Divine Comedy written by the famous, Dante Alighieri
A writer, a poet, and a philosopher with his own theory
Still hard to understand after 700 years
Listening to it in Italian brings tears to your eyes, that’s clear.
It took thirteen long years to complete
As you read about his first love, Beatrice Portinari, so sweet
Went to her grave with his love unrequited
He understood the love he held for her, which ignited
A poem, a line, he saw a lake under his feet
Midway upon the journey of our life is where he started his poem, so rife
They say the first three lines of this work are so well known
That even many who have never read it can recite them - it has been shown.
Brined voids surround my already bounded vision, throwing me headlong into confusion and disarray.
Hesitation in what may be the next correct course is what has landed me, and with much despair, in this current crisis of identity.
It is also what keeps me still.
This sea of doubt, once touched by the poet Alighieri, drowns my senses, casts my sails of logic askew and all at once sends my fluttering mind into a turmoil so grand as to take the attentive and oblivious alike.
Oft in mesmeric trance, the soaked foundation upon which I stumble offers none but fleeting moments of blessed relief. The rotten cored planks creak and shudder with the shifts and contemplations of my psyche, and I feel as though one misstep or overreach will drop me into a depth not easily realized.
And, I fear.
Oh do I fear.
I fear that will be the end. The end of a great many precious jewels which have hitherto been forgotten, discarded, and altogether scorned.
I fear that I will not be mourned, or that I will but be it with half of heart.
I am surrounded by unknown terrain.
surely
as i was
going to hell
i must have
skipped
a level
where the boiling
was maybe six
minutes or
a little more
Alighieri
don't you
like
your
pasta
to
be al
dante
Dedicated to Robert Lindley
He is a singer of the dark. This dark
made of the blood he shed over a rhyme;
of the hell's cavities that keenly hark
to echo of his words; of space and time
he leads me through - this dark is the enzyme
which a true art grows from, the watermark
of talent, the reality that I’m
calling in Russian [nastay'aschi mrak]*.
Abandon hope all ye who enter here**:
his way of darkness is not for a mere
mortal.
* (rus.) real darkness
** Dante Alighieri, "Hell", canto 3, stanza 3
abab baba ccd
MY BELOVED
Pure gentle and honest figure
my owner when with others speaks
before her every mouth stay quiet
any mischief look is disfigured ...
II
So she perceived in others admiration
in sublime modesty she is compared
to angel who came from heaven to earth
showing miracle thus illumination ...
III
simple appears to those who regards her
passing by sweet heart looks
that only notices who recognizes her
IV
From her mouth flies when inspired
a spiritual breeze, full of lovingness
that goes saying to the heart, "sighs"
Translation and interaction with the poem TANTO GENTILE TANTO ONESTA PARE
FROM DANTE ALIGHIERI
Voltaire just Kant angle cut it
Beauvoir broad side view
abut the narrow Rousseau
gender Thoreau thought causeway
As Sarte Marx the entrance unlit —
Avicena chapiters atop da Vinci pillars,
Stuart Mill sturdily sit
Arendt spiral steps turn Spinoza
down to the Alighieri depths
Socrates ambience got a Dewey dungeon
decimal Fodio gradient affectation
Awolowo still wanna Sodipo cubit cut it,
but some Augustinus genius
won’t even Nyerere beveling make
the reed Descartes arch decision
Wollstonecraft overlaid on contoured Witt
Piper leveled with Gargi precision ...
A Solomon blueprint found in a keen closet
„Per me si va nella città dolente…”
Dante Alighieri
You haven’t forgotten
you won’t forget…
In ices is swelling
the river again and trawling
roots and weeds,
and foam.
It leaves the shores bent,
mirrors,
swamps and frost.
But on the day
it kindles a glow.
With movements
spiral of
the hands,
I’m folding the air
after the beasts –
to that one threshold
(what does it say
no, I don’t know.
And the death ones leave.
TO DANTE ALIGHIERI
As a student I found passion
Not in jocks, which was the fashion—
but in Dante and his time
his haunting tale in perfect rhyme
what a mind--- what a brain
modern guys just complain
Dante my first major crush
You set the bar to make me trust
That truth and beauty do exist
Bequeathed my heart's poor pen persist
Betrothed as a child Florentian's law
You loved a woman that you saw
By chance in public on the street
You were lightning on your feet
Wonder of a man you were--
All your life with thoughts of her
mad love for Bea-- romance afar
This love bizarre survived a war
Your published work sings just of her
Your wedded life seems like a blur--
Maintained your children's adoration
through long years of separation
Oh, most daunting was your child
Adoring you through days most wild
And when you lost your wealth and fame
She took nun vow's and donned Bea's name
And through amazing life and verse
You’ve taught me nothing can be worse
Than losing dignity and heart---
All valiant souls survive fresh starts.
He felt his heart awaken
When he saw Beatrice
Coming towards him
One verse was pursuing another verse-
One bliss was pursuing another bliss,
Mysterious like a moon kiss
The sky above Florence was so bright
While his star was dancing every night
Dante Alighieri
Wrote a poem quite scary.
But all ended well.
After a descent through hell.
Life is a divine commedy
Rarely is it Paradise
Sometimes it can seem like Purgatory
But mostly it appears to be an Inferno.
I am not yet halfway along my life's path
But I have already abandoned all hope.
Assailed by wild beasts
I wonder......
Will I ever be recognised
As a great man?
Like 'The Supreme Poet'
Shining like a bright star.
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