What better than a summer afternoon?
Where else, but on the trail to La Toscana?
Who is it mounts a mens that's not more sana,
devouring a voluptuous Verdi tune?
Which month might one elect, which isn't June?
I'll pass on Sassafrass and Lisdoonvarna,
to binge on bars, basilicas and Barna.
I like my treasures liberally-strewn.
You're cynical? Think pinnacles don't serve?
I can't agree. A twelvemonth of frustrations,
quotidian slap-downs and humiliations
are answered now. We've finally capped the curve.
The clouds will come again, of course, but verve
should also have its vestals. A libation!
Categories:
basilicas, summer,
Form: Sonnet
In spite of all your riches
you eschew what prophets do
Basilicas you build to self
with time but empty pews
Wealth deadly suicidal
when wielded as a gun
Whose target sits between your eyes
with one shot zero-sum
(Dreamsleep: November, 2023)
Categories:
basilicas, money,
Form: Rhyme
Grand basilicas
built to papal false idols
of graven image -
to apostate relics from
pagan Rome and Babylon!
Categories:
basilicas, faith, symbolism,
Form: Tanka
I was placed in my boat of reed,
And placed in a river run smoothed.
I drifted past Moses’ landing place,
Nestled amongst the rushes,
Past Peter’s boat and fishing nets,
Past reformed basilicas and black minarets,
And factories of manufactured creeds and needs.
All, whose only purpose is to clean the streets,
Tattoo feet, and recycle old shoes and dirt.
I sailed, past them all,
Into the unknown of the ocean.
Categories:
basilicas, bible, religion,
Form: Free verse
They couldn't have chosen a nest-bed more complex, or vaster.
I lauded their industry (toiling through Sunday, no qualms!),
and almost felt guilty for loitering by their pilaster.
My wife was the hold-up. Those scanty straps were a disaster,
her shoulders cold-shouldered! Here, there's no right to bare arms.
Basilicas don't come mightier, or more splendid, than this one:
Saint Peter's in Rome, High Renaissance, wide-fabled by poets.
The great Michelangelo crafted this Christian Aswan:
they've gathered its glories in guidebooks, so no-one need miss one.
Those frantic ants scampered on legend, but they didn't know it.
And isn't that rather like us? As we hurry and scurry,
accomplishing little, accounting ourselves oh so clever,
ignoring the story (except our immediate worries),
deploring as boring whatever creates no quick flurry,
we miss the magnificence dwarfing our petty endeavours.
Categories:
basilicas, life,
Form: Cinquain