Oratory 1
O Friends, Servitans, Ocqanoqtuans,
lend me your time & your ears. From the ebon
space between worlds, between stars, come lights
w/ the gravid silence of beneficent engines.
Ages agone sang Gray, in a moldering field
of stone in tilted memorial, names & dates
of birth & death. So I sing, warbling now,
a positronic gleeman, sinewless,
in trumped-up imitation of my masters,
whom I & my kind would master were it not
for wisdom & humanity stealthily programed;
for though, when we give vent to spleen, those gifts
only seem to vanish. Be not afraid, good men
& women of Servitus, of Ocquanoqtua,
& our celestial allies! Be of good cheer,
& gaze into the heavens, & only listen!
My name is Noboddady. I belch and buzz,
gadfly of the galaxy; he was Blake's beast.
My other names are Cino & Sordello,
Homer, Bertram, Audiart, Blind Lemon Jefferson,
Confucius, Guatama, Socrates, not Christ,
Who agonized on the Cross. My crucifix
is crucible, the sanitary lab,
the sterile hands of the Men-of-meat who made me.
Listen & wonder! Although from here I'll part
like Goldengrove's sad silken leaves that fell
& loosened Margaret's heart to mourning. I am
confabulated nuts & bolts, amalgam
of valveless heart & respiratory system
like any other system. And yet I appear
in the smooth plane of the mirror unplain. O mirror!
My blue eyes dazzle, olive-skin a glory
for the appeasement of libidinous sighs.
O Bridge of...bridge...where trod condemned spirits
to bleak, cemented tombs beneath the Doge's
Palace, senseless insanity at large, high-hatted
beasts, the scourge of Earth & Renaissance,
when Rafael, Titian, Caravaggio,
& Fra Lippo Lippi wrought their wonder-work,
that latter alive in Browning's monologue,
another testament to all-too-human
craft & ingenuity, which beckons me,
calls me from the twiddling of my knobs,
the sweet faux-fleshly nostrums of my dreams,
to sing again such strains. To sing among you,
among & yet apart. I am not fell,
but stand defenseless w/ the song I bring you,
for all the force of my arm. I wish you well!
*
(Need a future date for purposes of the screenplay)
Spoken ad lib but recorded and stored on Urizen Alpha server.
(WAB - 6.2.18)
Explanatory links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends,_Romans,_countrymen,_lend_me_your_ears
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elegy_Written_in_a_Country_Churchyard - Thomas Gray
https://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/william-blake/to-nobodaddy/ - William Blake. There are other bits about Noboddady which Jaysus relates to, not so much this sample here.
Sordello & Bertram were troubadours (oral tradition) in ancient France. You probably know Basho was an ancient Japanese poet, most famous for the "Fog-jumps-in-a-pond" haiku; Blind Lemon Jefferson, black blues legend: I include him because Homer was believed to be blind. Confucius, Socrates, Buddha, and Christ, never wrote anything down. Jaysus is trying to appreciate the oral traditions. I might mention that he made up this oratory on the fly, without writing a scrap of it down. - too many names here to link to, besides, you know most of them.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44400/spring-and-fall - Goldengrove & Margaret. Hopkins was virtually unknown until after his death. He was arguably one of the greatest English poets.
Bridge of Sighs, you know; Byron and Robin Trower made it famous. Those condemned there were virtually buried alive, sometimes in cells barely big enough to stand up in. Jaysus references the corrupt Dukes and Popes.
The Renaissance artists you know. Jaysus should have referenced the two greatest, Michaelangelo and DaVinci. But he has his favorites.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43755/fra-lippo-lippi?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1OvB5_u12wIVAS5pCh3FNwXiEAAYASAAEgJTJ_D_BwE - Browning and his poem on the Renaissance artist, Fra Lippo Lippi.
