7th FRANCESCO’s tale: “the Albatross”

Have you ever felt the irresistible instinct to do something forbidden?

A red marker is in my hands, look at that blank spot on the corridor wall, it’s perfect!! My father will spank me!! I can’t resist!! This is the head, these are the arms and the legs, let’s add some hair, a hat, it’s done!! What a beautiful little soldier I have painted!!

Probably I was only 4 or 5 years old, but I vividly remember that immense feeling of joy mixed with guilt and terror. A feeling that lasted the time of an espresso before I got caught and the Keith Haring in me was drastically repressed.

Repressed but not killed.

12 years later I was lying in my bed and suddenly that very same instinct rose.

Ok Francesco, now you are grown up, this is your bedroom and it’s your right to write on that wall!! What could I draw? Must be something really cool, something sophisticated so that if a girl will ever come here she’ll get charmed!! Maybe a piece of poetry, this a good idea!! What about that French poet we studied last month, the damned one, yes Baudelaire is perfect!!!

The Albatross

Often, to amuse themselves, the men of a crew?

Catch albatrosses, those vast sea birds?

That indolently follow a ship?

As it glides over the deep, briny sea.

Scarcely have they placed them on the deck?

Than these kings of the sky, clumsy, ashamed,?

Pathetically let their great white wings?

Drag beside them like oars.

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That winged voyager, how weak and gauche he is,?

So beautiful before, now comic and ugly!?

One man worries his beak with a stubby clay pipe;?

Another limps, mimics the cripple who once flew!

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The poet resembles this prince of cloud and sky?

Who frequents the tempest and laughs at the bowman;?

When exiled on the earth, the butt of hoots and jeers,?

His giant wings prevent him from walking.

Beautiful, isn’t it? But what exactly does it mean?

It took me 10 years more to really get the message.

High school, then university, all my life spent mostly on books, studying mathematics, physics, structural engineering, but also literature, history of art and history of architecture. Hard work indeed, but I was protected inside the school’s crystal bubble.

Then the real world arrived and I’ll never forget that burnt face of a young yet extremely experienced carpenter making fun of my way of talking and my insecurity during my first construction site visit.

Like the albatross is beautiful and regal while flying high and pathetic while dragging its huge wings behind on the deck, so the poet, the artist, the architect, the interior designer and all kind of intellectuals can be disrespected because of their beautiful, oversized wings.

Luckily life is a good and tough teacher and through our journey we can transform from albatross into mythological creatures: the winged lions.

?CULTURE IS POWER???

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— The Albatross, William Aggeler translation,?The Flowers of Evil?(Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)