Best Frescos Poems
Indigenous woman—rarely accompanied by their
white sisters—or their men enter
through the side door
of St. Peter’s Church.
Here they are boxed in cool stucco,
and stained-glass. A flock of Mexican
Madonna’s shift today to encompass
their fairer sister:
Dios te salve, Maria. Llena eres de gracia: El Señor es contigo.
Bendita tú eres entre todas las mujeres. Y bendito es
el fruto de tu vientre:,Jesús.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is
the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros,
pecadores, ahora y en la hora ...
drones on—and on—and on
within the heavenly heights of gilded frescos—bleeding—
rainbows prism the room in false light, kaleidoscoping upon
the walls—murals of brocade, gold-threaded catch random rays.
Woman anchor the pews with their desires—
Pliant and pleading these mothers beseech Mary to intercede:
for first class citizenship (inside and outside the Church)
for work, for health, for a better life for their children.
Voices of the lamb bleating; dinner for the wolves, they pray.
SHORT SHRIFT-little or no attention or consideration
It can’t be art
Spun in a windstorm of caustic insisting
Plastered like mud on the walls of Pompeii
Frescos of joy before charcoal was misting
Writing in ash, catastrophic display
Poetic spittle once cast to the broken
Scribbled in diction now smeared in the rain
So many follow yet nothing is spoken
Below these skies with the cherry red stain
There in the distance a magpie is flying
Scavenging wings while you shout from the ground
Screaming a truth midst the unending lying
Circling nightmares of places you’re bound
Can it be art if it’s not as remembered
Past of the days when you pissed in the snow
Spelling your name as your mother was watching
Turning in shame as if she didn’t know
Damning Picasso for changing direction
How can a nose sit so far from the face
Pollock’s spilled paint way beyond your detection
Charging a gallery, demanding your space
Photo laced albums of cellophane pages
Developed by hand in a room with no light
Look at these kids and their digital stages
Feigning creative, it just isn’t right
Does this explain every tactical action
While you count blocks as if streets don’t exist
Pulling a woodpecker’s tail to get traction
Hiding the reason you just can’t resist
You say that art can be all that we’re thinking
Then in the same breath you say it’s not true
Often we wonder if you have been drinking
Make up your mind, it’s the least you can do
You are all artists, yes you who are reading
Writing your words that you put on display
Spilling your heart while emotions are bleeding
It breaks my heart when I hear someone say
It can’t be art, all those losers are dreaming
Seeing and clicking and sending and such
Downloaded images, videos streaming
When the truth is, you are just out of touch
A palette of sounds, smells, and colors;
Spring fills the canvas of my mind
with Her stoic beauty.
And once more, Her fabulous frescos,
fuel my passion for impressionism:
when She dapples Winter's wet stucco
with vibrant splashes of color.
And my heart is stimulated
by Her earthy sweet-scented breath.
Nothing feels as refreshing
as a Spring shower;
the feel of renewal
is encapsulated within each drop.
Robin-Redbreasts and daffodils;
early harbingers of Spring,
magically, change the landscape.
Flowers bloom in copious colors;
and songbirds add a vibrant pulse
to the heart of Spring!
I cherish Spring's sweet smile;
for smiles are made of hope:
and hope is the promise of Spring.
Sandro
Mastering his skill of painting, diligent to detail, color, and Frescos (Sistine Chapel)
Born in Florence, Italy, apprenticed as a goldsmith, then later with a master painter
By 1472, he had his own workshop where he created most of his works
Painting his Early Renaissance and Gothic Realism art plus doing church Frescos
He feared marriage saying it gave him nightmares, so he never married or had children
However he did love a married noblewoman and asked to be buried at her feet and was
In his later life, he was accused of "keeping a boy" but he was dismissed of charges
Yet he died in disgrace. His art remains in churches and galleries forever beloved
Botticelli
________________________
April 3, 2016
Poetry/Bio/Sandro Botticello
Copyright Protected, ID 16-774-483-0
All Rights Reserved. Written under Pseudonym.
(Real name - Alessandro di Mariano Filipepe)
I went to the Frankfurt Book Fair the other day.
It was mind-boggling..
Books! There were fat books, thin books,
White books, black books, tawny books,
Paperbacks, hardbacks, beautifully bound books,
Pure books, lax books, learned books, lay books,
Plain books, books of many colours,
Books on every subject under the sun,
Not to mention other books on
Distant galaxies, pulsars, quasars, black holes,
Books on any theme you can think of,
Or on themes you can’t even pronounce, from:
Art to Arthropods,
Bees to Biochemistry,
Cats to Catastrophes
Drugs to Decadence,
Energy to Ergonomics,
French Cooking to Frescos,
Guns to Gout,
History to Hippopotami,
Internal Medicine to Icebergs,
Julius Caesar to Justification,
Kulturkampf to Kinetics
Lace to Logogriphs,
Man to Manchuria,
Nietzsche to Nonsense Rhymes,
Opera to Ophthalmoscopes,
Poodles to Pollution,
Quantum Mechanics to Queen Victoria,
Russell to Rabbits,
Shaw to Shingles,
Tao to Torts,
Urdu to Ultimatums,
Virgil to Vivisection,
Whales to Witchcraft,
X-rays to Xylographs,
Yoga to Youth Hostels,
Zen to Zola,..
By closing-time my legs were giving out.
A voice, it seemed, was saying:
“Of more than is taught by these, my son, take care.
Of making many books there is no end,
And much study is weariness of the flesh.”
I don’t know about making them, I thought,
As I commenced my get-away from the Penguin stand,
But it takes something of an athlete just to glance at them.
I felt crushed, not only by the crowds
but also by the weight of my appalling ignorance.
Breathtaking color adorns the trees,
Every leaf painted with Nature's brush.
Autumn transforms Summer's green with ease,
Utilizing shades that make leaves blush.
Tinged yellow, orange, scarlet, and gold;
Incredible landscapes are conceived.
Fall is spectacular to behold,
Unparalleled beauty is achieved,
Literally, sculpted by the cold.
Fresh frescos and murals dot the ground,
As brisk breezes clear the leaves away,
Lightheartedly tossing them around;
Like the whimsy of a child at play.
We make our way through the debris
To the second floor of the military shelter…
Slowly and cautiously,
For Death here lies-
But only half-asleep.
The torrid wind wrings the unstuck wallpaper,
Forcing it to sing the hymn
Of the great Amarna Pharaoh.
The scars on the walls
And the lack of metal in the building
Speak of the Alchemists’ fresh visit.
The corner where there used to be
A baby’s bed and many toys
Is now covered with bottles,
That not long ago have been full
Of the spirit of the East.
No tears ran down her face,
For her eyes were now possessed
By the reminiscence of a sacrosanct bygone
And by the horror of what was left from it.
“Let’s go”- said she, and swiftly we went out,
For the sense of shame and guilt would
Always give a man a pair of wings.
We take a walk in silence
Around the empty swimming-pool.
The grass of sulphureous hues
Is strewn with wizen papavers,
And rotten remnants
Of snow-white unicorns.
The master of the mournful river,
Climbs up from the dried up hole
And gives me a look of reverence.
With one coin on each of his eyes,
He shrinks back to retire.
In the nothingness.
At last, in the shadows of the nearby woods,
We find a place to rest and chat about the weather.
The wind does not stir the branches of the trees;
Every movement here murmurs of an unknown
Horror- one gnawing all bygone,
But with no past of its own.
I notice there are some people
In the very vestibule of the city.
“Why, why is Mons so empty,
And it’s gates so blind and lazy?”
I keep staring at them for some time
But our eyes do not meet in the least.
Hurried cars pass frequently by us,
All going in the same direction.
A crowd is swarming on both sides
Of the dusty road, but suddenly the sharp stones
Dip from their grasp to cover the earth,
And senescence wipes out all of them at once.
Wrapped in shagreen, we go to the lonely hill,
Where children used to watch colored movies.
The cinema is devastated, but the frescos in
Unharmed blue and white still show
A beheaded star.
“And we dance, and we dance so softly,
And we keep dancing, under this bridge!”
This unhappy man in the midst of flowing opulence lived
like a discolored precious stone in a box of rare jewels,
and was always sad like a dry wood in a lush green forest.
He got up one morning more dejected than the morning before,
threw the flower embossed curtains off the crystal clear window
and looked out to see, maybe for the first time,
the crimson sun rising in the flaming horizon
that painted frescos of rhythm on water of the river.
He heard the beckon of the river in the rustle of the
leaves as the cool morning breeze ruffled them,
and as the colors of the dawn touched his heart softly
like the petals of flowers embracing the hard grey ground,
a delightful sensation he never felt before,
and as the call of the river floated silently to his senses
the way the drifting clouds talk to the mute sky,
he walked with his face flooded with soothing sunshine
to the bank of the river where he saw a sand bar
rising proudly from the water in the middle of the river
and spreading a golden sloping bed for a small tree to grow
whose branches were dancing in the western wind
and the emerald leaves were shining in sunburst splendor.
These he thought were the expressions of happiness and joy
that the lone tree could generate as it grew free
in an isolated barren bed of dry sand bar.
So he traveled across the coral sea to a distant barren island
and like the tree he let his life take root in desolateness
and lived to see the dawns come with pristine colors to cheer,
the sea become tapestry of liquid gold in ecstatic sunset hours,
but he couldn’t spread his hands out in the embalming air
the way the branches of the forlorn tree did in joy,
his eyes didn’t shimmer under the sun soaked sky
the way the leaves of the lonely tree did in happiness
because he became a barren island.
October 8, 2018
Contest : Fiction - October 2018 Writing Challenge
Sponsored by : Dear Heart a.k.a. Broken Wings
Wake up to the magnitude of the responsibility you shoulder
In singing the destiny humankind deserves
Betraying secrets to the egregious egret whose stakeholder
In his demented demeanour reserves
The right to plan, design and manufacture weapons of mass destruction
Whose reach and damage could wipe out the future humankind
Treasures in beliefs, norms and cultures whose construction
Aimed to implant virtues which find
Resonance, consonance and conformance in every facet
Various genotypes and phenotypes of the human race
Wear in awe and glamour that make up the alphabet set
That defines human nature in every trace and face
Living on the face of the Earth in the love habitude
Throbbing in hearts
Whose latitude and attitude
Once embedded in all Arts
Identified in caves, in grottos, in frescos, in cathedrals, in mausoleums
Breathing and preaching love
In beating hearts, in museums
Below and above
The heavens wake up, speak up
To reconcile warring religions, ideologies, mythologies, methodologies
Crawling as dregs at the bottom of the cup
Where the secret to the survival of the human race lies in new psychologies
Whose central tenet
Reduces
The Internet
To a platform where love produces
An elixir that metamorphoses human life
Into a form that lives forever
If only humankind could wipe away strife by mastering the art of playing the fife
Whose tenderness tune cures life brevity in a laboratory located in Denver.
Poor little Moon King
trapped inside a gilded cage
within the marble prison walls
the cage is painted
and the marble held up with balsa wood
a fake fairy-tale façade
castles in the clouds
ladies in classical poses
battles never won
nor even fought
locked in frozen frescos
as trapped as the poor little Moon King
forever
insulated from the cruel sisters
modernity & society
having anything you want
except what you really need
the sisters cannot let you bare
flesh and soul
crying to sleep
in the silken cradle
an empty shell
an unnatural fondness forbidden
yet tasted behind the closed door
a self-deluded love lost among luxuries
Oh Ludwig how you wished so hard
the sun would shine
on your chivalric dreams
but
alone lamenting at the balustrade
you are the Moon King
forever in plaster and paint
cloud-covered
out shined
hag-ridden highness
hiding behind a pile of stones and pretty
colours
poor little Moon King
Byzantine chapel
You had to swim a few meters until the find, you had to cut right and into the
rock is stuck the cave. I always felt like a small Byzantine dome that part. An
ancient Christian church remaining to wait until the end of the times. I thought
that I saw byzantine frescos painted in stone. Dride out faces looking at me
silent and serious. Tied with humidity, clams and starfish And salt spilling on
their hair and beards. People ready to make fires. Eyes like calcined charcoal
with crabs tied In garment. Steady, hard and fair fathers, breaths sulfur. The
light flowed from the top to the center with a thin gap. Algae and sea-urchins
like spilt Censer without burning incense and green stones as offerings in the
Sanctuaries left at random. The water reaches the middle and bottom well in
solid sand. I was ashamed to come in the sanctuary of sanctuaries Alone
because their quietness is heavy and their aim holy.
Everything was so spontaneous
and beautiful in my younger years;
a young heart reaching out to adventurous dreams,
making them as real as his imagined schemes!
Climbing a grassy hill,
pushing forward to reach mountains,
and discover hidden treasures
that lay in darkness for centuries;
frescos of saints in spacious caves,
a statue of an Archangel
guarding the dusty altar
as he thrusted His long spear
into the woeful Devil!!
Spring was a stunning sight of fireflies,
so incrediblly cheerful and thrilling,
when the impetuous wind
scattered the small white flowers
of a clustered viburnum
over the acient town of Baianum...
where I spent my younger years,
cherishing the liveliness of adolescence!
Coming down steep cliffs
towards early evening...
when the sunset was ablaze,
serenity was never felt so deeply;
and as weary as the canary's song would be,
it prompted me to sing!
In my younger years,
all those days weren't a passage through brevity...
they lingered on like they were enraptured by eternity;
If I had foreseen the misery of my misfortunes...
I wouldn't enunciate the loss of their affinity,
or the vitality of my unrelenting footsteps:
when I crossed,so unhastly,
that magnificent land called, " Italy! "
Giotto's first drawing was done on a rock
as he was sorrounded by a grazing flock;
and he drew that flower with great skill as if it were real,
then Cimabue saw it and kindly asked him to be his pupil.
Giotto decorated Florence's walls with superb frescos,
and painted real-life images of Chist and saints with rural landscapes;
he travelled all over Italy to spread the spirit of Renaissance ...
who wouldn't want to go back to that brilliant era of art and innocence?
Mister Jack Frost stealthily visited me again last night.
When I awakened from my slumber I saw to my delight,
(Like sparkling bubbles in a fine effervescent champagne),
Splendid frescos that he had etched upon my windowpane!
No mortal artist could e'er portray, no matter his ingenuity,
The feathery touch of Mister Frost's brush with such acuity!
Sunbeams playing on my windowpane brought his work to life,
Accentuating wonderful geometric designs so very, very rife!
In my imagination I saw palm trees swaying in the breeze, and,
Waves rushing t'ward the shore, breaking on the golden strand.
I saw forests of trees, their branches reaching for the sky,
And a rippling stream with a rocky tor towering nearby.
Cathedrals flaunt gorgeous stained glass built by the masters' guild,
And by their handiwork, the teeming masses have been thrilled.
But Jack Frost's lovely handicraft that adorns my windowpane,
Outshines the work of mere artisans whose work seems so mundane!
Alas, Old Sol quickly melts away that fleet and mystic painting.
Only tiny rivulets of water like parting tears are now remaining.
Ah! But never mind, Jack will be back to delight me tomorrow morn,
With another of his magnificent vistas my windowpane to adorn!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
RENAISSANCE UNFULFILLED
Glorious! Glorious! Renaissance
Brought humanity to new heights
Of unbounded creative power,
Look at Florence's splendor
Experience its Medici majesty
Inhale its inebriating beauty
Intoxicate your very senses
With perfect, mastered imperfections
Of tiles, towers and frescos,
There my sensibility awoke
To a persistent, clamoring anomaly
Amongst fashionable vain crowds,
Strolling with contemptuous disdain,
They pretend not to see,
Raw,unadulterated beauty,
There they stood numb,
Fugitives of negated dreams,
Breathing, Ebonic statues,
Perfect creation, muted, invisible,
Staring painfully at the horizon,
Longing, no doubt, for
Sunsets of Africa skies.
E. G. Fialo