Mind the truth

There were four men

searching for truth

They all knew 

that sixteen hundred years before 

Someone was asked

by a washing hands' man

to say what was the truth

One of them 

is on the tower of Pisa

which is still bending

since then

'cause he refused

to declare the earth is flat

to the clergy men 

to the rappers of truth

Several miles away

another one 

is convicted

by other holders

of false truth

he has lost his wife

he's lost his goods

he's lost his freedom

and he's Lost Paradise

And Torquato

has been serving 

since seven years through

in a madhouse

for his poetry was  sure

so full of truth

The fourth man lies 

straight and tall

in the middle of a square

where his unfortunate harsh

took the place of the flowers

He seems to warn the passing-bys:

"Please, mind the truth!"

The ten days which never happened

The ten days which never happened

by ignazio salvatore basile

Foreword

This is the reconstruction of the biography of a man called Jesus, sent to earth by God for the salvation of humanity, made in ten days by four poets at the end of the seventeenth century, perhaps from October 5 to October 14, 1690 and is based on the canonical sources of new Testament (and not only ) to tell the story of the earthly Son of God, by His Origins until his Resurrection.

 Wanting to write and disseminate their work in the Italian language, the original authors, although their intentions were honest and pious, because of the absolute prohibition of vulgarization of the Bible that the Roman Catholic Church  introduced by Pope Clement VIII in 1596 (who had commissioned the Holy Office to crack down harshly any related violation ), they decided not only to remain anonymous, but also to change the dates of their meetings and replace them with those that go from 5 October to 14 October 1582.

They had in fact studied the issue from a legal point of view and had come to the conclusion that if they were discovered, the charge against them would have to fall before the infamous Inquisition Tribunal ( the armed wing of the Holy Office ) for the fact that following the decree by Pope Gregory XIII,  which had reformed the Julian calendar,  from October 4, 1582 all the events in the Catholic States had to  pass directly to 15 October 1582. So that no public office of the Papal States, much less his Court, could convict someone of a crime committed in a period never existed.

The authors furthermore thought  to hide themselves behind the names of the four canonical evangelists, attributing to their occasional guests and employees the fictitious identity of the closest disciples of Jesus  to detect their true identity only after the printing of the book.

The reconstruction work was carried out on fragments of the original writings that have allowed,  with obvious difficulty , this publication . The original idea was therefore to tell the story of Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man on the earth, in the vernacular, converging into a single literary context, all of the events narrated by eyewitnesses. For their greater protection, at any rate, as mentioned above, the authors concealed their identities behind the pseudonyms of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, attributing  to their friends and associates, willing to make a personal contribution to the history of Jesus, the identity of Peter, Andrew, James the Greater, James the Younger, Jude Thaddeus, Nathanael, Bartholomew, Simon the Zealot, Philip, Thomas and Judas Iscariot.

Even the place where the four got together and hosted their occasional collaborators remained a secret, though it is believed that they were housed in an isolated house in Lamole, now under the administration of the Tuscan territories but at the time  subject to the sovereignty of the Pope.

 In the drafting of their literary work the authors seem to have favored the terza rima classical form, although there are adaptations of Petrarch's Lyric, Ballad of the Great, and many quatrains of Sonnet septenaries interspersed with octosyllabic .

First Day - October the 5th, 1582

morning

[Luke , Matthew and John , waiting for Mark, who will join them in the afternoon with two much unexpected  guests, laying the foundations of their history , presenting their character both in its divine origin ( In the beginning was the Word ), and in the earthly ( Ancestors of Jesus) , continuing with the Annunciation, the conception and Birth of Jesus ]

Luke : - Well, friends , do we agree ?

John - Yes, I do! It seems to me the wisest thing . You, Matthew, what do you think ?

Matthew : - It might be all right for me ! Although we'll miss a good increasing  reputation   ‘You know?.... Think about whether this book , which in practice will be the first gospel in the vernacular, were spread all around! After all, today , with the press , it could also happen .....

Luke : - Well, but our opus is a story , a novel, as they say today , not a theological Bible ....

Matthew : - Though we vowed to be faithful in bringing the authentic words and the real events of the life of Jesus! And then, just the characters of originality are correct reason for the attribution of authorship that I claim, even if , on the other hand , I'd be afraid of the consequences. The glory and fame would attract the attention of the Inquisition .....

Luke : - If you put it on this way I agree with you, but I have an idea that can save the wine and the barrel .....

Matthew : - An idea ? What an idea ?

Luke : - Listen, we could fill a testamentary paper , claiming authorship of the work with it but we can  instruct the notary  not to publish our paper before the last of us has left this vale of tears .....

Matthew - I think it’s a nice idea , is not it John ?

John - Yes, of course ! But  will Mark agree ?

Luke : - Just ask him  the afternoon , when he arrives ! But I bet that he will agree !

John: - On the other hand it would be prudent to fill out the card at the end of the story .......

Matthew : - Yeah! You never know what a spy of the Inquisition ...... If they  discover that we are translating excerpts of the New Testament in the vernacular, poor of us .......

Luke - Better safe than sorry , even if here in Lamole, the judges of the Papal States are certainly not close!

Matthew : - Well, never mind then: how does our story begin ! ?

Luke : - From the beginning , of course!

John: - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God .....

Matthew : - Beautiful ! How does it sound good! So this will be first  page of our book ?

Luke. - I think so ! But this will be up to the printer to be decided! Do not forget that you are using prefix the title and then the preface ... We try to number our scrolls according to the established order .

Matthew : - It 's true ! You're right! I'm sorry , but I tremble with emotion : this should be my first book to be printed !

Luke : - Even for me. But it does not appear with our name ! Funny is not it?

Matthew : Yeah! The name will appear after our deaths !

Luke : We do not think. Come on John, read us your first whole song !

- "In the beginning was the Word

And the Word was with God,

Who held  in His mind

To redeem the sin

and the corruption of humanity

By sending His Son

Who descended  from pure lily

It is His revelation

In one with the Spirit

But you can list three !

How the Law to Moses

Was given , the grace Christ

Brought for us and the Truth.

Nevertheless Manhood

Didn’t recognize Him

And He was treated with cowardice .

But to those who have recognized Him

He has made them brothers

Giving them the most beautiful gifts

Without receiving so much in exchange.

The Word became flesh and history

Coming to live here !

We saw His glory

On the only begotten Truth!

There was a man sent

By God , on behalf of John ;

was in the same years ,

he testified the Light !

He was not the Light,

but he was  a witness ,

the True Lord came afterward   !

All things were made by Him,

but  nothing is created !

He was not accepted ,

Star shining among dark skies !

No one has never seen God

But He has revealed Himself  in Christ !

...to be continued...

The long man's trip on the way of knowledge

 

 

Since long time past manhood has wondered about the most inner significance of our presence on the earth.

I imagine our primitives ancestors, still wrapped in their beast’s furs, asking themselves the meaning of the stars in  the sky, some brighter , some farer, some fading away, like falling down; or  they might be thinking why the rising and the setting down of the sun, the pouring rain, the flashing of the lightening, preceding the boasting thunder; and the mystery of flying , the fascination of dreams, the secrets in the silence, the magic of a new life coming out from feminine bodies.

They started worshipping the sun, the waters, the eagle, or the great mother because of these unanswered questions. May be the first spark of this craving of knowledge has started around the fire, old men telling stories to be remembered by the young of the tribe.

The quintessence of hundred thousand years of this human research can be found now in the great religious books of humanity: the Indian Vedas and Upanishads; the Tibetan Book of Death; the Wisdom Books of the Holy Bible; or even in the mysterious books of esotericism.

You might believe or not believe in God (I personally do); and we can discuss for thousands of years  Which One is the Only God (but I know there is only One God, anyway); some can call God the Cosmic Essence of the Universe and some others can crush the Unity of God in to a Pantheon of Gods (like ancient roman and Greek did and like Indians still do); you can even keep on worshipping idles and totems (as matter of fact money and lust are not  but the modern gods of contemporary times); but if have spent your life without searching a reason to be born, then your life has passed you by uselessly.

Through  centuries and millennia men have even abused of the power of knowledge, misusing magic formulas for cheating poor people, frightening them with the shadows of God (God Himself cannot scare anyone, because He can only love); the Books themselves were instruments of power: those capable to read them on them the sacred truths could exercise a great power on those ignoring the meaning of the signs traced on their lines.

This special issue of Arspoeticamagazine deals with the matter of knowledge in the beginning of the seventeenth century.

 Angelo Ruggeri shows in a selection of works, how Milton, Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei, Torquato Tasso and other great minds of this century, have handle and dealt with such a sensitive subject and  why the established power counteracted their thoughts.

In the same century, but in the last part of it,  I set my novel “Four voices, only one story”, where four main writers and their friends of the Academia of Lamole, in Tuscany, are compelled to hide away from Holy Inquisition because they have decided to translate in to vulgar language the Sacred Scripture against the 1596 Pope Clemente VII’s Decree, who wanted the Holy Bible still to be published only in Latin ancient language (incomprehensible to most  people).

Still remains a great question: up to where can manhood  push his thirst of knowledge? Is it right to go beyond anyway? Is it correct to restraint the longing of manhood to break all the frontiers of knowledge? And who is titled to check scientist, poets and all the men who feel free to research the truth anyway and anywhere? Such questions are still of topical actuality and is not in the intentions of our magazine to dare to give any answers to them. I can personally only say that when I was much younger than today, my answer would be simply aimed to deny any chance of control or censorship.

But now I’m not so sure anymore.

 

Next on Arspoeticamagazine

Ancient law and new law

From Chap. 5th of Saint Mathew's Gospel

VV 21-24

 You have heard that was said

 to ancient people: “you won't kill;and he  

who  kills, will be subject to trial!”

Therefore don't kill anymore!

 But I tell you that will be sue

whoever motions against

 his brother; and who says stupid

 or crazy to him

 will burn forever

 in the Geènna!

you better leave

 on the altar your  supply and go

 to make peace with your brother!

After you can offer your donation!

Poem of Creation

Prologue

I sing  the God Almighty’s  Creation

Whereof were firstly born Adam and Eve

former seed of any human Nation

at the time  they could only   conceive

 the joyfulness with no desperation

In the Eden still so far to misgive

The challenge of that infernal snake

Who wanted to be a godlike fake !

I also sing  about the  brave men strays,

  Straight descendants of that chosen race,

who  such in boldly and daring ways

     Isr’eli  people to holy surface

  They lead of  Palestine.  Hates, loves, betray’ls,

     I don't omit, on fortune and disgrace:

  those between God and men, tribes and kingdoms ;

And  I sing  laws, exiles, wars, in my  songs.

Arduous so much however it ‘s my part,

long and full of traps my composition,

That plenty of fear I feel into my heart,

  if I dare to see myself on action,

and tremble  with my head before I start

The Old and the New Holy Narration!

My Fairy God, Firmament’s Creator

Please make me such an able narrator!

From   Genesis’ to Apocalypse’s book

please drive my hand among rhymes and accents  

 to enable me to understand and hook   

the most significant , deep sentiments

in order they can take a fairly look   

of  those seventy three, pious components!

If someone goes to Source for sweeter  taste

  surely my efforts I will not waste!

First Canto

From the Book of Genesis

I

As beginning God created the sky

 And the earth, which was shapeless and desert

And   darkness cover’d the abysses close by;

but on the waters, with divine, expert  

zeal, God established that the obscurity

had to be opened to the bright alert!

 God, seeing that it was good, called Day the light.

and the darkness, instead, was named Night. 

Then beneath the waters, the firmament

sett God, and between them, b’low, the dry land

He also set, whither at same moment,  

 to any bud and   tree He gave command

from seed, to be produc’d for nourishment

of any species, in ground, soil or sand!

After He had named sky, earth and sea

To following duty God had to begin. 

 Hereafter the lights in the sky He set

doing the moon and ‘sun for night and day,

And others signs and stars in dose correct,

for making years and seasons going away,

Because The Most High is more than Perfect

and furthermore of this I cannot say !

About this seventh stanza therefore

I will not tell you nothing anymore!

…to be continued…

Verses by Ignazio Salvatore Basile

studio.basile@tiscali.it

Why?

 

If there is someone who knows, he must talk!

To tell us why the Son

has been torn from His Mother…

And the Brother from his Brother….

 

And why guiltless children?

And timeless old men?

Why?

 

I can still see them,

on spirit and flesh

fluctuating through the chimney pots

greeting us with a compassionate smile.

 

I, still hear barks and voices

assembling,

frightening,

dispersing,

chopping off bonds of affection:

we won't see them anymore.

 

I feel

the shame to be a man!

And the fear to be alive and to love!

 

But why

if even Jesus Christ,

from the Cross,

had already forgiven us!

Why?

Please , can somebody tell me why?

 

Please let talk those who can; let talk those who want it!

And you that Know about, please talk

 

I promise I will do it

For not to forget.

In Cagliari, January the 26/27 2005

When scientist must shout

The overwhelming consensus among climate scientists is that human-caused climate change is happening. Yet a fringe minority of our populace clings to an irrational rejection of well-estabilished science. This virulent strain of anti-science infects the halls of Congress, the pages of leading  newpapers  and what we see in TV , leading to the appearance of a debate where none should exist.

In fact, there is broad agreement among climate scientists not only that climate change is real, (a survey and a review of the scientific literature published say about 97 percent agree) but that we must respond to the dangers of a warming planet. If one is looking for real differences among mainstream scientists, they can be found on two fronts: the precise implications of those higher temperatures, and which technologies and policies offer the best solution to reducing, on a global scale, the emission of greenhouse gases.

For example, should we go full-bore on nuclear power? Invest in and deploy renewable Energy – wind, solar and geothermal – on a huge scale? Price carbon emissions through cap-and-trade legislation or by imposing a carbon tax? Until the public fully understands the danger of our present trajectory, those debate are likely to continue to founder.

This is where scientists come in. In my view, it is no longer acceptable for scientists to remain on the sidelines. I had no choice but to enter the fray. I was hounded by elected officials, threatened with violence and more, after a single study I co-wrote a decade and a half ago found that the Northern Hemisphere’s average warmth had no precedent in at least the past 1,000 years. Back in 2003, when asked in a Senate hearing to comment on a metter of policy, I risponded that “I am not a specialist in public policy” And it would not “be useful for me to testify on that.” It is not an uncommon view among scientists that we potentially compromise our objectivity if we choose to wade into policy matters or the societal implications of our work. But there is nothing inappropriate about drawing on our scientific knowledge to speak out about the very real implications of our research.

If scientists choose not to engage in the public debate, we leave a vacuum that will be filled by those whose agenda is one of short-term self-in-terest. In fact, it would be an abrogation of our responsibility to society if we remained quiet in the face of such a grave threat.

How will history judge us if we watch the threat unfold before our eyes, but fail to comunicate the urgency of acting to avert potential disaster? How would I explain to the future children of my 8-year-old daughter that their grandfather saw the threat, but didn’t speak up in time?

Michael E. Mann from International NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/opinion/sunday/if-you-see-something-say-something.html?_r=0
If you want to know more about Distinguish Professor Michael E. Mann and about the subject please go to the link below

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/michael-mann-climate-change-deniers-must-stop-distorting-150312836.html?.tsrc=Yahoo

You can also found an italian translation by Angelo Ruggeri in the blog: http//albixpoeti.blog.tiscali.it