A short but massively constructed man his brutal physique projects an elemental power
His bald head resembles a missile. Altogether he dominates the space around him resembling a latter day Quasimodo.
I know not his name but his reputation precedes him.
His lower limbs are broken in places possibly in some horrible accident, various joints overlaid with giant scars left behind by surgeons charged with their reconstruction.
However his upper limbs are untouched just as his maker left them, and they have the power to dominate his majestic instrument.
In the ocean he floats like a mine ready to explode upon interference
He teaches the cello and inspires both fear and affection in his students, they either soar, or crash and burn under the fierce fire of his tutelage.
He plays a very old instrument made by a famous Neapolitan luthier name of Massini. A contemporary of Stradivarius, Guarnerius del Jesu, and Guadangini, the Cremonese Masters.
In Naples there is a street named in his honour.
The Street of the Cellos.
He paid homage and found Massini’s workshop, a hidden jewel. There remains just one luthier equipped with the skills to to keep the art alive, an old man himself he will pass soon. He looked fatigued by the decades an artist as fragile as his creations. His gaze filtered through the inevitable cataracts of age gave an uncommon perspective as unique as the scale of the instrument itself privy to the master and his apprentice alone.
The Cello Master lamented that the saddest violin he ever saw was a Stradivarius “The Messiah”.
It can be seen in a glass cage at the Ashmolean museum in Oxford, like a lion trapped in zoological gardens strange to his habitat.
No one alive has ever played it nor any man heard its song. Insured for a King’s ransom as a cheetah longs for freedom on the plains of Africa where it once roamed, unchallenged and unmatched like a King.
So named the Messiah of the Jews.
they wait for the second coming …
in vain
Flynnpoetry 