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    A Life Song Between Two Worlds: Revised and Expanded
    A Life Song Between Two Worlds: Revised and Expanded
    A Life Song Between Two Worlds: Revised and Expanded
    Ebook154 pages1 hour

    A Life Song Between Two Worlds: Revised and Expanded

    By Francis Boni

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    About this ebook

    In this revised edition of A Life Song Between Two Worlds, Dr. Francis Boni expands his original book of poetry, updating his thoughts on society, government, and philosophy. He seeks to enlighten others on points of views that would be otherwise unconsidered and encourages them to think beyond the words on the page and their own personal experiences.

    His verses reflect the emotional rhythm of the meaning of life and its baffling paradoxes, which are hard to resolve or to accept. He considers the violence in our society currentlystill crying for a real tentative or effective solutionin an effort to reclaim the calm of years long past. Bonis work is poetry of ideas, purpose-poetry with a messagea dynamic blend of ideas expressed in a dialectical relationship in a symbolically and intensely passionate way.

    A Heros Life There are no great men But only great challenges That authentic spirits must meet To overcome Not only personal fears But also the dreads Of that unknown and unconscious reality Which manifests those challenges Through which they become villains or heroes.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateAug 21, 2013
    ISBN9781475995671
    A Life Song Between Two Worlds: Revised and Expanded
    Author

    Francis Boni

    Dr. Francis Boni holds a BA and an MA; in 2000, he earned a PhD from the Graduate School of the City University of New York. He still resides in New York City. Poetry has been an integral part of his life along with his professional occupation as a philosopher.

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      Book preview

      A Life Song Between Two Worlds - Francis Boni

      A LIFE SONG BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

      Revised and Expanded

      Copyright © 2013 by Francis Boni.

      First publication 1997: City University

      Front cover:

      The Song Of Love, 1914, By George De Chirico

      © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      iUniverse LLC

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. 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 Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-1-4759-9566-4 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4759-9567-1 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2013911665

      iUniverse rev. date: 12/19/2013

      Contents

      Introduction

      1.   A Hero’s Life

      2.   Epigram I

      3.   The Beautiful Within

      4.   The Road to Repentance

      5.   We the Living

      6.   Working Like a Devil

      7.   It

      8.   The Poem of Fire-Love

      9.   The Ladies Ws at Elaine’s

      10.   The Uncertainty Principle

      11.   A Trivial Pursuit

      12.   Thinking

      13.   Ode to an Old Joy

      14.   An Elegy for John

      15.   Farewell to a Lady

      16.   A Farewell Epigram to a Friend

      17.   On the Summit of Mount Gemma

      18.   Ignorance

      19.   To My Black Madonna

      20.   In Praise of a Roman-American Rhapsody

      21.   Magnificat

      22.   Eternity for a Moment

      23.   Human Silence

      24.   The Song of a Maiden Nightingale

      25.   The Wanderer

      26.   Being Faraway

      27.   Autumn in Valhalla

      28.   Michael

      29.   In Memory of Guelfo Nalli

      30.   Death

      31.   Aimless Living

      32.   Of Human Nature

      33.   Crossing Swords by Misunderstandings

      34.   The Celestial Sphere Amid Violence

      35.   A Flight at Sundown

      36.   Song at Dawn

      37.   Sunset at Key West

      38.   Before Supino’s Hills

      39.   The Circle Of Life In America

      40.   A Tribute to a Dream

      41.   Thank You, Gorbachev!

      42.   The Shadow Which Still Pursues Me…

      43.   To An Ideal Mother

      44.   Who Am I?

      45.   A Portrait of a Young Artist

      46.   Change of one’s Fortune

      47.   On My Departure

      48.   Memento of Canada

      49.   A Weekend in the Catskill Mountains

      50.   Life At The Edge

      51.   The Spirit of Festivity

      52.   A Thanksgiving Psalm

      53.   The Spirit of Sacrifice in Us

      54.   The Soaring of the Bald Eagle

      55.   Missa Solemnis for September 11

      56.   The Wisdom of the Heart

      57.   Compassion

      58.   Holiday At Capo D’Orso

      59.   The Impalpable Divine Presence

      Introduction

      As we know, poetry itself is a mode of communication. Thus, in the themes of this episodic, poetic work, I attempt to wreak, with the imagery of an imagist, yet still Neo-romantic in spirit, my thoughts and feelings upon metaphorical expressions. Specifically, in their pregnant construction, with reflective, emotional rhythm, they attempt to deal with some crucial meanings of life, its baffling paradoxes hard to resolve or to accept, and above all, with its destructive problems, still crying for a real tentative or effective solution, of violence in our present century. These interrelated ideas or themes form a unity of poetic strain and, for this reason, this poetry is poetry of ideas, purpose-poetry with a message; a dynamic blend of ideas expressed in a dialectical relationship in a symbolically and intensely passionate way. It is therefore at this point that the title, A Life Song Between Two Worlds, reveals the author’s state of the soul, impelled by the integrity of its desire to address those paradoxes and dilemmas of life, which assume that A and non-A do not exclude each other as predicates of the human predicament painted with its present history, although, at times, with great allusions to the ancient heritage shedding light on, enlivening and informing the present. Only by understanding and by being influenced by the despairs of the human situation embedded in the living reality is the moment for the author to make his conscious transcendent leap in order to blend imaginatively the metaphorical meaning with the physical or literal. In other words, he represents the world which surrounds him by means of the world that is in him, and, perhaps, above him too. It is the duality of these two worlds which people attempt to reconcile at different levels—unrelated images, phenomena, events taken out of their everyday context and set in a peculiarly organized whole which reveals tentatively their inner reality and again, perhaps, their ideas of the supernatural or metaphysical aspect of reality which can be realized only in the transcendence of the human endeavor. Furthermore, on a personal note, the author, being born in the Roman Campagna of Italy, speaks more than two languages fluently, and thus he is actually, at times, caught between two worlds of thought, two abysses, yet resolved into one by thinking multiculturally. Finally his concept of dynamic love, indeed, ultimately turns toward the divine, but it is above all, a love in action for humankind. It is a prayer in principle which turns into courageous love in action trying to touch someone else’s silent love. Therefore, all the author wishes and hopes for these existential poems or spontaneous outpourings of sensibility is that they generate a spontaneous combustion of love in the reader’s soul.

      -Francis Boni

      A Hero’s Life

      There are no great men

      But only great challenges

      That authentic spirits must meet

      To overcome

      Not only personal fears

      But also the dreads

      Of that unknown and unconscious reality

      Which manifests those challenges

      Through which they become villains or heroes.

      Epigram I

      When a stone falls

      On a person’s head

      He certainly knows

      How deep is the pain;

      But when an idea falls

      Into his head

      He never knows

      How deep is its pain;

      Paradoxically, if an empire’s walls

      Always start from within to fall,

      Then it is rather droll

      When a unity in diversity seeking

      That a man should be looking at from without

      What he should be looking into from within,

      For the hard from the latter always comes.

      The Beautiful Within

      When life is dehydrated of virtuous fertility

      And the womb of our time pregnant only with heavy ills,

      What remains in the sequel of war real,

      As time scars and wrinkles only the skin,

      Is Love and Sorrow’s changing degree

      Which scar with feelings the heart’s within.

      Yet, had not life

      Even one

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