In the Twilight

By Bernard Kuckuck

This is a collection of poems by the author of the novel Purgatorio.
This book of verses harks back to the late Renaissance of Florence and expands
into what the poet calls "rarefied tracts of toiling and dreaming."
Quotes from Online Book Club (www.OnlineBookClub.org) that reviewed my
last book Purgatorio. These quotes include:
"It is a great book" and "He is a gifted poet".
Excerpts from "In the Twilight":
"...but the echo of an echo may be heard in a dreamlike flash of a vigorous
transcendent wave."
"...the moment turns to stone, a monument to rapturous illusion."
"...but the willow branch still blooms, and the pond is alive with primeval tunes
below the smoke of my untimely dreams."
"...I feel like singing, undaunted by the twilight of my fate."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984529404

Bernard Kuckuck

Authour's bio – Bernard Kuckuck I was born in 1938 not far from a little village called Klein-Reken in Westphalia, Germany and came to Canada at the age of 18, alone and adventure minded. In order to make a living, I at first worked in construction in Toronto, Ontario and as a miner in the Gaspé Copper Mine in the province of Québec. I then moved to Montréal where I started to work in a restaurant and a private club. By studying accounting and hospitality management part-time, I went on to have a successful career in the hotel industry. My passion though was philosophy, literature, history and classical music. Notwithstanding the fact that I took courses at Concordia University, I am mostly self-taught. I have also studied languages and am a prolific writer of poems, mostly in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian. I am retired now and live in Longueuil, Québec, married to a French speaking woman by the name of Dominique.

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 by Bernard Kuckuck.

Library of Congress Control Number:     2018906072

ISBN:                Hardcover                  978-1-9845-2942-8

                          Softcover                    978-1-9845-2941-1

                          eBook                         978-1-9845-2940-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 05/25/2018

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Contents

Acknowledgment

Foreword

Flourishing

Clear Intonation

Plutonian

Campanile di Giotto

Il Fiore

From the Tuscan Soil

Interlude

Benedetto sia

Even Darkness

Abrahams Eiche

Abraham’s Oak

The Bells of San Romelo

Ethereal Regions

Larga Odisea

Long Odyssey

On the River Enipeus

Trovare questa lettera

Finding This Letter

On the Stygian Shore

Diotima

From the Heart …

Or the Holy Grail

Lorenzo Drew a Circle

Santus … Benedictus

Il mio sogno …

My Dream …

Joyous Color

High Noon

Vestita d’oriental colore

Cosa ne pensa?

Hier ni demain

Yesterday nor Tomorrow

Isabella Sanseverino

Melodia soffocata

Oppressed Melody

Geburt der Venus

Birth of Venus

Expulsion from Paradise

Exaltation

Laud Veneris

Altezza

Heights

The Venusberg

Love’s Divas

Mors et vita

Ch’ Amor …

Hear an Angel Sing!

Les anges

The Angels

Oh, Saintly Muse!

Dulcissima

My Vernal Song

Fin amor

Heresy

Peace with Islam

Unchartered Regions

Echoes of the Past

Primavera!

Above the Sunlit Day

What Does It Matter

Fantasia

Fantasy

One More Summer …

Nella penumbra

In the Twilight

The Half-moon

The Panacea

Heavenly Plan

Voces Intimae

Otherworldly

Non si fidi …

In an Otherworldly Sea

The Azure Sky

Nuove Musiche

Puzzling Lines

Phantasmagoria of Images

Universal Amnesty

Alleluia

A Distant Harp

Al-Kamil’s Daughter

Land of Myth

Si bel sole

Such Beautiful Sun

Diotima

Fateful Dream

Confounding All Limitations

Wolfram’s Song

Only Her Soliloquy

The Oriental Sapphire

His True Faith

The Chrysopoeia

Il alchimista

The Alchemist

Aphrodisiacal Apotheosis

Traces of the Demiourgos

Erinnerungen an Artemis

Memories of Artemis

The Epiphanaia

El Dorado

The Swan

Amazonian Jungle

Fragmentary World

On a Mission

Tief in Mir

Deep Inside Me

Que la golondrina vuele …

Let the Swallow Fly …

Holdseligkeit

Graciousness

O Fortuna

In Flame—Red Velvet

Homeric Theme

Outremer

Holy Land

Dantesque Mission

Kepler-452b

Like a Stranger

Il tuo ritorno

Your Return

La estrella vespertina

The Evening Star

Mediterranean Tramonto

Come Venere sei!

You Are Like Venus!

Vexation

Coursing Beyond

Venus sum Prostratus

Echoes of My Musing

A Faint Fragrance

Silent Song

On a Summer Day

Worldly Phantasm

Musical Key

Even a Senseless Stone …

Journey to the East

Believing in Tomorrow’s Sun

Pristine Images

New Aura

Web of Passion

Into the Sunset

Anacreon’s Tomb

The Flowers

The Hellenist

Charron’s Ferry Boat

Orphic Lyre

Esotica

Exotica

The Descend

Into the Deep Sea

Invoking the Sun

Beyond Paradise

The Night Conceals

Life-breathing Winds

Dionysos

My Megalomania

Despair

Exilio

Sailing into Exile

Days of Beauty

Waiting for a New Spring

Deprived of the Sun

A Monument to Illusion

Child of Heaven

Christmas

Beyond Barren Terrain

Neither Gods nor Reason

Eternally Conflicted

Truth and Beauty

Pristine Beauty

Endless Wanderings

Rhyming Words

In a Garland of Eons

As ever …

Last Farewell

Der Zeitgeist

The Untimely Rhymer

Stellar Muse

Timeless Days

Florentine Airs

A Medici Painting

The Shores of my Youth

Songless

Lofty Themes …

The Years of Exile

The Empty Beaker

Why?

Mythos

My Sapphire

Il suo Sogno

Silken Dream

Ethereally Illuminated

Ecce homo

Ecce Homo

Beyond Elysium

Atlantis

Flowering of Stone

The Idea

To Filippo

High-minded Air

The Eons Pass …

Alba rosata

A Rosy Dawn

How Peaceful!

New Sunrise

Beckoning Uncertainty

My Exalted Lyre

Enchanting Night

A Silent Chord

Vexation

Metaphysicum

Midsummer Dream

The Poet

La nuit appelle

Stars Sing in Silence

Entreaty

To a Florentine Idol

Midsummer Night

Bewitched

Mi paese

Waiting for the Light

Unscheinbarkeit

Transcendency

Interlude

Infernal

Aquatic Spirit

Statuesque Glory

Divine Revolution

Lift Your Lyre

Esperando Orfeo

Waiting for Orpheus

Affinity

Veritas

Dance macabre

The Dance of Death

Dust of Sunlight

Like Blossoms …

The Vita Nuova

Lettre à Dante

Letter to Dante

Question and Answer

Clear as Night

The Absolute

Beyond Purgatory

Reanimating a Myth

Regret

Unattainable!

La ricerca

The Ultimate Quest

Fate’s Good Will

Archetypal Splendor

Beyond Reason

Satyriasis

Beyond the Helicon

The Angry Zeus

The Quest for Enlightenment

Daphne

Autumnal World

Westward Orientation

A Source of Nectar

The Golden Flower

Lofty Intrigue

Principle of Harmony

To Music

Distant

Apollo or Dionysos

Poco Andante

To the Uttermost Glory of God

A Stranger

A Pre-Homeric Lyre

Ancient Symbols

Waiting for the Star

Pura imaginación

Pure Imagination

Ancient Roadways

Fly to Her

Savior

Dei Filius

Heavenly Spectacle

A Shepherd’s Song

Imprisoned in Tartarus

Hellas’s Sagas

Una vida breve

A Fleeting Life

The Magi

New Metaphors

Memories

Paean of Praise

Haunting Airs

White Sails

The Tower of Babylon

Springtime Reveries

Home

Solitudes

Glowing Horizon

Orientation

Abschied

Farewell

Verses Glowing on My Lute

Faint Traces

Epilogue

Acknowledgment

My immense gratitude to my

son William who graciously

assisted me in all aspects of

the preparation and publishing

of this collection of poems.

And to my daughter Virginie

who is the artist of the cover

design and who enhanced the

pages with her evocative photos.

Foreword

The prime stimulus to occasion this collection of poems was my own novel Purgatorio. Verses would surge from the pages of my recently published book, which dealt with the origin of opera in Florence over four hundred years ago.

Having been absorbed with the accomplishments of the great geniuses of that flourishing city, such as Petrarch, Boccaccio, Calvacanti, and, of course, Dante in literature; painters and sculpters as epitomized by Leonardo and Michelangelo; musicians represented by Jacopo Peri, Giulio Caccini, Marco de Gagliano, Vincenzo Galilei, their great librettist, the poet Ottavio Rinuccini; and, of course, my own invention, Filippo Oraiosieri, who tried to find a letter to Dante supposedly written by Beatrice of Paradiso fame, gave me the incentive to write these poems.

The Tuscan metropolis of the late renaissance was, of course, not my only muse since my lyric realm expanded from this age of conflict and transition to what I like to think of as rarified tracts of toiling and dreaming.

I have explored a number of styles and approaches in my attempt to animate a vibrant and hazardous world, affirming and negating the mysterious and enigmatic years leading to the cataclysmic Inferno that was the Thirty Years’ War.

I, nevertheless, envisaged to turn the inspiration of the moment into a monument of celebration as someone, centuries hence, trying to breathe the air of a bygone age since the spirit of the renaissance once more displayed the love of a conceived transcendent aetas, of Greek drama and lyric with their heroes and gods. I strove to gather a few timeless shreds of a dissolved past, images of phoenix and apocalypse, in constant alteration of tone.

Bernard Kuckuck,

alias Filoraios,

Phil Oraios,

and Filippo Oraiosieri.

Longueuil, Quebec, Canada

April 13, 2018

Flourishing

On the artistic firmament

Florence is the brightest star

creativity is permanent,

a place where geniuses are

Michelangelo and Galileo,

their princes shape a Shangri-la,

for the arts a paradiso.

The poets find a resonance

as far as Tierra