So many eyes have seen this sea, they’re blind.one of thirty-six
fishermen brave the high sea —
mighty fuji’s seen
meditate on where
oh, place the kento1 with care —
every part is spare
the sea’s our lover
her lovers brave her fury —
lapis lazuli 2my love’s a dragon
Edo3 sees the fickle sea —
push the brush away
So many eyes have seen this sea, they're blind.
@ rlbusséll 2021 - All rights reserved.
Great Wave Off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai’s (1760-1849) 1831 woodcut
Panorama of Edo from Atagoyama by Felice Beato (1865 or 1866)
The Japanese printing “registration” system. Registration is a method printers use to guarantee that each print in a series is aligned the same way. ↩
a bright blue metamorphic rock consisting largely of lazurite, a bright blue pigment formerly made by crushing, being the original ultramarine. ↩
Painting: M. Caravaggio, 1601. Oil on canvas 91 inches x 69 inches. Located in the Saint Maria del Popolo Church, Rome. (Detail)
Michael’s chiseled hands have 1 not formed me as Adonis and yet Medusa’s writhing’s 2 have made me as cold as stone.
Alabaster arms, alabaster lips, a cold and lifeless form; Pygmalion’s infant 3 breath lies ever stillborn.
Yet, I sculpt my life for all to see. Display it, set it in museum-free. Wait for all to come critique my jaundiced eye, my hobbled knee, and pray they not nail me to a tree.
But if they do, I pray they see fit to rest me by my top.4 Then with Peter, I’ll cringe at our thrice told tale5 and wrest not glory from The Ancient Story.
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni or more commonly known by his first name Michelangelo. ↩
In Greek mythology, Medusa was a monster, a Gorgon, generally described as a winged human female with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Gazers upon her face would turn to stone. ↩
Like many do with Frankenstein and his monster, I’ve conflated Pygmalion with his creation. : ) ↩
Church tradition has it that Saint Peter was crucified upside-down. Origen says: “Peter was crucified at Rome with his head downwards, as he himself had desired to suffer”. ↩
Then Peter remembered what Jesus had said: “Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly. — Matthew 26:75 ↩
Painter. Profligate. Michelangelo, the fool. — Cardsharps in Kahn’s hall.
Was there a time when demons conquered, stayed; when Anthony’s tormentors shied away? Why roam through Rome your bravado displayed; why take your eye from your vision to stray? Your meanest tableaus set my mind aflame; Your work has worked itself into myself; Your brush became my only brush with fame. Uffizi’s Medusa’s upon my shelf. Blesséd Matthew, gripped by passion and flame, is taught by an angel’s breathless whisper. Then there is your telling of our night’s shame when, in the dark, Light was framed with silver. Do you still lie amid the labyrinthine streets of your Caesars’ stony concubine?
The echoing step Moves us through history’s halls — Saint Matthew’s burning.
My name still flies amid cent’ries’ darkness and like an ever circling bird, rises. My demons still roam my Rome in darkness looking for young flesh and tender prizes; Time’s elusive progress is circling ’round. Night required I prick with sharpened sword and sharpened tongue my enemies to hound; they were circling ‘round my girls to hoard their beauty and so keep my fame at bay. Have you seen my Fillide? Does she still live within Peter’s shadowy cabaret? I need to know if our flame will outlive my canvas, my sword, my haughty bluster. Do her lips still call men to her chamber?
Tiber flows swiftly. A starving tern yearns for food — Pleasures at coin’s cost!
Fillide did what she had to do to live and at the dawn of her womanhood, she plied her flesh and soul to live; the attractive are often forced, in poverty, to flee morality, and thus all the devils win. Fillide did die so many years ago that time has almost forgotten her sin. It must be pain entire to hit so low. I’m sure your Fillide’s flame is still burning; for her will did will herself in a frame. She died remembering you without spurning. She left us while petitioning our Dame. I pray Mary heard you at your last breath that all your darkness did not mark your death.
Mortar frames her bed. We all seem to hold our breath — The nightingale sings.
I can’t recall the cutlass’ cut ’n’ flash. My flesh was torn too soon to notice much. I recall the slow gasp, the bloody slash, the eyes so filled with knowing. And no touch can bring my blood to flowing. And no word can now make sinew move my dusty bones. All was darkness, there was a footfall heard, (the mute sound of leather on hardened stones) and then a challenge I could ne’er refuse. My rage ’twas like on Malta’s rock. I burned. I flared. “I’ll not have you my name ill-use. I am Caravaggio! You’re ill-learned. Honor you’ll show me or you’ll die tonight”, then came the end to me who once was knight.
Gilding frames his head. Now we speak of light and dark — Salomé dances.
Since childhood, I’ve had a powerful reaction to any image created by Caravaggio and I wanted to express my deep love for his work and my heartache at his untimely passing. When childhood heroes are hoisted on their own petard, some part of the edifice of childhood crumbles and this poem is a reaction to his falling façade.
M. Caravaggio is told, in what Michael O’Siadhail (Pronounced mee-hawl o’sheel) calls a “saiku” in his brilliant work “The Five Quintets.” The haiku before and after each sonnet act as a kind of time machine or a means to comment on what is to follow or what has just past.
M. Caravaggio contains four sonnets: in the first and third I ask some questions and in the second and fourth Caravaggio replies.
His hand cradled hers; Hers’ swallowed in his. Her delicate fingers found safety. His rough calluses found purpose.
No agenda. No timetable. No watch. No phone. Only them alone. Alone, together among the masses.
Happiness sat upon his shoulders. Wonder captured her eye and his. ’Twas the wonder of passing wonder on to his, ’twas the wonder of two and generations.
This is their time to stare. This is their time to see. This is their time to be.
And all the sounds of busy, they had no ill effects.
Monet and Modigliani are cradled under arcs of light — softly it’s spilled round. Muted foot-falls and hushed breaths were all that they could sound.
Her neck was stretched in Modigliani style to see what could be seen; It was if all that “The Greek” could teach was, in her, made flesh.
Claude’s colors were splashed on canvas large in haphazard order, that caused Beauty to bend her haughty eyes to drink.
This is their time to stare. This is their time to see. This is their time to be.
Mr. Well’s machine is seen in these vaulted halls of frames. Each brushstroke takes us back, and the dust of centuries laid on linen fair can be seen by anyone who takes the time to stare.
I take the silent step.
Keep my eyes up,
not looking to the broken ground.
I try to take a walk.
I try to keep from talk.
I try to still the clock.
You know the feeling.
You know that feeling,
when Picasso’s time 1
is spread wide and thick,
when the wind never seems
to go your way.
You try to catch your breath;
and it comes in fits and starts,
and it comes in flames and sparks,
and it comes in warring larks.
And then it fades.
You know the feeling.
You know that feeling,
when El Greco’s stretch, 2
seems real and right;
when proportions’ light
seems off, and not just by a mite,
and your limbs, they scream and bite.
They scream and bite,
and you’re stuck,
forever stuck on the bridge
with Munch, 3
and the screaming never stops.
You know that feeling.
You know the feeling.
Domenikos Theotokopoulos (1541-1614) “El Greco” known for his elongated figures he is believed to be a precursor to Expressionism and Cubism. http://www.elgreco.net↩
Edvard Munch (1863-1944) Norwegian Expressionist his most famous painting is titled “The Scream” (1893) Upon his death he bequeathed all his works in his possession to the City of Olso. Munch Museum was built to house them in 1963.https://www.theartstory.org/artist-munch-edvard-artworks.htm↩
He had a particular gait — somewhere between Igor and Sasquatch; a shuffle that spoke of strength. He held his head high and with a toothy grin smiled his way into my life. I had to capture his stance. I had to picture his stand. How he held himself with honor and looked you straight in the eyes.
There are people that affect you, people that touch your life in untold ways, strangers that become friends, friends that become strangers. You never know who will change you. You never know the faces you’ll remember. What makes a person stick to you? What makes a person change the trajectory of your life? What butterfly’s wing will ripple your life? How many people have touched you? How many people have you touched? Honor does not lie in intelligence alone. Honor does not always sleep in the corridors of the powerful. There is honor in the small and quiet, there is honor in the ignored, weak, and forgotten. I am affected still by the shuffle-walk, haunted by hands held just so. So I honor him now by showing the world his face.
Years ago I worked at a home for the mentally disabled. It was a gloomy-happy place, a kind of box that locked away all, so that the world would garner no joy from its residents. The building had all the characteristics that come with such institutions: flickering florescent lights, wide dark hallways, and a quiet foreboding paleness. Yet, I have good memories of the people and the place. Despite their dire circumstances, they were, for the most part, joyful. Joy could be seen on their faces, in their eyes and in their unpretentious laughter; there was no one to impress, there was no one ingratiate, they had the freedom to be themselves.
I will be forever touched by the men and women that could not take care of themselves; by a people who could never grow up. People are not less honorable because their minds and their bodies do not grow at the same rate. There is a dignity in the face of a child-old. There is hope in a simple faith. God is not bound by our circumstances.
This is a thirty-nine-year-old painting of one of my charges. Painted alla prima, a method that helps produce fast oil sketches, impressions of impressions. It is done in one sitting. It doesn’t have to be thought about too much, doesn’t have be over-planned. I love this painting.
He speaks to me even after all the passing years. I can still hear his soft stammering mumble, see his gentle eyes and feel his big fingers softly touching my shoulder. His smile filled his face. He was a good man.
“Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” — Mark 10:14-15
rl busséll — poet 
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