WHAT'D I SAY, GIOTTO?

I just re-listened to the LOE Sgt. Giotto album during my summer vacation roadtrip to the Midwest, and realized that, even in the "clear" parts, the average listener would probably have a heck of a time following the lyrics.

So, here's the entire set of lyrics, divided by titles of individual sections, with timings included (in parentheses) to make it easier. The authors are: Donald Cogswell, Brian Farrell, James McCusker, Stephen McMillen, and Mark Pestana. I didn't bother noting who wrote what because that might make it even harder to follow, since the lyrics of each are generally all mixed - a few Cogswell lines followed by a few McCusker lines, then back to Cogswell, then a few Farrell, etc. Questions & comments welcome (in the space at bottom).

PART 1

a. CIMABUE (0:00-6:00)

In the Upper Church of San Francesco,

Upside down along the Nile,

St. Peter hangs by the Pyramid;

Cimabue, your holy eyes and hands

Have fixed the radiant faces of blissful angels

Onto the golden plane of heaven,

Where the Queen of all saints

Gently bends her head to bless her son;

A gesture as powerful as Jupiter descending to destroy the earth.

But Mary is calm and warm-hearted

Because she is the throne of Christ,

Seated with prophets who look to her and her court of angels

With wonder.

Floating apocalyptic God with crazy trumpet blowers,

Tumbled jumbled crooked houses, Florentine Dome,

The touch of angel enlightenment frees the tongue and pen;

Throne of mother and son -

Wailing disc-heads, praying hands

Catch the blood in cups or cup the turning face in shock;

Remember always, the skull that is buried

In the rocks where the pious kneel,

Inches from their whispering lips -

This great painted film negative

This fresco rudely oxidized

This ruin of Time that hangs on yet

To its godliness, its mastery,

In San Francesco, Assisi,

Where Cenni di Pepe, before video, before television,

Before celluloid, before electricity,

Before Buffalo Bill and Jack the Ripper,

At the birth of Humanism

But strangely too at the service of religion

Drew a cluttered snapshot on a stone coloring book

Etching his torrid vision

For Devotion and Art, forever until now

b. DUCCIO (6:00-11:52)

Linc Mulno beginning to laugh as Jerry Remy makes the call

In slow-motion instant replay, but a soaring donut instead of a ball-

Chocolate frosted with rainbow jimmies, flipping in a lazy, lofty arc:

Just another crème-filled fly out, on a day at Fenway Park.

Meanwhile, in the Trecento,

Duccio requests a fresh paintbrush.

Craning his neck, he leans his eyes

To the face of his giant Madonna:

Black-hooded Madonna, fifteen high,

Head tilted left leaning, right eye center,

Long spoon nose and short silent mouth

And skeleton hands holding peace sign-ing Jesus child;

Gothic throne - throne of mother and son -

With half a dozen pastel angels, holding on support,

Two at top have draped a curtain across the upright back

Behind the Virgin’s perfect aureole

Duccio, the majestic altar you painted across such a vast space

Its lustre, its purity of Spirit,

Shines forth from around an army of souls

Dedicated to a God of salvation

And if this were not miracle enough,

On the reverse, you created the first movie –

A technicolor biopic of Jesus

To go along with all the angels and saints

And doctors of the church and the holders

Of the keys to Paradise adorning the next world.

Byzantine silhouette comes to colored life, up close, upserve to level,

Not in black after cleaning and after all, but plump navy blue

c. UGOLINO (11:53-16:09)

Ugolino, I feel the weight of your dream

Here in this Berkshire summer:

In that heptaptych dream, you left behind

The bishop of St. Louis,the martyr of Boxing Day,

Moses and Ezequiel, Moon gorillas, onion rings voided,

Strapped-in books, forehead crucifix, weeping bright red Magdalena;

St. Michael in a cramped triangle

Gouging redwinged spotted serpent demon

Savior on slate grey, straight laid crossbar

Empty air and archaic rock spread all surround

White-robe friar kneels to left, woman and child to right…

Guido da Siena - What are you doing on my roof? I don’t have a TV antenna.

Can I show you the window?

With a model of a church, she watches the Saracens fall to die.

Pietro Lorenzetti - Painted into a corner, the babe and the bathwater,

Fresh towels, and whispers in a gallery

Ambrogio Lorenzetti - The angel, she carries a tiny hanging doll and a banner;

She has removed all power from the guilty

Master of the Rebel Angels - Sienese master, known only by two pieces of wood,

Dropped a herd of claw-foot angels; they plummet to a black ball below – Earth or Hell?

But then in Santa Croce the happy end is told: Nicodemus withdraws the nails,

With red-cross flag in hand, the icon man stands up out of his sharp cement slab,

Looming dominant over soldiers sleeping on shields.

Ugolino, your dream is quiet, and summer has driven into the hills

d. ANNUNCIATION (16:09-20:42)

Nuncle, I found that art print you had mentioned,

The one where Mary takes the blessed news;

Hesitant, pulled from her daily devotions,

As though in debt to some forgotten dun.

Modestly clad, she’s a model for miracles

Although she wards off wonder with a frown.

Who would have guessed that such civilized vesture

Would clothe a continent with scenes like this?

Something you said as you tossed out the newspapers:

A stubborn ink has soiled Europa’s gown,

Choreographed orgies and digital doggishness

Lost in a counterfeit, confetti cloud.

“Constantly conscious of human depravity…”

So once you summed the history of the West.

Somehow the knowledge of how bad we could be

Suppresses the potential to be worse.

Heirs of that heavenly nuncio’s message

Now pace like refugees in sullen coats.

Meanwhile the wardrobe that wards off the curious

In tatters lines the margins of the ward.

Where is the tailor to mend this sartorial

Dereliction, this torn overcoat?

When will Europa Resarta appear,

Restored and warmed by the announced Word?

Coppo di Marcovaldo - 35 millimeter film and a puzzle of lines, with a nice hat,

Does she sit on pumpkins?

Simone Martini peeps through his solitary window,

Spies a saint under black raven cloud

Diving from tower wall, wagging his finger,

Thus saving a beast-mauled child.

Where is this world where everything was gold -

Wings and garments, sky and leaves, chairs and carpets?

Where was that world where angels go door-to-door,

Not cheap pedlars peddling, but sayers of good tidings,

Bringers of sacred intent – holy thought suspiring?

Margaritone d’Arezzo -Lady with red shoes and apple cheeks,

4 saints gawking at her flower-speckled cloak

Made with gesso in that unhappy century

PART 2

a. CROSSES IN THE FLOOD (0:00-6:11)

Wading in the river Arno

Wading through the flooded river

Looking for bones

Looking for chipped and stained china teacups

Looking for my fifth grade schoolbus

Remembering in my dinosaur memory

The Devonian Period,

The shallow warm Midwestern sea

And the trilobite beaches.

But here in the flooding Arno

Are 13 crosses with 13 hanging saviors

With dark sleeping deepened eyebrows,

Anguished cheeks, and thick sweaty beards.

Knee-deep in the watery road

I have found too many crucifixions –

Giunta Pisano

Berlinghieri

Bernardo Daddi - Paint faster!

The Benefactors wait in lines stretching from Tuscany to Assissi

Maso di Banco - Sylvester the Pope smacks down the dragon in a pile of rubble

And wakes the victims from their comas

What if all the figures

From Cimabue to Duccio to Giotto were real?

Or the spirits of these figures, unknown to modern humans,

Came down and inhabited the holy effigies,

What would happen if they all left their confines,

Their gold-leaf frames – their glorious churches, their humble chapels;

Suppose they presented themselves to mankind, saying “Be not afraid…”

They could light up the sky and just possibly save all of us from ourselves

I motored out of the Arno on the Massachusetts Turnpike

An Allegory of Good Government

To be found at Exit 11 from Florence

To Framingham from the Lorenzettis to here

b. ST. FRANCIS ALTAR (6:12-9:24)

Helmet heads float down from the upper space

Kneel in blissful state of grace

A babe in arms swaddled tightly

Bent at bedside head bowed nightly

Wherefore art thou in times of need

The crazies bold their leaders lead

On trails of pure disaster

Stained glass windows sure to shatter

March on Gotham in your glory

Gives me wings to smite my foe

Their eyes a-glitter with shining gold

Bathtub Mary so serenely stands with hands a-fold

Staring at nothing, an inner peace, the beauty of nature

No self-destruction, stop the ill-fate of man

With art of wonder

Let's be Frank - I'm no saint

Could maybe make 'em walk with my hands

Better to do it with just a thought - real nice

What about the sick - just a word - fever's gone

Black cassock: was that part of the act?

Stigmata, let it bleed, oh, five wounds of Christ, a seraph on a cross

Preach to the birds - tell 'em what they want to hear

Give the demons exercises to wear them out

You're mad - I'm glad - they're gone

c. THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH (9:25-12:53)

Here, over the field of Saints at the cemetery of Pisa

Crumbled shadows in frescoed walls

Tell the age-old tale: the way of all flesh,

Hermit man with scroll unrolled points to the grave;

Everything points to the grave

As if to say, Behold, the Triumph of Death –

The Triumph of Death -

A phrase that speaks volumes,

Snakes crawl in coffins,

Dogs crouch and growl at corpses,

The stench of the corpses is overwhelming.

Scenes of the damned being tortured

By the demons of my mind.

The Devil in Hell with arms and legs made of snakes,

Me demons pull out my intestines

Filled with shit for everyday existence.

Souls in Hell in an egglike pit

Filled with the souls of the damned

Entangled with snakes.

My rotting flesh is dripping off my bones

Like a drip from a faucet.

Put the dirt down on my coffin

While my fingers dig at the coffin lid,

The Last Judgement of Hell.

Haunted by ill angels, with puke hanging from their mouths

Shrouded forms in agony by the lakes of filth filled with human eyes,

Pallid stones floating in my mind fall from my brain like bowling balls

Silent lizards scream “Enough of the human race!”

Desolation – buried by centuries of nonexistence

Fills my soul with gloom – the Last Judgement of Hell.

d. GIOTTO (12:54-20:36)

Frescoes along the chapel walls

Filled with Christ and the Last Judgement,

Showing the human condition: Temperance, Hope, and Despair;

The Angel Gabriel floating over the corpse of Christ,

Singing praises for the Sacrifice of Joachim

Altichiero da Verona, Guariento di Arpo, Giovanni Baronzio, Jacopo da Camerino, Puccio Capanna, Jacopo del Casentino, Naddo Ceccarelli, Jacopo di Cione, Nardo di Cione, Giovanni del Biondo, Agnolo Gaddi, Giottino, Giovanni da Milano, Giovanni da Rimini, Giuliano da Rimini, Piero da Rimini, Tommaso de Stefani, Tommaso degli Stefani, Grifo di Tancredi, Niccolò di Ser Sozzo, Filippo Tesauro, Lippo Vanni, Aghinetti… Jacopo Avanzo, Barnaba da Modena, Andrea da Bologna, Vitale da Bologna, Franco Bolognese, Segna di Bonaventura, Gennaro di Cola, Montano d'Arezzo, Jacopo di Mino del Pellicciaio, Ottaviano da Faenza, Stefano da Ferrara, Stefano Fiorentino, Francesco di Vannuccio, Matteo Giovanetti, Paolo Lazzarino, Tommaso del Mazza, Memmo di Filippuccio, Lorenzo Veneziano, Petro Cavallini - Taddeo Gaddi – Orcagna -

Have you heard from Barna da Siena?

Giotto di Bondone came to visit me:

He got here through the Twilight Zone and Night Gallery;

He said “I read your pseudo-poetry;

Where’s the humanism in the Christianity

That I created in Padua in 1303?”

We drank ice-cold beers and watched TV.

I clicked on a cable TV ministry

When an old man extolled the virtue of chastity

Or at least marital fidelity,

Then drove away most secretly

To a hotel room with his secretary;

Was this the humanism of Giotto’s day?

The great man did not know what to say.

He saw books and films to his dismay

Which said that his work had suffered decay.

“A much-ruined fresco,” one historian said.

(The one of Saint Francis on his deathbed.)

Before he departed, the Master looked

At Memmi and Lorenzetti and Martini too;

He marveled at the jewels shining through

The centuries’ work in simple books;

Centuries that he never knew.

As he said goodbye, a verse came to mind:

Tho’ much has been lost, much abides.