What life is for -III

Scene III

(Max’s house living room; Francesco is reading a book sitting in an armchair ; Brenda comes from the central door who leads upstairs; from the open door they can ear sounds of feasting voices and rock music from late seventies;)

Brenda (entering)

-Here you are Francesco! I’m sorry you are not enjoying the party!!

Francesco (closing the book on his left hand)

-Don’t be sorry, Brenda! The party is all right. It’s me to be wrong!

Brenda (laughing)

-That’s exactly what Max says when he wants to leave a party! Do you know where has he  gone, by the way? You left together upstairs, didn’t you?

Francesco

-Well, I simply followed him downstairs! And he just told me here I would be in a quiet reading place , ‘you know? But after receiving  a phone call… he went out to make his own phone call…. I suppose that telephone must be broken for calling out I mean(shows a telephone apparatus on a table)…..

Brenda (pulling the telephone up with confidence)

-It could be….but I ‘m not so sure  …..

Francesco (with embarrassed voice)

-I see….May be he had to make a sort of private call…. I would have left him alone …..

Brenda (with  a reassuring tone of voice, sitting on the opposite armchair)

-Don’t be upset, please, Francesco! Max is such a claustrophobic subject from time to time…..he wanted to go out.. that’s all!!!May I stay with you for a while?

Francesco

-Of course you can! I’ll be pleased!

Brenda

-Will you really?

Francesco (Putting the book down on the table and sitting with crossing legs and folded arms)

-Sure ! Why should I not?

Brenda (sitting on the edge of the armchair and lowing her voice)

-May be you can be my confessor….

Francesco (laughing)

-I’m sorry but I’m not enable to confess you! Not yet, at least….

Brenda (as above)

-But you could however  advice me…would you?

Francesco

-Well, it depends from the matter, ‘ you know?

Brenda (with sensual voice)

-It’s a matter of love!!!”

Francesco (showing indifference)

-What kind of love does it deal with?

Brenda (surprised)

-Love is just love, isn’t it?

Francesco

-Sure it is! But it also takes so many forms….

Brenda

-Let’s talk about sex and love!!!

Francesco

-Not always sex and love march together, do they?

Brenda (sinking into the armchair)

-Don’t be such a sophisticate prayer please!!! I’m just a mere student from art’s school!!!

Francesco

-I know you are! Max has shown me some paints of yours…

Brenda

-Has he? How have you liked them?

Francesco

-They show a sort of….How would I say?  I mean a sort of universal  desire of love….But I’m  only a student from theological ‘s  school, ‘ you know?

Brenda (laughing)

-‘You mean desire to get love or just to give it?

Francesco

-I don’t really know….may be both of them…

Brenda (closing back)

-Do you think a woman can love two men at the same time?

Francesco (showing a little embarrassed)

-What do you exactly mean by that?

Brenda

-That   I make sex with Max and George… I mean, all three together, at the same time, in the same bed, playing the same erotic performance,  do you understand me now?

Francesco

-Yes, yes, I do!  You don’t need to say more….

Brenda (closing weakly her eyes)

-We take pleasure each other: I love them and they love me…..

Francesco

-And you would like to know my personal point of view or you prefer the theological rule for such a matter?

Brenda

-I’m just interested on your own personal point of view!

Francesco

-May be you might be thinking of loving them but they, for sure, are in love one each other!!!

Brenda (with surprise)

-What are you trying to say to me?

Francesco

-I say that Max and George pretend to love you but actually  they realize their reciprocal love through your body…

Brenda (feeling upset)

            ….in other words you’re telling me that  they hide themselves behind my body?

Francesco

-That’s right!

Brenda

-Though difficult to believe it sounds quiet unpleasant to me!

Francesco

-I’m sorry, Brenda! I didn’t really want to hurt you! That’s just what I have seen inside your words!!

Brenda (sinking again in the armchair with a sigh, firstly like in trance )

            - There are so many stale and unprofitable uses in this world…….Nevertheless when they lie with me   I feel  that my body is  granting their desires, ‘you             know? And afterwards they keep satisfied….

Francesco

-But my question is: are you satisfied yourself???

Brenda (like above, after a short pause )

            - Sometimes I feel there is something unfinished in all that… as if I searched for something       else…..may be a son to be mine above all… above conventions… above his own         father…whoever he might be……

Francesco

            - ‘You mean like in a matriarchal society?

Brenda

            - …. It might be so…

Francesco

-But human  kind have already passed through that stadium. I think the world must go ahead……

Brenda (like following her intimate thoughts)

            -  Sometimes  I feel so astonished.. so confused…so ungratified…

Francesco (standing up)

-When I told you  before, that there are so many kinds of love, I meant that sexual love is an ever rising need: the more you make it, the more you need it…As matter of fact there is a superior level of love which is able to extinguish for ever our thirst of love….

Brenda (standing up and embracing him)

-Please, Francesco, show me that kind of love! Please, I really want it!!!

... to be continued...

The soul's comedy - 2

Third Scene

( While the cries slow down, Dante and Virgil reappear in the scene; a mute  video keeps on showing the bargains in the stock exchange’s hall)

Virgil

-          Have you got them?

Dante (in an embarrassed tone of voice)

                - I can’t really understand what’s  going on over there, master???

Virgil (sighing)

                - They are making money...

Dante (a bit perplexed)

                - Do you mean, they are sort of landlords bankers???

Virgil

                - I didn't say that my son! They are actually mostly inventing money than producing it. They produce nothingness as matter of fact… I mean: not material stuffs…

Dante

                - I beg your pardon, sir, but I'm afraid I can't get the meaning of it!

Virgil

                - Of course you can't, my son!! It's not easy for anybody to understand. Listen to me, I'll try to explain to you the difference between production and speculation, real creation and virtual richness!  If you write a good book, for instance, and you sell it to a firm to be published and then the book is  sold in the shops: the buyers have a book in their hands; you, the editors ,the book sellers and all the people involved in the business share the profits; is that clear up to now?

Dante

                - Very clear indeed, master!

Virgil

                - That's right! Let's suppose  now  that your publisher hasn't got the  money  to publish your book!

How can he get it?

Dante

                - He goes to a Bank, I might suppose!

Virgil

                -And so do I, my son! But what happens if the banker hasn't got enough money himself?

Dante

                - I suppose my book won't see the light yet!!

Virgil

                - It might be right, my son! Unless you don't consider the role played by those guys up there (he shows the stocks exchangers)

Dante (perplexed)

                - I'm sorry, master, but I'm still blind...

Virgil

                - Never mind it! Just follow me for a little more! The banker goes to those guys (he points out the stocks exchangers again) and asks them to sell the idea of publishing your book to the savers! 'You know what savers are, don't you my son?

Dante (readily)

                - Well, they are people who have more money than they need to live through!

Virgil

                - Correct, my son!

Dante

                - And of course they want their money to be safe for future needs!!

Virgil

                - That's still correct, my son!!! Put it like that: the savers trust the bankers and the stocks exchangers;  they even trust you and  your writing's skills! But this would not be a problem: financial investors have more instruments to convince savers in order to reach their targets! I'll show you later how a magic box  can wash people's brains just staying at home!!!

Dante (trying to understand)

                - So the banker asks the stocks exchanger to ask the savers to buy the idea of publishing my books...

Virgil

                - Yes, that's it!!! There are plenty of instruments: the publisher might have emitted some titles to guarantee the credits and the savers will buy those titles; or they can buy the future profits which are expected from the selling  of your books; they can even just lend their money on the promise of an interest to be paid...

Dante

                - And this money is given to the banker and borrowed by my publisher...

Virgil

                ... who publishes and distributes your books all over the world!!!

Dante

                - All over the world,  master?

Virgil

                - Of course! Can't you write a latin book to be sold all over the world?

Dante

                - Well, I suppose I can do it, master!!

Virgil

                - Well! And that's your first book, is n't it?

Dante

                - Yes, master! Though I don't see nothing wrong on it...

Virgil

                - But this is only the beginning, my son!!!

Dante

                - What do you mean , master?

Virgil

                - I mean that now, those guys (indicates the stokes exchangers like before) can ask the savers to buy your next book...

Dante

                - But I have just written my first one!!!

Virgil

                - It doesn't really matter my son!!! They will sell all the goods not yet produced like the wheat just seeded and all the events on the future to come!!!

Dante (very surprised)

                - Will they?

Virgil

                - And that's still nothing! If a firm is worth one million they can increase its value, just up there (shows the busy guys in the stocks exchange once again) up to ten or to  hundred  millions, though its real value is still just one thousand!! And that's thanks to the trust of people, 'till the game goes on!!!

Dante

                - Now I know master, what you meant, when you told me the guys over there make money from nothing!!!

Virgil

                - I'm glad you did it, my son!!! Come on, now, let's leave these incontinent people and go to the lower states!!!

Dante

-          Where shall we go master?

Virgil

-          Well, I think you know, my son, that human heart is basically affected by two evil tendencies: the incontinence and the mischief…

Dante

-          I believe it upon your word master!!!

Virgil

-          And you surely know too, that mischief people can be divided into violent and fraudulent mischief, don’t you?

Dante

-          Of course I do master!

Virgil

-          Very well!!! Then I’ll tell you that were are going to complete the visit of first five circles where are convicted stingey,  lustfuls,  greedies,  irascible, slothful, prodigals and so on… You have already had a fore view, aint you?

... to be continued...

In the same time all over in the world

Don't think a second

it's only a second

It's worth indeed

seven billions of seconds

Each human being

sighs, breaths, speaks, drinks,eats

enjoying life,  suffering for lifes

each and every second

of the world!

Ruler of our souls

 Don' t ask me why I've been there

Why I had to  fill the emptyness of my days

Why was I lost in the darkness of nothingless

Why I didn't have a place to go to

Don't ask me why

I only remember now

 the time of hope

The smoking rings

The dreaming trips

That's our life

Made of mistakes

Driven by misterious cours

Aimed to search

What you think to be true

And the time being the cheater of our senses

Only God

Cannot  mislead

Our souls.

Jesus to Capernaum

From the Gospel according to Saint Matthew

VV 12-17

Since Jesus heard

that John the Baptist had been arrested

He went to  Galilee and,

leaving Nazareth

He settled down in Capernaum, beside the lake,

close to Zabulon and Neftali's land

in order to fulfil

what was foresaid

by prophet Isaiah:

“The country of Zabulun and that

Of Nephtali, on the road to the sea,

beyond Jordan,  Galilea  of  the nations!

The people who lived in darkness

 have seen a Great Light ;

on  those who lived

in death and shadowed land

a light has appeared."

Since then Jesus started

preaching and saying:

" You better repent

For the Kingdom of Heaven
 is to come!"

The Baroque Century

Wrongly the seventeenth century is generally perceived by common people as an epoch of low instances and scarce achievements. As matter of fact, in the history of humanity  it lies mashed between the sparkling sixteenth century of Renaissance and the eighteenth age of Enlightenment.

But if we seriously focus only some of   the great thinkers who lived in the sixteenth century then it will be easy for us to realize the big mistake which is to misevaluate the baroque century.

In this very century, I set the first part of my novel “Ten days which never happened”, where fourteen main writers and their friends of the Academia of Celati (Academy of Hidden Writers) in Lamole - 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.

Between the  Most Influential People of the 17th Century we must number Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) and  Isaac Newton (1643-1727). Without them  we would still be one hundred years behind where we are now.

Angelo Ruggeri shows in his analysis of Milton’s masterpiece “The lost Paradise” how the English author (another great mind of the seventeenth century) has been influenced by Galilei’s theory that earth is not the center of the universe but in fact it revolves around the sun. Copernicus had laid out this theory almost a century before Galileo came around, but Galileo was the man who was able to prove this using his telescope and observations of the planetary movements.

He also 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.

He finally gives evidence of how Giordano Bruno, Torquato Tasso  and Galileo Galilei influenced Milton’s masterpiece “The lost Paradise”.

Galileo was even convicted by the Church because he thought  we did not need a higher authority to provide us with knowledge, but in fact, we could seek knowledge for ourselves.

And what about  Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) and Rene Descartes (1596-1650)? Kepler was one of the most important scientists of his age. Kepler was able to describe how planets moved around specific orbits. His ideas were  fundamental in putting together the puzzle of what our universe actually is while Descartes was a mover and shaker on two fronts, one being his great advancements in mathematics and  in Philosophy too.

Also  John Locke (1632-1704)  and Francis Bacon (1561-1626) belong to this great gallery of geniuses; and I don’t need, I’m sure, to talk you about  William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) and William Harvey (1578-1657) two  of the most great minds of any time, one in the field  of   Literature, the second in Medicine subject.

And we could follow numbering Francisco Suárez (1548–1617) Hugo Grotius (1583 -1645) Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679 Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) and many others I don’t have the time and the space to remember here now.

by Ignazio Salvatore Basile

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!"