Monday, October 12, 2009

BANNISTER BLUES (guest poet)

Although it's been a while, Edoardo Mungiello has popped in before at Bukowski's Basement as a guest poet. While his sensibilities lean wwaaaay towards the classical, he can reign it in enough so that we Chuck Buk-lovin schleps here in Bukowski's Basement can dig his groove.

His jazzified riff last time, 'Us in Twilight," was one not to be be missed.


This is another one of his poems so please enjoy and let him know what you think.

BANNISTER BLUES
I sit before the television more often than I care to,
comparing my life with the imagined ones before me.

And every time I'm intrigued, I realize that I'm unhappy
or I imagine myself to be...

And I imagine I would be happy directing
or acting...
or celebratizing...

And I wish like I’ve never wished for anything...

For their lives...
Their esteem...
Their fame...
Their money and their interest...

All the while knowing, not imagining,
that I'm better than they are and
becoming angry that they aren’t sitting in
a home comfortable in its love with their wives
and hoping someday to be me.

And I shut the television with disgust,
rising on the bannister to my bed with the reminder
that Dante was never in one place
long enough to watch television.


To read Mungiello's other poem on Bukowski's Basement, click HERE.
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Edoardo Mungiello is a graduate of the School of the Visual Arts, New York City and has studied independently at l'Accademia delle Belle Arti, Florence and Oxford University's Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. In addition, he recently completed his dissertation for a Doctor of Arts and Letters at Drew University. He also is a professor of art history at Brookdale College in New Jersey, where he lives with his wife and daughter. No stranger to words, the modern renaissance man's book "Christ Among Them: Incarnation and Renaissance in Medieval Italian Culture" can be found HERE on Amazon. His gorgeous art work can be found HERE.

6 comments:

  1. "becoming angry that they aren’t sitting in
    a home comfortable in its love with their wives
    and hoping someday to be me."

    This is a fantastic perspective. If they can only live a day in our shoes.

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  2. I'm glad someone said it. Sometimes my characters piss me off, going here, going there...doing cool things and I'm watching Dexter. Guess that slip down the stairs is gonna cost ya Marlene;)

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  3. << "becoming angry that they aren’t sitting in a home comfortable in its love with their wives and hoping someday to be me." >>

    I agree with Angel... KILLER line.

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  4. "Dante was never in one place long enough to watch tv" . . . damn straight. The greats never sat still, hoping to be others. They were the others. Go be the other, dude.

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  5. Never thought of the switch in reverse, nor the greats being on the move, while wannabes sit and watch. But of course, that's how it is. Thanks for directing us to look at our internal procrastinators.
    Well stated.

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  6. Methinks Mr. Alighieri would be proud...

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