THE RESURRECTED MAN

They flocked to him,

eager to know

what lay beyond,

what would wait

when the last breath

had been taken.

But he just shook his head,

smiled sadly, some

enormous sorrow

filling his being,

and could not say.

"Lazarus, tell us!"

they demanded.

"Will we live as shadows,

shall we sleep

without dreams?

Tell us!"

"I have no words,

he whispered,"

"to describe life,

I have no words

to describe death.

I, claimed by both,

part of neither."

"My waking hours

are spent among shadows,

my nights

memories of eternal cold.

What is life

and what is death?"

"Are you my last dream,

do I awaken

once again in the tomb,

to life, to death?

Or am I your dream

of shadow and light,

set to live

by the magician's hand?"

28.11.2018

DOMINION OF NOVEMBER

Crisp frosty morning,

light gray

with an edge of silver,

silence hangs

in place of the Moon

over the landscape

rolling into

tree-laden vistas.

24.11.2018

THE JOURNEY INTO NIGHT

The night calls,

a walk down the pavements

with glimmering pools

reflecting electric stars.

There I go,

a shadow among shadows,

merging, vanishing, appearing.

The night devours and gives birth.

From one circle of light

to another, from womb

to grave of darkness

and resurrection in light.

22.11.2018

AT THE PRECIPICE OF HISTORY

'It's sad to be alive at this time,'

she tweets of people making Hitler salutes

as Bannon debates at Oxford Union.

Sad, yes; but this our fight,

a battle for humanity

to be fought now, so that

others can live in happier times.

The poison of the Fascists,

the global warming and the sixth mass extinction,

the oligarchic capitalism

- our fights, one fight

against a many-headed Hydra.

A battle to be fought

so that others

can be alive at happier times -

a battle to be won

so that there will be later times,

when people can forget

that there ever was this struggle,

this abyss in human history we face

and must cross. If we

fail at this precipice,

this will be the last of times.

22.11.2018

IF, AT THE MOUNTAINS

If you come upon

Lacedaemonians standing at the pass of Thermopylea,

facing the might of Persia,

then, my friend,

find a way to their rear

and go and tell the Persians.

Do not hesitate, go

swiftly. Do not think

of the great reward

the Great King will bestow

upon you, think,

oh Ephialtes,

of the smile on the face

of the Helots in Sparta

when they hear of Leonidas' passing

and listen to the wailing

of the Spartan women.

19.11.2018

THESE LATTER DAYS

Mild sunshine of late November,

of these latter days,

the end times; winter

something to tell children

about, strange white dream

of the past. Now, 

autumn in late November,

hospice for humanity

under a brown shroud.

18.11.2018

METAMAMORPHOSIS IN MISSALONGHI

Greece, the land where myths

are still made, where

strange metamorphoses heroes make;

to there, to strife

his skin to make

the incestuous Lord came.

In this country deaths

immortals create,

Protean change

wreaks a god from the

suffering flesh; pyre

of disease to cast high

up on the Olympus a Phoenix

that flies from Byron's corpse.

18.11.2018

HAMLET IN HELL

Farewell, sweet prince -

rot in hell, with demons

devouring your falling flesh

for new to grow, gangrenous;

in Hades a modern Prometheus

lacking a Heracles, only

the drowned maiden

her nails in your empty sockets

forever seeking way

into your worm-riddled brain.

18.11.2018

TRINITY

They had three crosses,

but only one

was well used;

the other two

given to robbers

when God and the Holy Ghost

should have

completed the Trinity.

11.11.2018

CROSSING A DAY OF NOVEMBER

A bleak gray day

between two black continents of time

approaching each other,

closing the sea between,

that sliver of pale silver

with silent absence

from forest to field to

prison of cement; ghosts

the people on these streets of puddles,

passing without notice

absorbed by lost life-time of pain

and self-destroyed dreams.

From darkness to darkness,

across a sea of silver

hoarding the Sun,

bleak gray days

cold waves; o ghost

on the sea of time, dying,

you shall find no peace

but the void.

06.11.2018

CURATOR MATTHIAS WIVEL'S INTRODUCTION TO LORENZO LOTTO'S(1480-1556/1557) PORTRAITS

Heavenly Jerusalem

against the Dolomites,

very familiar subject,

but if you look at the Virgin

she looks like a middle-aged woman;

it is the Virgin in Glory,

perhaps the resurrected Virgin

or the Virgin of Immaculate Conception,

born without sin of human parents,

very troubling concept in the Church.

But why is she Middle-Aged?

Because she is a noble woman,

deposed as a queen of Cyprus

by the Venetian government.

She also build a myth around her,

living in celibacy; it

looks presumptuous to us,

but these kind of things happen

in this time. He is

described in a document

'a very major painter',

international, so to speak. It

is a tour-de-force, briefly

mentions the death of his putative master,

the attention he pays to objects,

draperies and books. The

Dead Christ with angels and Mary Magdalene

and Joseph of Arimatia, he is

present in his picture, his

graphic sensibility, the different hues

of skin, the sun-burnt of the male figure

beyond her. Very interestingly

changes, changes quite a lot in

the years to come. He

comes to Rome, ends up working

for the pope Julius II. You

can see how differently it is painted

from Raphael, it is highly controversial

but possible. You can see before

Rome, after Rome. The discipline

has given way to disorder, strangely

unsettled figure, composition -

of course influenced by Raphael. 

He can't go back after seeing what

he has seen, had to leave Rome,

liberates him, takes away

from fifteenth-century to sixteenth century

art. He stays there about

a decade, on the edge

of Venetian dominion. With

a strong local community. This

is an altar-piece for a Church

when Bergamo was
coming back to Venetian rule

after years of French. Lotto

brings his specific weirdness to it.

He was paid a lot of money for it.

06.11.2018

TO P. R. C.

You give thorns from

the rose on one day,

and the head of

the flower on another day.

You drew blood

with the thorns,

and painted the flower

red with it;

this is your red

rose, all blood

and thorns

and love.

06.11.2018

LET'S FORGET DEATH

Let's forget death,

for it will not forget us.

It will come,

slow like a traveller seen

far before recognized

and met, or

like a lightning without

sound heralding

it's strike.

Let's forget death,

for death shall not forget

us; in it's arms,

cold, we shall look

at eternity.

05.11.2018

IN THE SEASON OF FADING SOULS

The year grows bleak with the

season of leafless rain,

the stars hidden beyond the clouds

the world shrunks in gloom.

People walk past each other

on the wet roads as strangers,

no hand rises in greeting,

no gaze is met, eyes avert from eyes.

In their holes they hide, in

their caves of cement and wood

their flickering souls from light

seek what only fire can give.

Loneliness rises in naked branches

to the milk-gray blanket of clouds,

they shiver in rain, they feel the night

in the bleak wind and bleached dusk.

The afternoon like spider makes its

web, but the black silk

comes from the cold living souls

lonely, adrift in the dread November.

05.11.2018

A COSMIC MATING DANCE

All the gas sripped off, 

orbiting each other

with tidal tails

the two galaxies like lovers

exhausted, now dance

slowly; their final embrace

no starburst shall celebrate,

as the black holes unite.

05.11.2018

HOW QUICKLY IT IS OVER

You build sandcastles on low tide,

excitedly, forgetting

that the high tide is coming.

It comes, washing away

your ramparts of sand

and carries you away,

in to the blue.

01.11.2018