"medici" poems
Venezia, its musical key of brick and shade
And the canals in rejoining polyphony
Sweeten the dour Church-ear.
From the impasto knife and loose brushwork,
A thumb-smear of waves and gently-bristled strife
Rise to assumption of the cloud-submerged bay,
Mural of cristallo, only-light without landscape,
Made too from the winds of Murano,
Its clayed blowpipe of waterways molding
The lagoon of blown glass and bouquet of colored sea-shadows.
The Tiber lies on its side, like the lion and fox,
Licking its paws at empire’s dust,
A drifting gaze of water that already foresees
The swift-run northward to Romagna,
Where the veined fur of the roe will succumb…
A ripple twitches like one dark claw of the Borgia…
The watercolors of the Arno are a fresco
On the wet plaster of the lips of Firenze, Tuscan fire-dream.
Or like the warring leg in curve of counterpoise,
Sprung foot-forward to the daring world
And arm slung down in stone-victory
From this valley, too much like Elah,
With taunting eyes turned from the Medici toward Rome.
May 13, 2019
May 13, 2019 at 10:06 AM UTC
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 slope 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.
Jul 28, 2015
Jul 28, 2015 at 5:18 PM UTC
The Kristeille Bra :
And Other Pathways To - ( Disaster ! )
Polarities : so smartly empowdered
And, petitely enslaved -
Potentialities ?
- In extremis, I'm afraid.
But if thus were so, then ...
(Even thinly veilled) ;
Let us duly consider :
Are our appetites (fe\male)
In actuality and fact umm,
Needlessly Manichean;
The torments of
noisy Siblings ?
Why, after all I ask,
only two -
Don't
You ?
Alas,
To the Medici
Roundly go the
Battle and the day !
(And sublimity)
(Or so the legend
goes ...... )
For those who favour
such Palantines,
(and gravity)
a throne.
For :
Pure symetry confounds my interest -
hnn.us/articles/7202.html
James R. Morse NYC 2012.
All Rights Reserved.
Oct 21, 2012
Oct 21, 2012 at 2:32 PM UTC
Up the hills, past villas, small groves and arbors. And by the Duomo, which, I swear, moved into our path no matter where we went. The fifteenth century refuses to yield.
That giant rival, Milan, now resembles Hartford: large and gaunt. Rome, thief of the renaissance, remembers Mussolini and Berlusconi more than Leo X, who yet lives in Florence, returned to his Medici home.
Florence is the butter of civilization’s milk; nourishment of the flesh churned by hand. The art, the food, the social structure, even the soccer sated in turned, sweet cream.
Fresh oil, fresh wine. Old recipes. The bread remains salt free. The tripe looks ancient. The streets forever too narrow.
Jan 5, 2017
Jan 5, 2017 at 7:37 AM UTC
Strong
Powerful
Delicate
Ever evolving
Creative and artistic
So Soulful
Stayed by the Duomo
David and The Medici
Easy to love
Forever in my heart
She is Italy for me
Luckily have met her sister cities
Until we meet again
Ciao, Bella.
Dolce Vita and Domani
Always
You gave me the gift of friends for life
Milioni di grazie
C@rainbowchaser2021
Jul 30, 2021
Jul 30, 2021 at 2:25 PM UTC
The pay scale
for poets
is bleak indeed.
I could use
a wealthy
benefactor.
Where are you,
Lorenzo?
Even the Muse
needs to be fed
occasionally.
- mce
Jan 9, 2016
Jan 9, 2016 at 9:50 AM UTC
It is we who are fleeting
gone before too long
and beauty remains.
Imagining Venice without the water.
Trudging through the empty ways
as the wave of days wash over me
where once I was the sea
vast if vast it be
was the thing known as humanity
which was another sea that
washed over me.
The eye of time takes time to blink
and in that time or the time it took
books were burned
the world being blind turned away
and the wave of days washed over me
in another time on another sea.
beauty remains
I scrub up well
not too good
but good enough which
is not enough to boast about
but I do
In Venice where glass is blown and
vases made for the tourist trade
an ill wind has thrown the city
into deep despair
Medici doesn't care about the canals being no longer there
beauty remains in the beholding eye until that too must die
but
beauty remains.
Oct 2, 2016
Oct 2, 2016 at 5:29 AM UTC
Six letters spell out my secret self:
T-he
O-ther
B-eing
I-
A-m
S-ometimes - TOBIAS
I am the baby caressed
at my mother’s breast.
A child learning sums,
playing with my chums
at football scoring
goals and soaring
to the heights of fame.
At times, a growing boy
entranced in nature’s joy.
Now and then I paint
for the family Medici
or become a Saint
like Francis of Assisi
chatting with the birds.
Some days I walk
in groves with Plato
and learn to talk
the simplicities of Cato
and for a while am wise.
Most days though
I hardly show
his side. So few can know
The Other Being I Am Sometimes.
TOBIAS
Mar 12, 2018
Mar 12, 2018 at 2:27 AM UTC
If we restructured
the butchers would want a bigger slice of the pie,
greed is nothing new either under the sun
or the blue steel of a gun.
in for a penny, infrastructure if any has failed and eternity sailed in the Titanic.
supposing being sick of the same old things
always waiting and wondering ,
what is it that tomorrow brings to a yesterday but
the slings and other **** Shakespeare mentions.
supposing Medici could teach me to float
in Venice, no boat?
no chance.
There's only so many slices and so they restructure the prices to
cut out the wheat from the chaff and who decides wherein greed resides?
not the pauper or maybe he's one with the gravy, the train rumbles on
the rich ***** about the poor and the poor ponder on inequality
I
wander through this scenery ******* it in and
unsign my autograph on these pages of sin.
It was Wednesday in a suitcase in case you were wondering,
unpacked and folded away.
I tried to remember the year
but the year is now and it's here
and how has it altered my views?
I tread warily past the one who
will betray me.
always being friendly
also has a
price.
Nov 30, 2016
Nov 30, 2016 at 12:24 AM UTC
Ha ha! How ironic is this conception?
A bottle, filled left in the oubliette that you and I fill!
Perhaps it's a cruel joke, or maybe compassion
To let us drown our sorrows in a doldrum like fashion.
Hell, my friend, it surely awaits, so let's take our swigs
And numb ourselves from our unmerciful fates.
You know, this situation as I drink gets funnier and funnier...
I'd bet right now, de' Medici herself stands above in the Louvre,
That crafty witch!
Would you like some more of this Cognac before the dungeon master
Comes back?
One more joie de vivre until the chemistry fades?
What does it matter if it isn't ours?
Our final hours will be forgotten, and between you and me,
This will start the after party early.
A votre sante!
To the nobodies!
Apr 8, 2018
Apr 8, 2018 at 3:14 PM UTC