[homage to El Greco and Nikos Kazantzakis]<\/b><\/p>\n
by Martin Burke<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
From REPORT TO GRECO by NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS (1)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Not night, not yet, yet I gather sight and speech to speak against the dark; night\u2019s-owl that I am watchful from tree-branch and turret or battle-steeple; non-neutral observer, partisan of that radiant dark deeper than night roots into. Not night, not yet, yet what gathers against me is already gathered -tidal pressures, red coral resisting the biting salt-waves.\u00a0 Death is patient and we are marked -but it is not night, not yet<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i> \nHALFWAY TO TOLEDO (1)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n That it should be so and not other is good. That it should be unknown before it is known\u00a0 (Surprise waiting to ambush me with delight) is true delight. Not one who knows the road before he steps onto it, who with a slate-clean and chalk-free mind, comes that it be filled to exquisite fulfilment and I be richer thereby; which in a poem would is a breath approaching utterance, or in a painting can be no other than standing before the Cretan who prefigures what we know in equal measure with what we infer.<\/p>\n What do I know? What do I infer? Why do I cherish empty space walked into for the first time? And the satisfying difficulty of standing before his Dream of Philip II i<\/i>n a manner no foreknowing can condition. Yet of such (and moments equalling this) let there be abundance, and if clouded peaks are not visible in the Pyrenees then I will see them where I will -but this, this king\u2019s dream \u2013what is it?<\/p>\n His? Ours? Some other implied beyond the frame but pertinent to it? And if elsewhere cherished heavens are open why is the whale of hell an equal presence? And which is the focus of this royal eye? And who inherits such Greek and Spanish grandeur now that we are spectators rejecting that we are participants though we are prefigured here and elsewhere to ourselves -the whale\u2019s eye eying the nuclear core and its attendants, hell\u2019s crimson gullet open before it mutated into Hiroshima fire (As was always its intention) the painter\u2019s eye prophetic, we his attendant necessities that we see what we are nor turn denyingly away?<\/p>\n No unknowings now. Yet run but the image follows (The mirror is empty and will remain so) a shadow you can\u2019t shake off nor outpace. There at your side, there before you, there behind you, stopping when you stop, running when you run \u2013the shadow you can\u2019t shake off nor outpace<\/p>\n A country behind and a country ahead: crossed shadows like swords on a crest displayed to warn-off intruders that we are not to be toyed with but also to show that strange annunciation where even God Himself is whale-engulfed a<\/i>nd we like-wise are seeped and transfigured -but into what transfiguration?<\/p>\n His world our world, where we are witness and participant; geometric forms approaching pure abstraction held in an epiphany like clouds on a crest of shadows, swords and flame<\/p>\n The nuclear eye to the nuclear form eternal, unforgiving and unwavering (no coy refuge in a mannerists\u2019 art) but the sparse, pared-down soul-nudity of a Cretan\u2019s steady gaze at the shifting world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n From REPORT TO BRECO by NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS (2)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Soul is memory<\/p>\n Composite form<\/p>\n A necessity unto ourselves<\/p>\n Beyond which we have nothing\u00a0 to offer<\/p>\n Are human because we would be more<\/p>\n By which, with unremorseful laughter,<\/p>\n We might laugh at the abyss.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For (and from) such numinous nudity<\/p>\n Our breaths approach utterance,<\/p>\n Intractable but without malice<\/p>\n Like voices saying<\/p>\n Long life to you on the earth of Greece and Spain<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n HALFWAY TO TOLEDO (2)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Only the crickets broke the silence of the mountain air, and then there was silence in which that rock-formation was an outline of mummified star-gazers unable to look at the stars; the landscape beyond them inferred by distant lights, the pleasing dark embracing me, bringing his voice to my table<\/p>\n Art?<\/i><\/p>\n Who told you I was digging for art?<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0I shatter every form created to show the Cry within which cries<\/i><\/p>\n I am a worm \u2013grant me wings!<\/i><\/p>\n Domenikos and Nikos -two names become one name, minds fused to one mind so whose voice was speaking on the wind where no other voice was speaking the irrefutable cry at the heart of the world and its fire?<\/p>\n *<\/b><\/p>\n Earth-mole into silk-worm weaving<\/p>\n Flowers on the dung-heap\u2019s fermentation<\/p>\n Landscape as sacred desolation<\/p>\n The inhuman cry that would be human so as to cry again<\/p>\n Soul that makes us human to ourselves.<\/p>\n Bright flame from mouth to mouth<\/p>\n Another might light his flame by<\/p>\n That the murderous become the marvellous<\/p>\n The slaughter-house become the sanctuary<\/p>\n Fire in the eye by whose light I write here on the vine-laced terrace<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Heat of the Pyrenees<\/p>\n Like a weight to be carried to an unspecified destination<\/p>\n Was already too much for me<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What then is the weight of an art<\/p>\n Carried from Crete to Toledo<\/p>\n And set above the city as a judgement<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Or do I misunderstand<\/p>\n Mistaking the haze for the horizon<\/p>\n The fire as death\u2019s harbinger<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When it was Pentecostal\u00a0 –<\/p>\n Gift to the city transmitted to time<\/p>\n A weight to be carried some steps before we fall?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n III<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Predict the future by understanding the present<\/p>\n See a shadow extend across the rising slope of a field<\/p>\n Follow as far as you can with your eye<\/p>\n Then close your eye to see what you cannot<\/p>\n Mesh with it in love\u2019s divine obscurity<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n VI<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n After three days of mountain air<\/p>\n And unchanging sameness<\/p>\n I wanted to be away<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Darkness fell too sharply and suddenly<\/p>\n And I could not resolve<\/p>\n The arrogance of the landscape with the sweetness of its fruits<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I had come for this<\/p>\n Yet part of me was holding it at arm\u2019s-length<\/p>\n Like an offer of love too tempting to acknowledge<\/p>\n <\/p>\n VII<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n In the shade I scribbled and imagined abstract shapes and forms too cunning to be held by whatever skill I could call up. Yet to work within limitations was not enough to answer his challenge where his forms grew from rock and sky and his eye alight with fire -as mine was with that dancing flame I could not hold nor name<\/p>\n VIII<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n Pining for Flemish rain<\/p>\n As much as that child with his plastic wind-mill<\/p>\n Pined for the absent wind<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n My heat-fever passed -the morning was cool and I could see for miles -clouds\u2019 puffed-whiteness as he would have painted them, where I felt to be his representative come to witness and acknowledge such necessary beauty until he would come<\/p>\n Where the day was waiting \u2013not to be justified by pronouncement but vivified in a second life conditioned by yet outliving the first<\/p>\n I holding my ground (though it was not my ground) keeper of landscape and sky-scape albeit for a while till the clouds be relieved of their sentinel duty when he, the Cretan, would come<\/p>\n <\/p>\n HALFWAY TO TOLEDO (3)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n This cannot be but is -and thus we are abstract and representational in the world we occupy<\/p>\n Quiet at the world\u2019s disquiet yet calmly he paints the evening air, drapery folds telling a human anguish, angles and flame-like forms speaking a narrative not otherwise told, colours delivering themselves to interior conclusions without requiring our approval. Then enter these dark auroral lines and plummet like a plumb-line to their core. Speak only what is allows you by that art\u2019s permission and never by whim as you step back to the world he paints with such disquiet and care and in the gathered light become his heir<\/p>\n *<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Where the light gathered seamlessly<\/p>\n Two fields from the door I looked from<\/p>\n Was itself a place of light<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Holding my eye (and thus my mind)<\/p>\n To a world which said I am<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n After which there is only repetition and substitution<\/p>\n Lesser indications<\/p>\n Fingers pointing in a direction we hope<\/p>\n Another might contemplate, or follow<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And what if he does and what if he does not-<\/p>\n How will that add or take from the world?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Where the light gathered was two fields away<\/p>\n Yet the place I looked from suffered nothing of a dwindling –<\/p>\n Was sub-text of a vivid text<\/p>\n Seamless shadow cast by seamless light<\/p>\n *<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Cherish the Way (writes Tsung Ping) respond, clarify the mind, note objects and forms; the landscape of earth is the landscape of every heaven, virtue allows you to walk there by insight, wisdom is a good brother in this. But the lovers, the true lovers, are led solely by its form(s) because even my faltering words which fall among rocks because they are not enough may be some help to others. Thus let the eye give forms their form, appearances their appearance \u2013for the mind is true brother to the eye and so eye and mind approve. Done skilfully the spirit divine is felt and truth attained in a painting<\/p>\n <\/p>\n FROM THE LETTERS OF NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n This world my joy, and the homeland not beautiful but harsh, austere form \u2013and that is its beauty; where at the crossroads of three continents\u00a0 alluvial mud was shaped to naked splendour. And the past a wind blowing over the mind, a wind full of colour with a pulse, also with harsh and beautiful demands because beauty struggles to be beauty against the opposition of history and oppressors \u2013<\/p>\n Wheel-hub of radiant spokes where humankind is kept alive, earth and stones absorbing blood, forming a clay the old ones made their houses from, into which we were born to an inheritance asking no permission to lodge in us.<\/p>\n And the wind penetrates past our bones to the deep within as it might in a saint\u2019s ecstasy of a liberating frenzy and death is familiar not feared and salvation begins at the peak of despair as you drink the precious waters of the homeland<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Then what of the living and what of the dead<\/p>\n And those newly gone among them?<\/p>\n I am ill but that is minor \u2013<\/p>\n A clumsy patient doctoring to myself<\/p>\n Yet this isolation fortifies me \u2013<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Necessities\u2019 vagabond, industrious hermit<\/p>\n Look-out from the crow\u2019s nest<\/p>\n Of this and many a turbulent city;<\/p>\n My mind a wind-gauge<\/p>\n My eyes unflinching at the new brutality<\/p>\n As forerunner of the new beauty<\/p>\n (Minotaur is pounding the earth and we are his children)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So, do I come with a banner of peace?<\/p>\n I do not<\/p>\n Do I come with a sword?<\/p>\n I do<\/p>\n Merciless and banishing love<\/p>\n That love may return unsullied<\/p>\n Where the icons of Christ are faced to damp walls<\/p>\n From which the paint is peeling.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And so they clash \u2013the hunger, vice, and cynicism<\/p>\n Against those students singing outside my window<\/p>\n As if by a song they might leads us to the great dance<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So what is my joy? This world is my joy \u2013<\/p>\n Meeting it head-on with a strong breath<\/p>\n And bliss in the absence of hate;<\/p>\n And if there is wretchedness on earth<\/p>\n There is none in my heart<\/p>\n So that even death can be faced with a tranquillity<\/p>\n That might kindle hearts, unite common concerns<\/p>\n Bring brethren souls together<\/p>\n Like a baptist in the desert announcing a redeemer<\/p>\n So that our agony will not die that the soul not die<\/p>\n When the body falls.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So what news of the living and what of the dead<\/p>\n Here where the ground is ripe for their enrichment?<\/p>\n The earth a vineyard become battleground<\/p>\n Yet in this responsibilities begin<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So what are we \u2013two-legged crawlers of vice and song<\/p>\n Destroyers and builders<\/p>\n A contradiction to ourselves and the stars<\/p>\n Some furnace-fire attracting us<\/p>\n Promethean in our thoughts<\/p>\n But the species crucified to a rock<\/p>\n And what further appointments are waiting<\/p>\n Under the ruined moon?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But the older fire still burns\u00a0 \u2013pristine Greece<\/p>\n Not beautiful but harsh and that is its beauty;<\/p>\n As slowly like a butterfly I translate what I am<\/p>\n Into what I must be –<\/p>\n Caterpillar I for the sake of my country<\/p>\n But not my country only<\/p>\n And not for the gods of any creed which says<\/p>\n I am but you are not<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n The new \u00e9lan rooting in the human forge \u2013<\/p>\n Divine and horrifying in marvellous chaos<\/p>\n God the merciless fire advancing through mud and blood<\/p>\n By some invisible breath<\/p>\n And not even hope halting it within us for a moment \u2013<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So where should I live but in the reality of my time<\/p>\n And where find my responsibility<\/p>\n But in flame-opened song-lines<\/p>\n And with what should I cooperate<\/p>\n But the surviving powers of light<\/p>\n To advance man\u2019s burdensome destiny<\/p>\n A little<\/p>\n So that if my grief is deep my joy is also \u2013<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Homeland and freedom surviving through those<\/p>\n Who exult for the light<\/p>\n <\/p>\n LESSONS LEARNED<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n What does the Burial of the Count of Orgaz<\/i> tell us about Guernica<\/i>?<\/p>\n It tells us death is various, multi-faced, a salvation or damnation but that it is always death<\/p>\n That bombs descend as quick as saints but not to the same intent<\/p>\n That heaven and hell exist on earth as they no doubt do in whatever heaven or hell is there for our credulity or disbelief<\/p>\n That for every mending there is a shattering<\/p>\n That the cry of man or beast in pain is the self-same howl<\/p>\n That the world may be fractured beyond repair<\/p>\n That every weight has its counter-weight, echo its counter-echo, that of both there are believers and doubters<\/p>\n That the world breaks down under the weight of hate but rises by the yeast of love<\/p>\n That sorrow is endless and ancient and new<\/p>\n That we are also shattered birds with broken feathers<\/p>\n That what we see in colour is also possible in black and white and grey<\/p>\n That Spain is our crucible (if we be Greek enough to see it)<\/p>\n That whatever seeps into the earth colours the earth and daubs our eyes with its tints<\/p>\n That what has happened before will happen again and already, somewhere, is<\/p>\n And the View of Toledo<\/i> \u2013where do we place this, not just in history but within the liniments of ourselves?<\/p>\n Ah yes, the indefinable answer because no answer is final<\/p>\n The colours accusing and consoling<\/p>\n The sky telling of things which are and which will be<\/p>\n The various greens and the various blues<\/p>\n The absence of a single figure \u2013the singular one I expect to see on the ridge whenever I see this painting<\/p>\n The swath of clouds befitting the St Francis series<\/p>\n The judgement and the challenge<\/p>\n The fierce pride of execution and the serenity of achievement<\/p>\n The painting contradicting then reconciling itself to itself<\/p>\n Nor passive observation permitted<\/p>\n The spontaneous cry of the eye which says City my city<\/i><\/p>\n The answering voice which says Yes!<\/i><\/p>\n And in the Disrobing of Christ<\/i> we are all rendered naked<\/p>\n Nor do we understand the Breaking of the Fifth Seal<\/i> (no more than we do the preceding four)<\/p>\n For we are, again, where we ever will be -on the ridge above Toledo seeking Toledo light<\/p>\n <\/p>\n STORY TELLING<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Tell the story twice by telling it once to the two worlds and those listeners, show how meaningless a border is by showing how it can be crossed, show the land of the dead to also be the land of the living, choose one without denying the other<\/p>\n And history meets the private intention disguised as public fact in the story within the story, and the painterly eye crafting its tenets within the Inquisitional city so that by telling it once it is told twice and Philip\u2019s departure from Toledo a\u00a0 turning away from The radiant intellectual capital of Europe<\/i> towards a churchly totalitarianism<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Then earth-mole into silk-worm weaving<\/p>\n Flowers on the dung-heap\u2019s fermentations<\/p>\n Bright flame from mouth to eye<\/p>\n To many another mouth and eye<\/p>\n Of the flame within the flame<\/p>\n (Ah my sweet heretic it is thus that I love you)<\/p>\n Showing a mind\u2019s isolation so as to show<\/p>\n Its many moving waters<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And of that rainbow-will let there be celebration (As there is and will be here and many an elsewhere) and the city be grey to outward appearance if the eye be monochrome though fire burns within the ramparts and the forges<\/p>\n So come, let us be the city\u2019s subversives \u2013the enemy within because we are its lovers, our soul\u2019s dark not of a dark conceit but of that auroral deep so deep only light can reside there<\/p>\n Sowho told you I was digging for \u2018art\u2019?<\/i><\/p>\n Holding my breath before the Burial, releasing it thereafter in sigh and celebration and the possible dream found only in the impossible dream (As Cervantes could have told him had they met)<\/p>\n And if one man sailed from Crete a second followed and they became brothers and Odysseus becomes Everyman<\/p>\n The god-flame fades but new hands stoke old fires with firing rods and brandishing irons -so who then is Christ or Buddha to his time but the transdental man of necessity and pilgrimage?<\/p>\n God-fire only in a living word or the paint\u2019s extension from the first world to the second to beat the god-killing force down<\/p>\n Thus out of Crete two brothers sailed to beguile us with their eyes and pilgrim-notes<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And the flesh transmuting<\/p>\n And the spirit transmuting<\/p>\n Dark reason becoming dark matter and mass<\/p>\n Furnace-flame and seed-house<\/p>\n Dream\u2019s doorway<\/p>\n Surgical renditions we cannot refute<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For we are on the canvas, terrified and enchanted, or are the solitary figure on a drifting ice floe drifting\u2026.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Their eyes hold our eye to no other possibility \u2013workers in an unlit mine, midnight\u2019s breath trembling us (Are we leaves some hand brushes aside to see the mountains more clearly?) defying the anarchy of night with god-anarchy as our goodly weapon (Pounding on the walls till truth appears?) being commanded thus to Turn sunward to Crete b<\/i>eyond illusions and phantoms for Freedom and holy isolation<\/i><\/p>\n So Who told you I was digging for \u2018art\u2019?<\/i><\/p>\n And the rock-shapes disturbing<\/p>\n Stirring us to some half-recognition<\/p>\n We must complete within ourselves<\/p>\n Or be the lost lords of a sunken city,<\/p>\n His moon is above us<\/p>\n For he would have us translunar<\/p>\n Lunar to sunward, ascent and transformation, eye to his eye, mouth to mouth pressed, one story told twice \u2013murderous and marvellous, slaughter-house and sanctuary, the disquiet evening air painted orderly and held. Incompatible contradictions, things that cannot be yet here by pain and page Are i<\/i>n ecstasy and aspirationbecause it should be so and not other<\/p>\n <\/p>\n BROTHERS <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n An ending? No<\/p>\n A pause? Perhaps<\/p>\n But not a conclusion<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Domenikos and Nikos holding me<\/p>\n As one mind holds another<\/p>\n But there is much I do not understand<\/p>\n Two voices become one<\/p>\n When two minds became one mind<\/p>\n Thus no endings but half-way conclusions<\/p>\n Map-marks and directional arrows<\/p>\n Always towards Toledo<\/p>\n And towards Toledo light<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Two brothers left Crete<\/p>\n And have entered my mind<\/p>\n As one cone of flame<\/p>\n To burn insistently<\/p>\n With a flame\u2019s prerogative<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Halfway conclusion<\/p>\n Perhaps<\/p>\n Tentative arrangements<\/p>\n But no more than that<\/p>\n When half-way to Toledo<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Where<\/p>\n In whatever light<\/p>\n The second half lives<\/p>\n My shadow will fall behind me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [homage to El Greco and Nikos Kazantzakis] by Martin Burke From REPORT TO GRECO by NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS (1) Not night, not yet, yet I gather sight and speech to speak against the dark; night\u2019s-owl that I am watchful from tree-branch and turret or battle-steeple; non-neutral observer, partisan of that radiant dark deeper than night […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,83],"tags":[1161,1123,1124,948],"class_list":["post-9176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-36","category-experiment","tag-egophobia-36","tag-english","tag-experiment","tag-martin-burke"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-2o0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9181,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9176\/revisions\/9181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n <\/p>\n