The Masterpiece: Parts I-V

Do any of my older readers recall how, after posting Part V of this work in 2007, I said that this poem was going to be hard to illustrate? Anyway, looks like I'll be heading into new territory very soon - maybe even today. 8:11 pm: Tomorrow's chapter is done. I think I'm doing a fine job of reconstructing this work after nine years and I'm looking forward to its completion. Now, what happened at 6:00 this evening? Another violation? Is some fraud band playing a show for the festival tonight? Who talks about 'vuge' (huge views) and 'frog' (fraud blog). The authors of the Newspeak dictionary? I know one thing: we didn't need to pounce on poets and try to get them killed or unjustly incarcerated until TV, radio, and the internet came along. So much for progess. I: The Purpose The Lord thought truth was beautiful in any form or spectacle And coating it with fine veneers was starting to distort Humanity's adherence to the outermost appearance grew Which gave way to the rise of sin by falsehoods they'd export A sweet and ordinary bird expressed the best His person third His second walked the earth in an informal one-piece cloak The call to plainness of His Word had been by all the nations heard And yet the countless multitudes had still not to Him woke Each time He gave a gift of worth to somebody of common birth As soon as glory was revealed, the devil interfered The outer shell was everything to those who held successes' string For vanity was largely how their riches were revered The use of electricity had furthered the duplicity Infusing fell illusions with a paralyzing light So that the good recipients of His divine beneficence Were overwhelmed by power and could not tell wrong from right The time had come to make a man who'd stay the course within His plan To furnish ample stamina against the evil tide He'd bless him with a gift for art and fill with love his open heart And let the spread of showy truth extend the whole world wide Excessive artificial vaunt would fail to be a source of want But only proper application of the noble skill Though fearsome ones in high employ would gather to the truth destroy They'd come up short against the force of his intrepid will He'd let him know he had a soul for which to choose a timeless goal And put the strongest arguments inside his able brain He'd give him sight to penetrate the fellow persons' inner state In order to upon the underlying meaning train He'd name him David, like the king who slew the giant with a sling And set him on the earth among the modestly sustained A paintbrush in a hand so brave was guaranteed to stir a wave But only by disruption could the greater good be gained II: The Adversary The devil treated his aides well to help him swell the ranks of Hell At least until the time arrived for each to fall below He showered them with shining wealth and kept them in the finest health Upon his loyalest, the highest honours he'd bestow His force was undetectable in persons so respectable Which let the spread of evil go entirely unchecked As laws were passed to make the need for people to indulge in greed And meet the disappointing fate that they did not expect To shield the fallen from their grief, illusions offered brief relief Which failed to keep them happy unless constantly applied For this, the new technology employed a slick psychology From which the most determined would find difficult to hide The worldly dream of zillionaires was passed off to the crowd as theirs To reinforce the glory that would otherwise soon drop And those who had the greatest means to dominate through TV screens Were rated by the devil as the flower of his crop Though other painters by the lake had chosen to a landscape make Would David turn his easel round to face the other way And render a subjective look at shoppers on the banner's hook Their megamall depicted as a crushing beast of prey His daring ingenuity and capable dexterity Won favour from the passers-by who praised him for his work It left him feeling tranquilized to be so strongly patronized Oblivious to enemies who in the throng might lurk The ringing of the hotline red withdrew the chairman from his bed To answer an important call from down in the abyss An artist with a bent for truth was openly corrupting youth With images designed to throw their programming amiss It ceased with a despotic shout to snuff the brazen upstart out Or suffer for his failure a disturbing penalty The influential Mister Large would to the target hands discharge Once weaknesses were gathered by a through inquiry III: The Temptress Profound effects upon the brain were visited by Mary Jane Incentivizing centres that provoked the urge to laugh Her company came at a fee too high for those in poverty But for the artist she agreed to lower it by half He'd had a pressurizing day and recognized her straightaway Her flowing viridescent wrapping flapping in the breeze She emptied his collection plate and offered him a soothing date Extending warm and leafy arms to set his mind at ease The picture he'd been working on was seen to him as going wrong He wanted better to make contrast of the bad to good But once he gained a sniffing sense of Mary Jane's rich redolence He realized that all his shades were set down as they should Her orders were to trip him up, so his advance would interrupt Diminishing his image with the laugh of a buffoon And on his work she kept her eye, alert for tricks that she could try As they enjoyed the fading of a sunny afternoon He had an animated way to certain things that he would say Reflexively, a smirk came on her at the sight of him Especially when overrun by passionate opinion His eyes would more protrude against a semblance fiercely grim Succeeding to subdue his wit, she seized upon his laughing fit To plant a comic moustache on the figure that he'd drawn But found herself too unprepared for the expression that he shared Incredulous with outrage by his flawless vision gone Hilariously overpowered, she fell hard against his glower Soon reduced to spasms that relinquished her control So that she had to turn her back and put an end to her attack Abandoning at once her incapacitating goal The word of the decisive loss was sorely taken by the boss He'd thought for sure he'd triumph on the first submerging strike The evil effort to debauch would have to be moved up a notch To strengthen the assault upon his victim's peaceful psyche IV: The Blighters The blighters were a tiny troop of creatures who knew how to snoop To catch their prey asleep or stuck in horizontal slumps They knew just where to poke the bill and drilled for nourishment until The surfaces they worked on were all blanketed in bumps They'd been dispatched to David's bed to play their havoc with his head By someone on the payroll of his dedicated foe And there they waited in the dark for the right time to make their mark His constitution destined for a prickling new low Their last forlorn recipient, to demonstrate his discontent From finding studded chaos in his sagging belly's fold Had finally to pieces fell, and with a madly plaintive yell Went crashing through his window to explode on concrete cold Since this one was without the weight to help him from them insulate His sure and rapid breakdown was the outcome they presumed As shock waves of approaching feet to cushy recess forced retreat By signaling the entrance of the person they had doomed Exhaustively he'd combed the street to find a few small things to eat Resulting in a somewhat better than the normal fare A patch of earth contained a crumb and someone dropped a pack of gum And juicy yellow dandelions sprouted everywhere To make sure his nutrition stuck, into a bowl he dumped the guck And fortified it with a squirt of Elmer's safety glue Then with a clothes pin on his nose, to gaping mouth the mixture rose Surrendering the gullet it was bound to travel through His demon hunger held at bay, he headed for his bed to lay Collapsing from the drain of his humiliating run To motionlessness he'd concede before the bugs came out to feed Led by the pathway of the most enthusiastic one The straw from which it took its drag induced a deep and fitful gag Which sent the others fleeing through the crack beneath the door Again the shot had landed wide as Mister Large his foulest cried Determined to crush this resilient artist even more V: The Masterpiece For any artists worth their salt, obliterating vision's fault Was foremost the objective, with their basic needs denied A finalizing master stroke that boundaries of beauty broke To blissful revelations flung the portal open wide Though David barely made a cent, his time had not been poorly spent Developing his palette to a formidable crest Consumerists might think him flawed, but deemed successful by his God He'd struggled long to make of his abilities the best His painting of the modern age, presented as a flimsy stage Whose listless players edged towards the entrance of a shaft Which led straight down to iron jaws expanding to make good their cause Had heretofore been viewed by him as bordering on daft But with a touch to emphasize the evil in the usher's eyes The elements united in a composition grand With power to undo the grip of television's blinding trip And trigger major consequences utterly unplanned He'd set up in a public place to reach this echelon of grace His first spectator dazed by the illuminating sight The driver readily discerned the treatment his exploiter earned And felt his indignation surge to a ferocious height His spirit soared with violence against the haughty insolence Of tyranny that wasted his duration lived entire And in a frenzy of delight, as his observers flinched with fright He torched his boss's vehicle and danced around the fire The officers sent to address the ladies' summons of distress Approached the witness for his summary of the affair And shown the painting to explain, the detonation blew again With two more dancers firing their pistols in the air With that, the artist shed his smock to put up the essential block To stop the scene descending into hopeless disarray And exited towards his hood as nonchalantly as he could Where his incendiary work would in concealment stay (to be continued)
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