Dear Poet Friends, being fond of Art, I wanted to compose on
this topic for a long time in a simplified form! Egyptian Art and
Architecture influenced the Early Greeks, who in turn influenced the Romans and other civilizations! Initially Art and architecture, religion and culture, were all closely inter-related! Real distinction emerged with the Italian Renaissance. Here I have used only a portion of my personal notes. Hope you find this interesting to read! Sorry for the length! Kindly give Comments after you have managed to read the entire portion in your spare time. Thanks, -Raj

INTRODUCTION TO THE STORY
OF WESTERN ART IN VERSE:
          PART ONE
    * BY RAJ NANDY

INTRODUCTION
Art over the centuries has been variously defined,
But an all embracing definition is rather hard to find!
Ayn Rand defined Art as a recreation of reality according to
artist’s values, his view of existence, and choice;
Who recreates by a selective rearrangement of the elements
of reality, and not simply out of a void!
Study of Art History is a study of man’s creative evolution;
A progress of his wakened consciousness, and a restless
striving towards perfection!
The progress of his mind, taste and skill, which has gradually
evolved through past traditions;
Finding ultimate expression in his multi-faceted creations!
I commence this story from its earliest days, and mention those
Ancient Civilizations which influenced Art in many ways.
Art has been greatly influenced by religion, culture and history;
Therefore, knowing these aspects becomes necessary to
fully appreciate this Art Story!

PREHISTORIC STONE AGE ART:
Let us take a ride on the magic carpet of History, down
past millenniums to begin our Art Story;
Right into the ancient Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic
Eras of the Stone Age,
When early humans left their creative imprints on rock
surfaces and on walls of caves!
Long before the evolution of any proper coherent speech
or communication,
In some 350 caves of France and Spain are seen paintings
of large wild animals like horses, antelopes and bison;
Bearing witness to the story of gradual human evolution!
The cave paintings of Chauvet, Cosquer, and Lascaux, date
between 8000 and 1700 BC,
Drawn by nameless and faceless people who emerged from
an inhospitable Ice Age;
Those nomadic tribes who were hunter-gatherers living in
pre-historic caves!
The Story of Art therefore begins before recorded History,
Pieced together by scholars with the help of science and
archeology!
During the Neolithic Period beginning around 8,000BC,
Ancient man became gradually sedentary, engaging in
agriculture and animal husbandry!
With these nomads settling down in small communities,
Art became mystical and monumental in range;
As seen in the megalithic (large stone) structures of the
famous Stonehenge!
This type of post and lintel structure is also found in ancient
Egyptian architecture, and later in Greece as its special
feature!
Art History spans the entire history of mankind,
Right from the pre-historic days, up to our modern times!
Man’s everlasting quest for immortality lies etched on
rocks and raised stone edifices, defying marauding Time!

MESOPOTAMIAN ART (3500-300BC) :
Let us now travel fast forward on our magic carpet to reach
the Fertile Crescent,
Where the Tigress and the Euphrates Rivers flow, to the
Ancient Civilization of the Sumerians! (3500-2300BC)
The birth of civilization has been traced to Southern
Mesopotamia, where the Sumerians built their first cities,
As the earliest River Valley Civilization around 3500 BC!
It was a period when writing got invented in its earliest
Cuneiform form;  (around 3400 BC)
When Patriarch Abraham established the worship of a Single
God, in a revolutionary religious reform! (Judaism)
Mesopotamian Civilization as the source of our earliest
surviving Art dates back to 3500BC;
When major civilizations like the Sumerian, Akkadian,
Babylonian, Hitties, Assyrian, and the Persians, in this
chronological sequence, contributed to Art History!
Mesopotamian Art in general glorified their powerful rulers
and their connection with divinity;
Reflected on their city gates, palace complexes and ziggurats,
are scenes of both victorious wars and their prosperity!
Art was then highly functional and repetitive; depicting
love of beauty, a sense of order, and power of hierarchy,
- in their sculptures and motifs.
However, no signatures were ever found bearing the name
of the Artist!
It is interesting to note that both the potter’s wheel and the
cart wheel, made their first appearance around 3500 BC
and 3200 BC respectively;
With the Sumerians contributing to art and culture, and the
progress of Human Civilization immensely!
(Ziggurats are semi-pyramid like structures with steps, a temple complex located in the center of all ancient Sumerian cities-states! Saragon the Great of Akkad from the North, defeated the Sumerians in the South, & united entire Mesopotamia around 2300 BC, for the first time in Mesopotamian History, & they ruled for 200 years.)

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ART :(3000 BC -500BC)
Next we travel to an isolated area of north-east Africa,
Where the White Nile flows down from Lake Victoria.
The Nile enters Upper Egypt traveling through Sudan,
Is joined by the Blue Nile at Khartoum to become one!
Continues its flow north through Egypt Lower, flowing
into the Mediterranean as the World’s longest river!
Historian Herodotus had called Egypt ‘the gift of the Nile’;
Ancient Egypt became a rich treasure trove of art and
architecture for all times!
The Nile valley area was protected by the desert on its
east and the west;
In the north by the Mediterranean, and towards the
south by a rugged mountainous terrain!
Annual flooding of the Nile along with an effective
irrigational network,
Ensured Egypt’s prosperous stability, congenial for her
many innovative architectures and art works!
Egyptian Art got shaped by her geography, mythology
and her polytheistic religion;
Also by their preoccupation with after-life and belief in  
the immortal soul’s continuation;
Thus elaborate funeral rites were performed by priests for  
the body’s preservation by mummification! *
(’KA’= was a real astral twin or stellar double of an Individual, which continued to exist even after death, requiring the same sustenance as the humans, so food offerings were made in the coffins! ‘BA’= shaped like a human-headed bird, composed of non-physical attributes of an Individual. ‘BA’ collected the deceased’s personality after death from the mummified remains & united it with the ‘KA’, making a person complete; thereby making it possible for the person to be reborn as ‘AKH’ (Star), - in its ultimate unchanging form, to join Osiris in the ‘Happy Fields’! Since this journey to the next world was fraught with danger, magical funerary spells & rites were performed by the priests, with incantations from the ‘Book of the Dead’, inside the funeral chamber of the Pyramid!)

Art During Old, Middle, and New Kingdom Period:
Egyptian Art was concerned with ensuring continuity of the
universe, their Gods, the King and the people;
A projection into eternity a version of reality pure and free
from all earthly evil!
Therefore in ancient Egyptian society, conformity over
individuality was always encouraged;
Artists worked in groups with conservative adherence to
rules, order and form,
And all individual artistic initiatives strictly discouraged !
Their earliest pyramids the Mastaba, the Step, and the Bent
Pyramids were all prototypes;
While the Great Pyramid of Giza built for Pharaoh Kufu,
- was the first true pyramid which still survives!
Art comes down to us as ‘funerary art’ designed for the tombs,
Which was to accompany the royalty in their journey to an
afterlife, with its symbolic forms!
This symbolism is seen in their paintings, statues and architecture;
In vibrant color codes of their paintings as a special feature!
Where White was the symbol of purity, Black for death and night;
Green for vegetation or new life, Blue for water and the sky;
Red for life and victory, and Yellow like Gold as the flesh of the
Gods and also the Sun God ruling the sky!
Thanks to Jean-Francois Champollion’s translation of the Rosetta
Stone, (1822)
We are able to decipher many mysteries of the Ancient Egyptian
with the cracking of the Hieroglyphic Code!
Larger than life statues with poise and austere harmony at the
Luxor Temple complex survive;
Symbolic of the individual’s status, while creating zones of
strangeness for imagination to thrive!
(’Matsaba’= Egyptian for ‘bench’, referred to bench shaped pyramids;
“Step Pyramids” = were like benches placed one on top of the other in
a tapering form going up vertically!)

The Old Kingdom Period covers a five hundred years span
of Ancient Egyptian History, (2686-2181BC)
Known as the ‘Age of Pyramids’, with Pharaohs from the
Third to the Sixth Dynasty!
“The World fear Time, but Time fears only the Pyramids”,
- is an Ancient Egyptian Proverb;
Whose ‘heterogeneous structure’ made it earthquake
proof, making Time to reluctantly serve! #
Here we find formalized figures with long slender bodies,
idealized proportions and large staring eyes;
Where Kufu’s Great Pyramid of Giza raises its mighty head
as the highest, on the west bank of the Nile;
And the mighty Sphinx guard the entrance to those ancient
royal tombs, though defaced, still survive!
These pyramids were like Pharaoh’s getaways to eternity,
An insurance to an afterlife of peace and prosperity!
(# Pyramids with stone blocks of different sizes & shapes made them
Earthquake resistant; & use of pink granite in the inner chambers
made them erosion resistant against Time!)

The Middle Kingdom Period (2040-1650 BC) :
Following 150 years of civil disorder Theban ruler Mentuhotep
the Second, reunified Egypt and ruled up to Nubia, (Sudan)
And began the Classical Era when Block Statues appear,
indicating political stability;
When artisans worked with bronze and copper alloys, designing
exquisite jewelry!
Kings now preferred to be buried in secret tombs, Pyramids
having lost their appeal,
And work began on the west bank of the Nile, in the Valley of
Kings!
(Inside those rock cut ‘funerary temples’ on the East bank of the
Nile, opposite Ancient Kingdom of Thebes ; Pharaohs from the
Early and Late New Kingdom Periods were buried, including
Tutemkhamen.)

Early New Kingdom Period (1550 -1295 BC):
Between the Middle Kingdom and this Era, Art remained
static for almost a hundred years,
When the Hyksos from the Near East fought the weak Theban
Rulers!
In 1550 BC Theban Prince Ahmose reunited Egypt, and was
succeeded by able rulers, who ushered in the Golden Age!
Art works continued to maintain its basic traditional style,
With successive Kings from the 18th Dynasty consolidating
their kingdom’s wealth and power all the while!
But Egypt witnessed a change with an innovative style in Art,
When Amenhotep IV in 1353 BC became King, initiating a
fresh start!
This king changed his name to ‘Akhenaten’, the spirit of Aten,
-- ‘The disk of the Sun’;
Abandoned the pantheons of Gods with Aten as the ‘sole God’,
and a religious revolution had begun!
His new capital city of Amarna, 200 miles north of Thebes,
Got decorated with a new kind of art work to make it complete!
The statues now appear more realistic displaying emotions,
With fluidity of movement, unlike those rigid earlier creations!
The artistic talent of this Amarna Period gets best exemplified,
In the exquisite bust of Nefertiti, Akhenaten’s Great Royal Wife!
Regarded as ‘icon of international beauty’, a great archeological
find ! **
(Discovered by a German team of Archeologists in 1912 at Amarna! This 19 inch long limestone Nefertiti statue weighs around 20 kg, now housed in Berlin Museum; comparable only to the artistic Golden Mask of Tutankhamen!)

King Tutankhamen (1336-1327 BC):
Akhenaten’s unpopular rule was short-lived, with those humiliated
Theban priests calling him the ‘Heretic King’!
A nine year old boy Tutankhamen (‘The living image of Amun’),
was next to succeed him!
King Tut restored the worship of Amun, in a back-lash against
Akhenaten;
Shifted the royal palace back to Thebes, with the religious center
at Karnak once again!
King Tut’s short ten year’s rule remained buried in 3000 year’s
of Egyptian History,
Till Howard Carter found his richly laden intact tomb, in the
Valley of the Kings! (1922)
King Tut’s priceless and exquisitely carved golden face mask,
reflected the exalted standard of art work;
Weighing ten kilos, inlaid with semi-precious stones, and eyes
made of obsidian and quarts!
With the King’s early death, the 18th Dynasty of Pharaohs came
to an abrupt end,
And the 19th and 20th Dynasties of the Late Kingdom Period
commenced!
The famous rock temple of Abu Simbel now got built, under the
warrior and builder Ramses II, one of Egypt’s greatest Kings!


Pharaoh Ramses-II of the Late Kingdom Period :
Here I sweep across centuries of Egyptian History, to mention
King Ramses-II’s contribution to our Art Story!
In Shelly’s famous poem titled “Ozymandias of Egypt” he is
immortalized; (Greeks called Ramses-II “Ozymandias”!)
And as the Pharaoh associated with Moses in the movie “The
Ten Commandments”, he is popularized!
Egyptian Art is intrinsically bound with its religion, pyramids,
hieroglyphs, and architecture;
With a concentrated focus on ‘afterlife’ as its special feature!
In 1270 BC young Ramses took over from Seti the First,
And his rule for a period of 66 long years did last!
As the third Pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty, he had ruled with a
firm hand;
Recovered lost territories from the Hittites and the Nubians,
- earlier captured Egyptian lands!
He enlarged the territories of Egypt ensuring prosperity and
stability;
Became renowned as the famous Warrior and Builder King
of Ancient Egyptian History!
Ramses-II had expanded most of the temples, as recorded in
the artistic motifs and hieroglyphic symbols;
Here a special mention must be made of the Temples of Luxor,
Karnak, and Abu Simbel !

Temples of Luxor and Karnak in Ancient Thebes:
Ancient Thebes was located on the eastern bank of the Nile,
where the modern City of Luxor stands;
Thebes was once the capital of the 11th and 18th Dynasties,
And the power and religious center of all Egyptian land!
Gets mentioned in the 9th Book of Homer’s ‘Iliad’ where “heaps
of precious ingots gleam, the hundred-gated Thebes”!
Excavation work began in Thebes during the late 19th century;
And the gradual unearthing of the Temples of Luxor and
Karnak, added a new dimension to Egypt’s Art Story!
It must be remembered always, that the Ancient Egyptians in
those early days,
Structured their temple architecture to the point of ‘Sacred Art’!
With their knowledge of astronomy and geometry, they
aligned their temples so perfectly,
That the light of the rising sun fell on the temple’s innermost
sanctuary! (Temple of Abu Simbel is a great example,)
Where the Egyptian priests, who were also the artists, healers,
mathematicians, astronomers and scribes;
In dimly lit incense-filled sanctuaries performed the sacred rites!
The temples symbolized the cross roads of the cosmos, where
the divine and the mortal met in perpetual harmony!
These divine scenes were integrated into the very fabric of the
Egyptian society through chants and rituals;
With cosmological symbols of magical hieroglyphs, which
priests alone could transcribe in those days!
(Thebes began to decline rapidly after Alexander the Great
established the port-city of Alexandria as Egypt’s new Capital
around 332 BC !)

Luxor Temple built by Amenhotep-III, was dedicated to God
Amun, his wife Mut and son Khonsu, - the Theban Triad;
Tutankhamen and Ramses-II expanding the temple during the
New Kingdom Period!
Creator God Amun became assimilated with the Sun God Re;
Was worshipped in Thebes, and in the cult centers of Luxor and
Karnak, - as Amun-Re!
The walls and columns of these cult temples were decorated
with carved and painted relief,
Depicting the interaction with Gods, and military exploits of
Egyptian Pharaohs and Kings!
The sun temple of Amenhotep-III at Luxor has many columns
resembling papyrus bundles,
Symbolic of the primeval marsh from where Creation was
believed to have unfolded !
A Sphinx Alley excavated between Luxor an

(To Marcel Schwob in friendship and in admiration)

In a dim corner of my room for longer than
my fancy thinks
A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me
through the shifting gloom.

Inviolate and immobile she does not rise she
does not stir
For silver moons are naught to her and naught
to her the suns that reel.

Red follows grey across the air, the waves of
moonlight ebb and flow
But with the Dawn she does not go and in the
night-time she is there.

Dawn follows Dawn and Nights grow old and
all the while this curious cat
Lies couching on the Chinese mat with eyes of
satin rimmed with gold.

Upon the mat she lies and leers and on the
tawny throat of her
Flutters the soft and silky fur or ripples to her
pointed ears.

Come forth, my lovely seneschal! so somnolent,
so statuesque!
Come forth you exquisite grotesque! half woman
and half animal!

Come forth my lovely languorous Sphinx! and
put your head upon my knee!
And let me stroke your throat and see your
body spotted like the Lynx!

And let me touch those curving claws of yellow
ivory and grasp
The tail that like a monstrous Asp coils round
your heavy velvet paws!

A thousand weary centuries are thine
while I have hardly seen
Some twenty summers cast their green for
Autumn’s gaudy liveries.

But you can read the Hieroglyphs on the
great sandstone obelisks,
And you have talked with Basilisks, and you
have looked on Hippogriffs.

O tell me, were you standing by when Isis to
Osiris knelt?
And did you watch the Egyptian melt her union
for Antony

And drink the jewel-drunken wine and bend
her head in mimic awe
To see the huge proconsul draw the salted tunny
from the brine?

And did you mark the Cyprian kiss white Adon
on his catafalque?
And did you follow Amenalk, the God of
Heliopolis?

And did you talk with Thoth, and did you hear
the moon-horned Io weep?
And know the painted kings who sleep beneath
the wedge-shaped Pyramid?

Lift up your large black satin eyes which are
like cushions where one sinks!
Fawn at my feet, fantastic Sphinx! and sing me
all your memories!

Sing to me of the Jewish maid who wandered
with the Holy Child,
And how you led them through the wild, and
how they slept beneath your shade.

Sing to me of that odorous green eve when
crouching by the marge
You heard from Adrian’s gilded barge the
laughter of Antinous

And lapped the stream and fed your drouth and
watched with hot and hungry stare
The ivory body of that rare young slave with
his pomegranate mouth!

Sing to me of the Labyrinth in which the twi-
formed bull was stalled!
Sing to me of the night you crawled across the
temple’s granite plinth

When through the purple corridors the screaming
scarlet Ibis flew
In terror, and a horrid dew dripped from the
moaning Mandragores,

And the great torpid crocodile within the tank
shed slimy tears,
And tare the jewels from his ears and staggered
back into the Nile,

And the priests cursed you with shrill psalms as
in your claws you seized their snake
And crept away with it to slake your passion by
the shuddering palms.

Who were your lovers? who were they
who wrestled for you in the dust?
Which was the vessel of your Lust?  What
Leman had you, every day?

Did giant Lizards come and crouch before you
on the reedy banks?
Did Gryphons with great metal flanks leap on
you in your trampled couch?

Did monstrous hippopotami come sidling toward
you in the mist?
Did gilt-scaled dragons writhe and twist with
passion as you passed them by?

And from the brick-built Lycian tomb what
horrible Chimera came
With fearful heads and fearful flame to breed
new wonders from your womb?

Or had you shameful secret quests and did
you harry to your home
Some Nereid coiled in amber foam with curious
rock crystal *******?

Or did you treading through the froth call to
the brown Sidonian
For tidings of Leviathan, Leviathan or
Behemoth?

Or did you when the sun was set climb up the
cactus-covered *****
To meet your swarthy Ethiop whose body was
of polished jet?

Or did you while the earthen skiffs dropped
down the grey Nilotic flats
At twilight and the flickering bats flew round
the temple’s triple glyphs

Steal to the border of the bar and swim across
the silent lake
And slink into the vault and make the Pyramid
your lupanar

Till from each black sarcophagus rose up the
painted swathed dead?
Or did you lure unto your bed the ivory-horned
Tragelaphos?

Or did you love the god of flies who plagued
the Hebrews and was splashed
With wine unto the waist? or Pasht, who had
green beryls for her eyes?

Or that young god, the Tyrian, who was more
amorous than the dove
Of Ashtaroth? or did you love the god of the
Assyrian

Whose wings, like strange transparent talc, rose
high above his hawk-faced head,
Painted with silver and with red and ribbed with
rods of Oreichalch?

Or did huge Apis from his car leap down and
lay before your feet
Big blossoms of the honey-sweet and honey-
coloured nenuphar?

How subtle-secret is your smile!  Did you
love none then?  Nay, I know
Great Ammon was your bedfellow!  He lay with
you beside the Nile!

The river-horses in the slime trumpeted when
they saw him come
Odorous with Syrian galbanum and smeared with
spikenard and with thyme.

He came along the river bank like some tall
galley argent-sailed,
He strode across the waters, mailed in beauty,
and the waters sank.

He strode across the desert sand:  he reached
the valley where you lay:
He waited till the dawn of day:  then touched
your black ******* with his hand.

You kissed his mouth with mouths of flame:
you made the horned god your own:
You stood behind him on his throne:  you called
him by his secret name.

You whispered monstrous oracles into the
caverns of his ears:
With blood of goats and blood of steers you
taught him monstrous miracles.

White Ammon was your bedfellow!  Your
chamber was the steaming Nile!
And with your curved archaic smile you watched
his passion come and go.

With Syrian oils his brows were bright:
and wide-spread as a tent at noon
His marble limbs made pale the moon and lent
the day a larger light.

His long hair was nine cubits’ span and coloured
like that yellow gem
Which hidden in their garment’s hem the
merchants bring from Kurdistan.

His face was as the must that lies upon a vat of
new-made wine:
The seas could not insapphirine the perfect azure
of his eyes.

His thick soft throat was white as milk and
threaded with thin veins of blue:
And curious pearls like frozen dew were
broidered on his flowing silk.

On pearl and porphyry pedestalled he was
too bright to look upon:
For on his ivory breast there shone the wondrous
ocean-emerald,

That mystic moonlit jewel which some diver of
the Colchian caves
Had found beneath the blackening waves and
carried to the Colchian witch.

Before his gilded galiot ran naked vine-wreathed
corybants,
And lines of swaying elephants knelt down to
draw his chariot,

And lines of swarthy Nubians bare up his litter
as he rode
Down the great granite-paven road between the
nodding peacock-fans.

The merchants brought him steatite from Sidon
in their painted ships:
The meanest cup that touched his lips was
fashioned from a chrysolite.

The merchants brought him cedar chests of rich
apparel bound with cords:
His train was borne by Memphian lords:  young
kings were glad to be his guests.

Ten hundred shaven priests did bow to Ammon’s
altar day and night,
Ten hundred lamps did wave their light through
Ammon’s carven house—and now

Foul snake and speckled adder with their young
ones crawl from stone to stone
For ruined is the house and prone the great
rose-marble monolith!

Wild *** or trotting jackal comes and couches
in the mouldering gates:
Wild satyrs call unto their mates across the
fallen fluted drums.

And on the summit of the pile the blue-faced
ape of Horus sits
And gibbers while the fig-tree splits the pillars
of the peristyle

The god is scattered here and there:  deep
hidden in the windy sand
I saw his giant granite hand still clenched in
impotent despair.

And many a wandering caravan of stately
negroes silken-shawled,
Crossing the desert, halts appalled before the
neck that none can span.

And many a bearded Bedouin draws back his
yellow-striped burnous
To gaze upon the Titan thews of him who was
thy paladin.

Go, seek his fragments on the moor and
wash them in the evening dew,
And from their pieces make anew thy mutilated
paramour!

Go, seek them where they lie alone and from
their broken pieces make
Thy bruised bedfellow!  And wake mad passions
in the senseless stone!

Charm his dull ear with Syrian hymns! he loved
your body! oh, be kind,
Pour spikenard on his hair, and wind soft rolls
of linen round his limbs!

Wind round his head the figured coins! stain
with red fruits those pallid lips!
Weave purple for his shrunken hips! and purple
for his barren *****!

Away to Egypt!  Have no fear.  Only one
God has ever died.
Only one God has let His side be wounded by a
soldier’s spear.

But these, thy lovers, are not dead.  Still by the
hundred-cubit gate
Dog-faced Anubis sits in state with lotus-lilies
for thy head.

Still from his chair of porphyry gaunt Memnon
strains his lidless eyes
Across the empty land, and cries each yellow
morning unto thee.

And Nilus with his broken horn lies in his black
and oozy bed
And till thy coming will not spread his waters on
the withering corn.

Your lovers are not dead, I know.  They will
rise up and hear your voice
And clash their cymbals and rejoice and run to
kiss your mouth!  And so,

Set wings upon your argosies!  Set horses to
your ebon car!
Back to your Nile!  Or if you are grown sick of
dead divinities

Follow some roving lion’s spoor across the copper-
coloured plain,
Reach out and hale him by the mane and bid
him be your paramour!

Couch by his side upon the grass and set your
white teeth in his throat
And when you hear his dying note lash your
long flanks of polished brass

And take a tiger for your mate, whose amber
sides are flecked with black,
And ride upon his gilded back in triumph
through the Theban gate,

And toy with him in amorous jests, and when
he turns, and snarls, and gnaws,
O smite him with your jasper claws! and bruise
him with your agate *******!

Why are you tarrying?  Get hence!  I
weary of your sullen ways,
I weary of your steadfast gaze, your somnolent
magnificence.

Your horrible and heavy breath makes the light
flicker in the lamp,
And on my brow I feel the damp and dreadful
dews of night and death.

Your eyes are like fantastic moons that shiver
in some stagnant lake,
Your tongue is like a scarlet snake that dances
to fantastic tunes,

Your pulse makes poisonous melodies, and your
black throat is like the hole
Left by some torch or burning coal on Saracenic
tapestries.

Away!  The sulphur-coloured stars are hurrying
through the Western gate!
Away!  Or it may be too late to climb their silent
silver cars!

See, the dawn shivers round the grey gilt-dialled
towers, and the rain
Streams down each diamonded pane and blurs
with tears the wannish day.

What snake-tressed fury fresh from Hell, with
uncouth gestures and unclean,
Stole from the poppy-drowsy queen and led you
to a student’s cell?

What songless tongueless ghost of sin crept
through the curtains of the night,
And saw my taper burning bright, and knocked,
and bade you enter in?

Are there not others more accursed, whiter with
leprosies than I?
Are Abana and Pharphar dry that you come here
to slake your thirst?

Get hence, you loathsome mystery!  Hideous
animal, get hence!
You wake in me each ******* sense, you make me
what I would not be.

You make my creed a barren sham, you wake
foul dreams of sensual life,
And Atys with his blood-stained knife were
better than the thing I am.

False Sphinx!  False Sphinx!  By reedy Styx
old Charon, leaning on his oar,
Waits for my coin.  Go thou before, and leave
me to my crucifix,

Whose pallid burden, sick with pain, watches
the world with wearied eyes,
And weeps for every soul that dies, and weeps
for every soul in vain.

Pharaoh Tutankhamun graced the Egyptian throne,
A *****, brisk and spry.
From his majestical hands, dangled a scepter
And on his handsome head, sat a crown.

His empire was at its peak
For he wielded influence all over africa.
The bearded Europeans and nubianS sought his protection
For egypt, was a haven.

So organised was the land:

Amun-re and maat protected the people,
The country grew with the help of viziers.
Agriculture was a noble profession in the land,
As her economic markets were the best in the world

Egypt gave light to Greece and Mesopotamia
For her civilisation altered many a life.
And also, was the birth place of man
Such, was the land of egypt

The middle ages stroke and Europe went to sleep
But mama africa gave birth to many strong children:
Ghana, Mali, Songhai and many more
These children shoke the world with their riches and organisation.

Such was the history that africa recorded before they came.

Fredriech Hegel in want of speech said:
“Africa never had a history before the whites came.”
Such a mediocre declaration from an illiterate
For in place of his brain, graced a kidney.

Africa was well civilised before the bearded people came:
We had a religion
We had education as seen in egypt
We had a well organised system in all aspects.

We had everything needed for prosperity,
We attracted them with our gold, thus they came.
But most of all, we believed in equality.
Such was africa before they came

But when the bearded people came,
They altered our ways and put us in stocks
Then said: “we had no history.”
Oblivious that africa had made history,
BEFORE
AND BEFORE
THE

It was evening in spring,
And the tides of waves --
With orbits of the silent moon,
Wax and pale, craves
Of a queen irradiate bright,
'Mid stars as Nubians ,
Reign Herself with Utopians
Beaming with light.
For awhile, I glance,
(Fair mystic chance)
Fair- so fair to me-
She flown, o'er heaven,
As holier rosemary
Guided by a fairy
Left be poison airy-
I reached toward thee:
Queen of evenstars-
For love be even,
As an enamored rose
I once leapt before-
Before- when flame grows
Into a distant fire,
Ablaze aspire
Where the cord
Of a profound lord-
Twist the knife
Against my life
Afar- far-far-far-
To that which Beauty's scar
Is worship- in a evenstar.

i simply can't believe the irony, well, it's irony in a historiological sense, and yes, if there's an affix of -ology ascribed to history, i.e.: how history tends to repeat itself, then the ironical history, the poetic history is also in place, history is by far, imbued by a chronological rigidity... oops. what does this concern, the lampooning hysteria of: the fall of the west, the fall of the west, the english are coming! sure, the germans are ***** sadomasochists in their own right, collectively, unlike the french singular development... but that's beside the point. you know what i've conjured? a prediction... western civilisation will only be revived, by the fall of the western / wailing wall in jerusalem... odd, this ha-kotel ha-ma'arav, this haa'it al-búraaq: you know what the slavic word for beetroot is? burak (ckq): western civilisation will have to be beaten to a beetroot pulp of ****** scars, and the western wall will, first have to fall, before a 4th temple is built; but this wall will have to fall, before the western world wakes up... it's going to be a painful process, but for the western world to reestablish itself: the jews will have to bid goodbye to their most sacred sanctity, their mecca, only when this happens, with an equilibrated sense of purpose arrive for the current sphere of affairs... not until she(h)-lo(h) beit (שלו בית) is erected, will the west seize its dodo project; i.e. his house; curious, isn't it, how the jews are teasing with this waiting game, then again: it is much much easier to desecrate mecca by the muslims, building profanities around the al-masjid al-haraam (wait, isn't haraam the word used by "allah" to state: forbidden? funny, funny that, ah who cares if it's one extra A); because what stands in the rebuilding of the שלו בית? oh, nothing, just the kippat ha-sela... muslims would sooner part with the mosque in mecca, than the dome of the rock in jerusalem; but first? the western wall must fall.

it's just a cliche to state, but this whole
notion of latin, being dead?
  this nietzschean
   *lateinisch ist tot -
  looks like god is alive after all...
why? take for example that every
single english t.v. show ends with
the credits of when the show was made,
the year? always given in roman
numerals... every, single, one...
that's for starters... oh, by the way,
what alphabet are we using?
   isn't it latin? my, what a coincidence,
and look! it rained from heaven
to enforce it, since the "barbarian"
north men, der nordenmänner
invoked diacritical enforcement -
   diacritical enforcement -
ya,    nordenmaanner (i can count
you know, it's just two dots above
the a, come on, don't be english
with your: i don't know how to pronounce
a word)...
and in the current year, anno domini
that's 2017 (MMXVII) -
we still see latin revived, up-kept,
nay, i'll go as far as to call it: cherished!
it would seem there's a pattern -
well, what with the egyptian enslavement
of the jews,
     and subsequently the destruction
of jerusalem, and the babylonian
enslavement (by the way,
chant of the hebrew slaves from verdi's
opera nabucco? my my) -
but you notice something?
  the romans didn't enslave the jews,
hence they fermented the most potent
zeitgeist for the hebrews,
    a strong priestly caste -
the hebrews bloomed under the romans,
because? the romans thought
very little of them in their physical
capacity, that role was allocated to
the nubians, and, moreover,
they thought about their intellectual
output even less -
      how could the jews compete with
the grecian intellect in the ancient world?
it couldn't! so they let them be.
sure as **** we can say that
nubians were the slaves in rome -
thus in a precursor to the final culmination,
try conceptualising newton's laws,
or einstein's relativity,
   using roman numerals, alternatively
known by the greeks to be the seven
headed beast from the book of revelation:
I V X L C D M -
  but at the same time, try to grasp
the aesthetic beauty of ancient rome,
the coliseum using modern digits
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 - both systems are:
incompatible, or should i say: chiral.
just imagine HOW CONFUSING IT MUST
HAVE BEEN, AT TIMES,
  TO ASK FOR XLIV APPLES
at a market...
         staggering, man's ingenuity -
and this is why i keep all evolution bound
to script, the aristotelian measure of time,
rather than the platonic measure of time
conscripting forms,
   given the similarity of man to ape;
but that is still beside the point -
i wonder about the divine judgement with
respect to the romans and their
relationship with the hebrews, even though
they did destroy the temple
in jerusalem...
           well, i just look at it like this:
perhaps the remains of spoken latin is
"dead" in that it is muddled, but it is muddled
because the script has such a wide
geographic region of it being used -
              it's as if a universal medium was
achieved, for the greatest accomplishment
of the romans, is their script;
but the hell happened to the egyptian hieroglyphs,
or the babylonian cuneiform,
well, what? they became extinct!
           what does this suggest,
that the romans could not be blamed for
any foul play with respect to the hebrews,
the latin script was spared the fate of
the both hieroglyphs or cuneiform -
so much so that it didn't even succumb to
to the nordic runes, as it could have -
could have...
                  and it certainly didn't become
quasi-greek, as cyrillic script emerged.
         ergo?
gott ist nicht tot, seit lateinisch ist leben.

ON THE TRAIN

Intro:
   1) “To be or not to be. That is the question.”
        – Shakespeare, from “Hamlet”

   2) “There is but one philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Whether or not the world has 3 dimensions or the mind 9 or 12 categories, comes afterward.”
        – Albert Camus, from “The Myth of Sisyphus”
    
   3) “Yes, I thought. You can ponder this or analyze that til the cows come home, but the real question is whether all your pondering and analysis will convince you that life is worth living.”
        – Brian Greene, from “The Fabric of the Cosmos”
    
    4) “ Now when you come up against the great gulf that often, and even generally, exists between the conditions and suffering of the masses of people, on the one hand, and what you are able to do about that at any given point - when you run up against that repeatedly, everyone feels a definite pull which expresses itself in moral terms: how can you stand by and not do something about what’s happening to the masses of people?
          – Bob Avakian, from “BAsics”  
_____

World music colors the air
with Mexico, Ireland, India,
the Middle East and Africa.
Colors-rich, deep, nothing pastel,
primeval
and it’s hard to sit still,
hold my  peace
while these rhythms paint
the pulse of my body.
I can feel the sticky humidity
of jungles fragrant with bougainvillea,
and bromiliades dangle
from every note of Les Nubians.
Talking Drums answer in response.
While trumpets call out
staccato style,
hot with salsa,
a reflection of my uneasy mind
wondering what I will find.
In spite of these colors,
and tunes,
shadows hide in these runes;
it isn’t an easy ride.
*
How do you write about dying?
Could I write a poem
the way Mozart wrote his “Requiem”;
feverish, delusional
yet his notes flowed from his fingers
like a tempest brewing
in an open flame.
While my words are shards,
splintered in millions
trying to make some sense.
Yet this pen won’t leave my hand
it demands to be heard.
*
“Have a nice trip home”, they said.
But these nerves are tensed;
they vibrate
the way this train is bouncing
on the tracks.
Within the swirl of colors and words,
stirred and mixed musically,
we raise our questions,
speak our art
and tell our stories.
There have been many.
Countless, like endless grains of sand
washed ashore in the cosmos.
But what happens when they end?
What if a story winks out
like a dying sun losing its light
as it becomes a black hole.
Or a symphony comes to its last note.
Then what?
Will there ever be another?
A continuance
or something new?
Extinction is final -
it is a *******.
***
Dad, you say that it matters,
that this family name
has reached its last branch.
But why?
Humanity will go on.
What is in a name anyway?
And how did it come about, our name?
But more, what have we done?
Yes, we existed.
We loved, fought and died.
We played, married,
raised family and did what we thought right.
But have we disturbed the universe;
make waves in the ocean’s tide?
More importantly,
did we live and die for the people;
sacrifice all just to make the leaps
to change the world?
Here is an infinite truth:
billions have come and gone
now lost to history;
billions more will do the same.
Our lives are finite,
yet change and matter,
in one form or another
is infinite.
In this ever changing world,
have we strained to the limits
to touch matter,
affect its taste;
attempt to move its direction
in the service of human kind?
Have we simply gone along with the way things are?
Or, have we made a difference?
Have we really lived?

And isn’t this the only truly philosophical question!
_________
Conclusion: Further thoughts:
     1) “But it is only through fearless engagement that we can learn our own limits. It’s only through the rational pursuit of theories, even those that whisk us into strange and unfamiliar domains, that we stand a chance of revealing the expanse of reality.”
          – Brian Greene, from “Hidden Reality”

     2) “Your life is going to be about something - or it’s going to be about nothing. And there is nothing greater your life can be about that contributing whatever you can to the revolutionary transformation of society and the world, to put an end to all systems and relations of oppression and exploitation and all unnecessary suffering and destruction that goes along with them.”
          –Bob Avakian, from “BAsics”

4/30.12 (began 2/12/12)

https://youtu.be/rkhtjCr2fF4
Music: Angelique Kidjo, "Voodoo Child"

what of nature is eaten by the mouth of man,
      so too eats the genitalia of
woman with as much ferocious gluttonisation -
   no serpent of eden care more
for the reality that's bound to tempt the choice:
either know or be known -
     below the standard equator of the body
as the point of disembowelment and Cesarian birth...
   spewing toward a heap of two tonnes
of sardines with a stench that can't classify
**** for the scent of strawberries...
               proof of solipsism? a man sitting
on a toilet for an hour with a newspaper...
   disproof of solipsism? a man easing a **** out
on a crowded train... ****** expressions?
piquant... yonder! the lustless ******! or what
would be said when the gyroid was out of place
when anything concerning sine and cosine
      reflected the one plausible coordinate of
tangens... namely 0... so in whatever algebraic
form interweaving sine x with cosine z + + +...
you'd still get the tangens either side exponential,
and your own summary, bound to that
infamous biography of never reaching fame...
     and that myth of Atlantis and the serpent there?
  more like an octopus that fiddled and slobbered
the **** than said: of this fruit an addition
to your "natural" duality - to encourage your number,
replacing dualism with a dichotomy...
           rites of passage for the ceramically fainting skinned -
ivory and squint, then
           diddly-and-piglet-or-flamenco-skinned-squat -
wide-eyed... or listening to how the Bulgars settled
in Europe and became ethnically cleaned with
     neo-Cyrillic... or as some say: proto-Greek revisionism...
       some words are familial... i can actually attest them
a phonetic synonymous that's familiar to the ear...
but the little words... remain with origin bound,
rather intact... only nouns get ***** to assimilate...
it's the little uh huh and um and om and
      so many in between that never reach cleansing
a tongue fully...
                  to be said: kinda slavish,
             archaic ***... *** that also said:
Commodus was one of the 5 good emperors...
    and was falsely depicted in gladiator (2000)...
and the *** invented stirrups to shoot arrows with
while quickly moving and suggesting a Mongol to come
along with the perfected idea of that: and pure stink
   of forgotten hygiene... memorised by
        the inflamed library of Baghdad and the pyramid
                 of Iraqi skulls...
the Romans made use of the calvary by employing
only eunuchs in their ranks... well... given no
stirrups... you're bound to make scrambled eggs
   along the ping-pong gallop...
       could ever a modern woman become a Helen?
perhaps a yacht might sail... instead of a thousand worries
to contest her husband's pride: a thousand quid...
  but it would never be such a gesticulation for
making worth of a woman to discredit a man...
            Kant said: i'll marry, only if i marry what i am
already married to... which is a transcendence of
what a man usually is married to... a woman...
  a man can marry his work...
                  it's either:
a. arbeit macht frei... or it's
                                   b. frau macht knecht...
well... it's sad... does it matter whether it's a universal
truth that has no guiding concern for
particular applicability and therefore a non-statistical
verification that splinters off a pathos of
  idealism all too readily accepted?
          and slogans avoid the details, i.e.
a. work power free
                          work empowers toward a freedom...
     is that the irony of suggesting
                                 that the Nubians built the pyramids
    and weren't the original air-coolers with their
   duck-feather fans and that the Jews profited from this?
as in
          b. woman power slave
                   women empower toward slavery...
sure... patted on the back and constantly bridging
gaps and licking lesions of man's struggle...
                       work "sets you" free...
                      and in that "      " bubble you can also have:
sets your apart from...
       sets you against....
                                  settles... the notion of freedom...
                   sets freedom... against you...
                                     so many variations of slogan grammar...
      well, akin to the 20th century shogun snail whipping
you into: ya, mein herr...
                                   and of course, there are the lucky few
that sorta revel in what otherwise are told to do:
            let me shove that remote control up yer ***,
and i'll make it less painful... i'll smear some lard
around your **** and you start pampering a bottle
of johnson & johnson baby powder...
      for a quest into averting the extinction of snow.