée fixe] which haunts him continually.

Yes, he could identify with some of that. Reading Berlioz’ own programme note in the orchestral score he remembered the disabling effect of his first love, a slight girl with long hair tied with a simple white scarf. Then he thought of what he knew would be his last love, his only and forever love when he had talked to her, interrupting her concentration, in a college workshop. She had politely dealt with his innocent questions and then, looking at the clock told him she ‘had to get on’. It was only later – as he sat outside in the university gardens - that he realized the affect that brief encounter might have on him. It was as though in those brief minutes he knew nothing of her, but also everything he ever needed to know. Strange how the images of that meeting, the sound of her voice haunted him, would appear unbidden - until two months later a chance meeting in a corridor had jolted him into her presence again  . . . and for always he hoped.

After the music had finished he had remained in the auditorium as the rather slight audience took their leave. The resonance of the music seemed to be a still presence and he had there and then scanned back and forward through the music’s memory. The piece had cheered him, given him a little hope against the prevailing difficulties and problems of his own musical creativity, the long, often empty hours at his desk. He was in a quiet despair about his current work, about his current life if he was honest. He wondered at the way Berlioz’ musical material seemed of such a piece with its orchestration. The conception of the music itself was full of rough edges; it had none of that exemplary finish of a Beethoven symphony so finely chiseled to perfection.  Berlioz’ Symphonie contained inspired and trite elements side by side, bar beside bar. It missed that wholeness Beethoven achieved with his carefully honed and positioned harmonic structures, his relentless editing and rewriting. With Berlioz you reckoned he trusted himself to let what was in his imagination flow onto the page unhindered by technical issues. Andrew had experienced that occasionally, and looking at his past pieces, was often amazed that such music could be, and was, his alone.

Returning to his studio there was a brief text from his muse. He was tempted to phone her. But it was late and he thought she might already be asleep. He sat for a while and imagined her at dinner with the team, more relaxed now than previously. Tired from a long day of looking and talking and thinking and planning and imagining (herself in the near future), she had worn her almost vintage dress and the bright, bright smile with her diligent self-possessed manner. And taking it (the smile) into her hotel bedroom, closing the door on her public self, she had folded it carefully on the chair with her clothes - to be bright and bright for her colleagues at breakfast next day and beyond. She undressed and sitting on the bed in her pajamas imagined for a brief moment being folded in his arms, being gently kissed goodnight. Too tired to read, she brought herself to bed with a mental list of all the things she must and would do in the morning time and when she got home – and slept.

*They came and told me a messenger from Shang-chou
Had brought a letter, - a simple scroll from you!
Up from my pillow I suddenly sprang out of bed,
And threw on my clothes, all topsy-turvey.
I undid the knot and saw the letter within:
A single sheet with thirteen lines of writing.
At the top it told the sorrows of an exile’s heart;
At the bottom it described the pains of separation.
The sorrows and pains took up so much space
There was no room to talk about the weather!

Faces are recreated on a piece of paper,
Words copied from my mind and saved for later.

Cause the windows of my mind are my eyes,
And the view is not something I've improvised.

I'm just enjoying being a passenger with such potential,
Getting inspired by the events even if not sequential.

And in turn art is a part of me, woven so beautifully,
That I use the colors of Twilight, waves and trees.

I'm trying to savor the universe so that it never runs out,
I've turned its essence into more shades of pastels than I can count.

I've written its stories in the memories of timeless books,
So diverse and enchanting, some I never understood.

I'm in love everyday, but I'm also forlorn too,
I cry my sorrows to the sun as it dives into the blue.

I'm so small, I'm so inferior to the creator,
But as long as I'm alive, everyday I'm an innovator.

(A Pharaoh Speaks.)

I said, "Why should a pyramid
Stand always dully on its base?
I'll change it! Let the top be hid,
The bottom take the apex-place!"
And as I bade they did.

The people flocked in, scores on scores,
To see it balance on its tip.
They praised me with the praise that bores,
My godlike mind on every lip.
-- Until it fell, of course.

And then they took my body out
From my crushed palace, mad with rage,
-- Well, half the town WAS wrecked, no doubt --
Their crazy anger to assuage
By dragging it about.

The end? Foul birds defile my skull.
The new king's praises fill the land.
He clings to precept, simple, dull;
HIS pyramids on bases stand.
But -- Lord, how usual!

Silly, silly, silly me.
To think I'm free, and that I'll be somebody?

Silly, silly, silly me.
You can't be free, and that's just it,
All you are is 'somebody.'
Some-body.
"Some body."

But that's not true!
Look at Trostky and Lenin,
Michael Myers and Lennon,
The other Lennon.
It's hard to differentiate in name and legacy,
Because both Lennon's were revolutionaries,
Marching around like the freshman from heaven.
But neither believed they were the result of divine intervention in the affairs of man,
Because this convention would threaten their worldview and beckon away their sanity...
In the same way that the Pope or ****** let their divine vanity commit greater blasphemy and bring them future agony.

Now neither Lennon nor Lenin came anywhere close to being men from Galilee,
In fact they were more the men of the galaxy,
Or at least, John was, with his peach fuzz beard and his belief that love is greater than fear.
The other Lenin implemented the New Economic Policy, to starve the proletariat and start his revolution on an already hypocritical trend that would continue quite the same until the very end.
And it proves something, does it not?
Violence sends a message to no one but the instigator,
Changing them to justify, and claim is wasn't misbehavior;
But that's a lie, no idea of mine is worth the death of a human mind,
And to pretend otherwise makes one delude themselves that they aren't an instigator, but an illustrator,
Painting in the blood as if ****** makes an innovator.

And for ******, there is no vindicator,
Violence is an image breaker,
Indulged in by poor imitators who think they're right, and the world is wrong.
Unaware this makes them weak, not strong.

Now John Lennon was the true revolutionary;
Although he succumbed to violence, he veered away from it, even when it was necessary.
He fought the war, and yes, the war did win,
But at least he didn't cover his scars with artificial skin,
Or deny his implicit wrongs as a result of all original sin.

John Lennon used the word '******' to the opposite effect.
He used the word to trigger something bigger and correct,
The wrong that seemed so propagated by the last colonial tide,
Of which the other Lenin defected and took colonialism's side.

John Lennon was Utopian and told us of a better world;
He interjected definition, and caused old thoughts to curl away in fright,
And bite the dust despite their might and past dominion of industrialism,
It was a schism, and it still plagues us to this day.

John Lennon understood we over-complicate way
To
Often.


Silly, silly, silly me.
To think I'm free, and that I'll be somebody?

Silly, silly, silly me.
You can't be free, and that's just it,
All you are is 'somebody.'
Some-body.
"Some body."

"Some body" is something,
And some body can change the world.

Last night too came the demon
My sleeping face he held on stare
Pierced eyelids and had me thrown
To the darkest abyss of nightmare!

He enjoys the way I shrink
As he cruelly muddles my dream
Makes a quicksand for me to sink
Claps in glee at my woeful scream!

He turns turbulent the serenest beach
Rides me up the scariest cliff
His stretched hands always out of reach
The master that he is at mischief!

The demon frequents my nights of late
Himself going sleepless for the fun
Innovating new terrors ‘neath blanket
Conjuring fears where there’s none!

Quack Doctor
Fake Supervisor
Bogus Professor
Deceitful Color
Common Denominator.

Bomb Inventor
Rifle Creator
Device Innovator
Reigning Terror
Common Denominator.

Untruthful Suitor
Promiscuous Actor
Love Collector
Artificial Amour
Common Denominator.

Abusive Creditor
Illegal Investor
Unlawful Director
Greed Factor
Common Denominator.

Rogue Investigator
Friendly Assassinator
Double Conspirator
Backstab Traitor
Common Denominator.

"What must we endure?"
Cried the naive child.

"When must we endure?"
Lamented the cynical adult.

"How must we endure?"
Worried the desperate parent.

"Why must we endure?"
Questioned the lazy innovator.

"Whom must we endure?"
Rallied by those who dodge the questions.

we're just as superstitious as our ancestors, we create fiction from superstition, we get the hots for haunted houses, the black dot on the bible like pirates... it's just these day, a person finding a £20 banknote would get superstitious about buying 20 lottery tickets with it, rather than a bottle of whiskey... and yes, our story-telling skills have diminished, it's more like dietary regimes these days... we pushed subjectivity so far down the drain that we're not telling stories anymore, we're simply regurgitating objectivity, facts after facts... less talk about surviving a tornado twirl and expressing the excitement from surviving such an event, and more: next! pocket that story, box it with the bar-code: adrenaline ******... we're not story-tellers anymore, we're on the verge of losing all plots... being exposed to polished narrations of Hollywood (hardly the case of being worried about doppelgangers, that was obvious in the 20th century) - as said: we like being bombarded with facts, we've stopped claiming narration for a commuting drive... we are the encyclopedia ~generation... well, we're way past being defined as a generational phenomenon... hence the quiz shows...  we started to hate the excitement of the subjective perspective, the parts were "we will never know", jealousy on this scale really killed it off... we weren't there, therefore it's untrue... coupled with this objectivity of: none of us were there, therefore it must be true... plate up ladies and gents! we're once more reduced to regurgitating facts, we're actually forced to regurgitate facts, we have no chance to score with emotions or personal thoughts... people only want to hear objective realities of our lives... we want uniform coherence like under Uncle Stalin... no deviation... none! i wonder what story will come from all this objectification... the usual, current affairs story, i blame feminism partly for this... the objectification of women lessened, and in came the objectification of everything else, as feminism has done, shoving its nose into everything from philosophy to history simply on the basis of numbers, and as to why there aren't enough women here, and not enough women there... my mother is a housewife... my father comes home with a satisfaction that at least one member of the family will not be stressed... add a second partner with stress and career ambitions and fairy-tales, and that's a house on sand-dunes... personally i wouldn't want to marry in any case... plus, feminism doesn't encourage the house-husband idea that Sweden has adopted... well... you'd think that the idea of househusbands would take off once feminism took off... apparently it didn't.

Darwinism is at odds with pop culture, i see these people
striving for fame like they might be buying penny sweets
in their hundreds, and what i find surprising
is that so much fame is being dished out,
me, jealous? yesterday i found
a twenty quid banknote on the street,
today i bought four beers and a bottle of Grant's
whiskey and i felt that: i owned the world -
yes indeed, a circus act - that's usurping
style of the khaki stormtrooper uniform...
a colon is also emphasis, without the italics...
it's not about grocery lists...
so many writers out there who put
the labouring over punctuation to others...
so many dyslexic still passing through...
mate... if you and me were *****... you'd
be tissue paper material, no, not even a ******
blockage waiting for the plumber...
or the ******* that sold condoms puncturing them
with needles for excess success rates of impregnation...
see, i peel the skin off, imitating Abraham's
madness at the excess, and cockerel
the **** like sunrise... all *sheered;
then i put the skin back on... so much for improvements
that desired God's approval... might as well
cut off all the cartilage: nose, ears, nails
(i swear they share the same category... oh wait...
nails and hair... well, n'eh bother, cut the rest off
until you enter the realm of plastic surgery).
so yeah, Darwinism is really the guillotine at
the moment, see them, watch the shepherds herding
them, they created something a Marxist would
never ever understand... the fame class system...
not some rebellion of strong idiots
working the plough field fighting noblemen bored
in their salons with ****-*** their only
exercise and solution to the boredom of a busy world,
mind being in such a world...
or do as i do... half of scotch through...
second jazz record playing in the background...
jazz doesn't translate into headphones,
you need the space...
what worries me is its trans-generational absence...
jazz is the classical music thanks to slavery,
it would never have been born in Africa,
forget it... but it bothers me it wasn't manicured,
kept pristine like some Renaissance painting...
it quickly morphed into Eminem and Vanilla Ice
and all that rap that wrapped it up...
fair enough, i can give credit to joshua redman
and his back east... but that's about it...
so as i sit sipping my Mississippi scotch of whiskey
and cola, having listened to
sonny rollins' ballads, i'm onto kenny burrel's
midnight blue... it's the sort of high culture
that's easy to cultivate... but i'm not the man you
want to revisit the Beat Movement chemistry,
i care very little to talk over the jazz with my poetry...
no wonder talking over classical music ever worked,
hence i contend to parallel myself with Bukowski
in that respect.. i shut up and write,
imagine myself on the Faroe Islands, very far
from what makes me uncomfortable,
the nearest thing to Eden, some remote place,
a village of 20 people where everyone knows
how long they take to a **** and at what hours
(given there's only one toilet) - and yes, the brackets
are also useful to make an emphasis, so example, : and ( )
all combine pretty well.
but they really are losing a one-sided battle,
given historical Darwinism, excluding our modern
perks to get into the raw caveman antics
it can be sometimes very demeaning to consider
both attitudes, simultaneously or correspond or even
excusing our modernity with intrinsic sushi (the rawness
that breeds no home comforts) -
and given the whole popularity culture...
you expect people to remember anything in
the next 100 years? the opening of a century is never
going to be enough to allow for that century's momentum...
i might be living in the 21st century, but all
my influences are bound to the 20th...
and that's where i'll remain, a beggar with a rich man's
vault of compact disks... clutter and a library...
unable to reread the books i've read (unless in snippets)...
like that tale of Neoplatonism and Plotinus
and that relationship with Christianity, but the job
that Nietzsche put in to criticise it came short of
what the actual religion did to itself, the archaeology proof
destined at Egypt, finding works there and not
in Israel along with the Dead Sea Scrolls...
fascinating how they cut Isaiah in half and the historian
Josephus placing the innovator of the Sermon
during Nero's reign, and how Nero is the first reference
to the 666... well, you know, once you zero out the preceding
years, and start again... telling the time will hardly
matter whether b.c. or a.d. - what with Darwinism
and the big bang, the Copernican west... well the Copernican
"west" - what a crazy carousel - get me off!
and indeed, with certain words...
we have encoded approximations to what each words
denotes... the brightest gem in the vault is
Hades... you don't say it as Ha A.D.H.D. -
you say hay and then you say dees, like bees -
yes, whether the d is a below the equator
and is summer in december, or whether b is above
the equator and is summer in july...
so you encode Hades but actually say: hay-d-and-many-e's -
still can't figure out how to denote a plurality of
letters with the punctuation marks given by English...
at present i'm using the inadequate possessive article
route - Peter's, Mark's, the mountain's...
the article goes off radar when there's plurality
in the thing ascribed possession: mountains' heights...
hay-d-and-many-eeeeeeeeeeeee? get the picture?
or hay-d-and-ease - baffling language,
i feel like some aboriginal looking at it from Ayers Rock
going: kangaroo the **** and didgeridoo?
no wonder the tetragrammaton is the tool to decipher
this phonetic encoding... there are too many chiral
symmetries in this tongue.
so again... i don't know why poets don't bother
to repeat themselves, on what they first concentrated on,
like the many water lilies by Monet,
or the self-portraits from varying angles...
or how modern fame, in concept, condemned itself
to c.c.t.v. and a brick wall as to how history is
experienced with mainstream Darwinism...
how quickly the guillotine chops the head off,
the finicky base for democratic applause...
and how in 100 years people might wonder:
well, Plato ain't going to be usurped, Plato will be
treated with the same faithful bias
as a blank blackboard, the established norm...
(that's all e.g. to say, it's not necessarily the
acceptance of such a norm) -
we'll still be ushered to normality by starting
from either the bleak big bang, led to an even bleaker
and bigger bonk... or we'll be cavemen admiring viral
infections - and fame and aspiration to attain
it will truly become bleak... for in these days
fame isn't competing for being remembered...
it's competing for being seen, again the c.c.t.v. model...
and given our overexposure to datums (the Oxford
authority is a bit slow to recognise that... well,
unless of course the same meaning can be achieved
with the word data... unnecessarily datii?),
advertisement being only one such source...
and would i consider the self to be an illusion?
i'd consider it on equal footing with π = 3.14159...
a piece of information, not to the fullest extent
a delusion... meaning i wouldn't discredit it completely,
given that so many people fall for it's existence
when plagiarism tempts us to swing with it...
and that there's the private, the public, the showcased
use of it... but it's still so ****** annoying
to have the lazy crew use the northern barbaric
reference to that pronoun and discredit it by treating
it as merely a useful prefix for compounding words
together to express automaton behaviours, and to have
to lie back on the psychoanalytical sofa and have to
deal with the atom of: ego, superego and id...
                                     (neutron, proton           and
the many that that that      / its its its -
the id is actually a scalpel in psychiatry - the cursor or
vector or quiet simply as stated already, scalpel,
incision maker -
                               the superego? also known as moralising
Nietzsche's übermensch - nein! klein Adolf
kann nicht spielen mit du heute);
well... might as well enjoy being trapped in
the stone ages from now on... because in between the cavemen
and ourselves, our contemporaries just called them
idiots (most notably the journalists) -
yep... only idiots separating us from caveman...
i must be double the idiot of wishing to be back
in the Dumas' France, or at the height of the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth, when the Poles, second only to
the Mongols held Moscow.

I ain't a friend, I'm a foe;
I am an enemy, oh

My carriage
is made of wood

My horses are drawn and quartered
I will cater to your fastidious command
I'm not doing anything suspicious
because

I ain't a friend I'm a foe;
I am an enemy, oh
(I ain't afraid of a fool;
I am an innovator)

This back
will never carry the weight
I will always lose my place
I'll never be late
Did I mention that is one nice sword?
Can I see it for a second?

I ain't a friend I'm a foe;
I am an enemy, oh
(I ain't afraid I'm a foe)

I am sick
after lunchtime wine
If I encounter the divine
I promise to challenge
I would never lie to you
because

I ain't a friend I'm a foe;
I am an enemy, oh
(I ain't afraid of a fool;
I am am an innovator)

I ain't a friend I'm a foe;
I am an enemy, oh.

Harry potter fear my magic
Cuz my wand disastrous
Even with my wand absent
Im a prince of magic
My name is aladdin
I send spells to princess jasmine
In her dreams
Until she meets her King
Abra kadabra alakazam
Shazam
Even Kazam
Knows who i am
I write with my wand
In my palm is magic that i dawn
Inside the spawn
Of the creator
Its alot of sparks in my charm
An innovator
That charms
Wicked witches
Son of Sabrina you might kno who Sabrina The Witch is
Even wiccans
Know im wicked
When my wrath is driven
I should create an religion
For magicians
Cause magic i envision
Is beautiful when i present it
Tricks is timid
Against the nemesis
of all wizards

i'm sitting on the windowsill like a crow
perched on the rooftop,
eating watermelon and downing
a mixer of whiskey and coca cola

while i ponder the *style sections of
last weekend's style magazine
a magpie in me draws open the curtain
open of the silence, and i make the
neighbour's dog bark with laughter -
the section in question that prompts
me is a piece about silent speed dating
(i only ever did that obscene
event once at university,
we left with L tattoos on our foreheads),
**** just didn't work, too much
systematisation with the cards -
i'd prefer a chess tournament to be honest;
in the speed dating scenario you
get zombies and Oreo biscuits,
cracking fun - mingling fruit with alcohol,
it's really a Saturday night in my head,
picturesque: i.e. picture it - photosensitive
epileptics on the dance floor shaking all
the possible muscle including the buttocks -
times up...
england is really abhorring toward poets,
only Shakespeare made it count -
as a playwright -
or as they say in Yorkshire - Germany
and the 1930 - 40s, not Beethoven prior,
the youth wouldn't read a book,
but would continue to shoot the Nazis in
computer games comfortably into the 21st century -
in england if it's not Shakespeare it's filth,
degenerate art, that's the reasoning -
from the saturday review not, one, review,
of, a, book, of poetry, not one -
if this is a healthy literate stance then
call me Mona Theresa and put a strap-on
***** on me -
it's easier to find bargains in the Amazon online
store than a good poem - worth of mouth
had an ammonia soaked handkerchief stuffed
in its mouth, and hey presto! cow manure
never met the chance of nostrils engaging...
in england what's prized above
poetry is journalism, hence by respect for
those who disengage from from coupling poetry
to music by making music laughable
with poetry's rhyming -
twang twang - #a, repeat... twang twang a doodle
do f, through to c, or something worth
a silent cipher on the page -
indeed journalism above poetry, ars umbras:
the art of shadows, the art of obscurity,
the perfect stance of diplomacy,
take the bureaucratic route -
'short of an umbrella?!' the cabbie questioned,
'short of ice cubes on ye'r 'ed?!' the innovator retorted?
and with that the audience became bemused
when the magician pulled out a cabbage head
from the top hat rather than a rabbit -
indeed poetry, had i been Voltaire writing
about england has almost disappeared from
english - mind my ignorant pessimism -
but mind that journalism took over,
and instead of poetic musicology what's required
is poetic journalism - i can't have stone age emblems
of care to coerce me into geological rudiments -
if indeed i am but one man
among the collective i am obviously wrong,
but should that matter, i should seize to care
whether i actually read a Stephen King novel,
since i haven't, as they say, appreciated the living art,
and chose instead literary necrophilia,
then i am sourced as a voice in the graveyard -
or as one homeless man said: a gem -
all it took was politeness and a free cigarette -
indeed this literary necrophilia -
it's quite becoming - and to then realise -
well, with each day a new mode of conduct
in the median of populace of the highest average -
harsh to consider in conclusion any if all
pronoun usage to be akin to conjunction and
preposition use as a care for a vain approach
in the use of language and self-buffoonery -
simply how the language works,
with that stated and the phonetic approximations
found on too many occasions to be realised -
e.g. can you please pút pooh bear into
       his enve-low-p', and seal
       it shút with ha-née / ha-knee rather than red wax?

The opportunist, the smart, the investor, the innovator.
They improve the world, they change the world.
Together we make it happen, we build the world.
Who is the opportunist, who is the smart, who is the investor?
Who is the opportunist, who is the smart, who is the innovator?
The one with payments complying with the standard of the world?
The one who is making money or building the world?

Citizens of the future world, my name is The Senior.
Let’s me take my glasses off, and explain the difference;
They all utilize an opportunity called opportunist. we need to understand them.
Some utilize it for our best and some for our worst, I am the senior.
Some deal with the maker and some deal with the devil that is the difference.
God can not duplicate, ours is to help them while we find out who is behind them.

Written by: The Senior 14/09/2019

It's ******* 3 in the ****** morning,
a twisted mind trying to write,
the most flawed paper known to man.

While the well established sleep,
so somberly on their egyptian silk sheets.

I want to rip these sleeper's vocal chords out,
so that in the morning,
only my voice will be heard.

In this perfect ******* paper,
with it's perfect ******* footnotes
and its not so perfect creator,
hopped up on caffeine,
ready to be the perfect ******* innovator,
of another person's ****** ideas.

Heard the moon from under a blanket.
Wrapped in silk she rapps on my window,
begging in the most patient manner - to be let in.

Hello my lovely Margret.
How I'd like to sink my teeth into her tonight.
Should we have a smoke?
She trembles in her luminous shimmer.

Takes my hands - Margret you  devil.
Never an audible urge,
but an ethereal curtain becomes us
and I hear the cry - dance with me, she says.

Not tonight Margret, we must behave ourselves.
God she's a different kind of tempting.
I really should kick this nasty habit, I know.
She snakes those legs around my middle.

She's no pioneer - not a ****** innovator,
Just a crutch, but a beautiful one at that.
Will you stop it, I said not tonight.
Dims a bit, start fearing  I've been to rough - but she's back.
Just a passing cloud.
Eager as ever, tonight, to bathe me in radiance.
Dance with me, she cries -  and I falter.

The smell of terpentine permeates my favourite blouse
The glow of candle light flickers in my windows
The absent minded stains of ink splattered through out my house
The cool, soft clay feels like silk between my fingers
There is a chisel hanging from a nail in my wall
There is blueprint spread out on a table in  front of me
My eyes are canvassing everything, anything, all
There is a colour and flavour in everything I see
There is a word tattooed on my forehead, innovator
I can't help but find a way to reinvent the old and invent the new
What more beautiful a worship to offer the creator
Than to create with the gifts he has given you

like writing i like writing like i like
cupping
a tranquil fever
my electric quill travels
skin piercing inky talking sudden innovator
so how i'm gonna go
in the first house unlit burning rupture
and gasping with quipping death
i'll ravish nouns
  and verbs
                         nouning
the verb
of bulbous empty cotton
i call my head

I’ve opened up
to the possibility
of being

of being something different
of being something new
of being something nobody
thought I could be
of being something beyond
recognition
of being something beautiful
of being something wonderful
of being something I am proud of
for once
of being something above
what I was before

I dream of this
I wish of this
I know of this
I act on this

I dream to be a singer
of unimagined tunes
I dream to be a winner
of contests unknown
I dream to be a leader
of people without
the ability to move
forward
I dream to be a teacher
of unspoken things
I dream to be a successor
of every free-
thinker and
innovator
I dream to be an original
in a world bent
on unoriginality

I want.
I will.

be.

all of this.
every last bit.
I will be.

I will be.

I am being,
all of this.

all of
it.

Many hiding behind a mask  
lost and end up last
Many lost in the past
Cover up pain in a cast
React  to the world as the rest
Many complain and never act
Never raise the hand to ask
Following  then sit at the desk
Following then doing a task
Now it's time to fight the past
Present the present with facts
That you ain't lost in the tabs
Never running on the tracks
But living life in the trail
Living life to prevail
Unlike many living behind the veil
After failure, they stay derailed
I stay capable because I am the
King, ace innovator and creator

Started out doubtful,
Lost at sea like my boy fievel,
Partying every night yet I was spiteful,
Mouth full of things yet was not thankful.
Always wanting more,
Yeah I was a carnivore,
Was so rich yet so poor.
Had everything yet was empty to the core.
Smiles as phony as some real fake doors.
Hoping one day I would be on the Forbes.
For I yearned for the illusion of grandeur.
For I was tired,
Tired of being barred,
Barred from what society deemed popular,
But popularity only has so much allure,
It certainly is not a cure.
In fact I would say it’s more of a cancer.
That becomes as obsolete as a blockbuster.
And I can no longer be an actor.
Faking smiles and shaking hands with gators.
Or Catering to dictators,
For I’m an innovator,
A lyrical operator.
And a educator,
That spits lyrics with high energy like a particle accelerator.
Yeah I am unlike the rest of yawl common denominators.
U gotta understand,
Ain’t no way to truly comprehend,
What it is like to come from nothing,
And make it into something.
Yet still remembering,
Where one came from.
When one barely had any income.
Gotta stay humble man,
Because tomorrow it could all disappear fam.

Diamond-studded, velvet black,
skies invite eyes to search
to wonder at the planets' track
angels on their perch

Endless their revolution
no false step or fall
perfection in execution
Of their Master's call

the stars on high stand forever
testimony to their Creator
the amicable Restaurateur,
Inventor, Innovator

Sometimes, the most beautiful pieces of art,
come from the most damaged and broken
people, isolation in solitude, original persona,
innovator of thought. They’re exiled in social
circles, frowned upon by family, ignored by
most. Dare to be themselves, dared to create
art.
(knowledge variable)