Best Altars Poems
God sometimes does pray to man;
Quite often we hear him not.
But once above the din of earthly prayer
I did hear his voice;
Through the dizzying whir of angels' wings
His prayer came loud and clear;
A prayer in a tongue I can scarce recall
But which I did to English render.
Priests of the faiths, shepherds of my flock:
Shall you like the devil not hear my prayer?
My words find room in your ears but none
in your hearts,
And so the faithful wander astray from holy
to hollow creed—
The hollow creed of pissful religion.
I can nowhere look and not meet their flights
of insanity;
And nowhere go and not leave un-torn by
their evil ways:
From crimes against humanity,
To drives against womanity--
All wrought in the name of Heaven.
In prayer I now command:
Reach out your staff each day and by its crook
draw the flock near.
Teach them that to answer my prayers is the
highest form of worship
And that man is borne to me not by the things
he drives but by the things that drive him.
Hand them the one compass of golden truth
Whose artless needle ever swings with passion
away from their crooked altars
To point fixedly at my eternal word as to
conscience revealed.
If these words still shall not bend them to the
light
Then, perhaps, my wrath will
When upon their heads it descends
Like a whip of lightning cracking on earth's
bare back.
Categories:
altars, faith, god, peace, prayer,
Form:
Free verse
In the heart of the blackest abyss, down,
Down, in fathoms deep crypt, where light
Does not penetrate, and the structured protective hauls,
Of men, are crushed beneath pressures massive
Weight, of the oceans deepest depth.
This is truly inner spaces aquatic zone of the
Unknown, a realm of stilled silence frozen
In the icy currents of the barren straights.
Where prehistoric giants dwell, amongst the
Tidal flow, ambush predators, forgotten beasts,
From long ago, living krakens whom devour
All life, hidden within their dark domain.
In Poseidon's mighty anger, the waves answer,
To his fists of fury, hurricanes wrath of vengeance,
Gives birth to the perfect storms rage,
Vessels rise and than fall in the tidal surging
Waters.
Nay do the sailors cry out to the Lord God on high,
For redemption's salvation, but the sacrificial altars must
Be appeased, by flesh and bloods sacred offerings.
Summons does the mighty lord of the seven seas,
To release the last of the ancient Leviathans.
Two thousand hands, of a thousand dead men,
Heave and pull at the tethering heavy chains,
To this devil of the depths cage.
From within interments vaulted keep,
Captivities living spawn from hell, is
Unshackled and released, to reek havocs
Devastation above.
An aquatic spider, a maritime widow maker,
Flexing and in-flexing, its body’s motions,
Towards the surface, in pulsations rhythmic
Orchestrations, the gray giant is ready to strike,
With its killing arms extended wide, to grapple
At its unprotected prey, to engorge itself with
All living matter that it surveys, within its icy reach.
As bubbles shoot upwards breaking the waters
Surface, suction cups and talon claws are drawn
Outwards, aligning his eight legged tentacles of bone
Crushing death, behold the Giant Squid, instrument of
Lethal torture, a living killing machine from the fathoms
Deepest depths.
For it is the beast, the true essence of evil
Incarnate, and none survive its destructive wrath.
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
Categories:
altars, boat, fantasy, halloween, history,
Form:
Free verse
Vanishing beauty
Your charms rest in memory
Altars chant her name
Categories:
altars, devotion,
Form:
Haiku
My dream holiday on an Island so far away
I’ve wanted to go there for many a day
‘Kon-Tiki’ film by Thor Heyerdahl caught my eye
Now Easter Island is a destination I dearly want to try
A journey, which would take me over land and sea
But to reach my destination would be a dream for me
Easter Island is located in the Pacific Ocean
I’d need to fly to Santiago de Chile then to Hanga Roa
The Rapa Nui tribe used to inhabit there
No trees are on the Island – isn’t that rare!
At one stage the Island suffered deforestation
This could explain the total devastation
The Island is famed for its archaeological sites
Its monumental statues cause many delights
‘Moai’ are the famous statues with oversized heads
They rest on rock altars ‘Ahu’ their own comfy beds
These incredible stone carvings are heavy and some are very tall
The largest at 86 tonnes would have been a nightmare to haul
To view all the statues I would stay for a day or two
I do hope one day my wish will finally come true
Contest Take a Vacation
Sponsor Lin Lane
02~03~16
Categories:
altars, holiday, journey, travel,
Form:
Couplet
Barefoot on the paving slab chill, concrete
feet feel frostbite emanations in their callused souls;
rooftop mystique clamours silent slate triangles,
perched the stray cat observers, red-eyes smoking coals.
Down to the river's edge where swaying reeds
feed mongrel contemplations with moist whispered words;
rusty oil-slicked surfaces lick the muddy banks,
karma sutra assassins are the predatory birds.
Fixated upon a frozen traffic system, bolt-locked,
dumb-shocked by electric one way streets to dead ends;
barstool poets weep sleep-sozzled cabbage tears
for the closing-time tragedy of long-time absent friends.
Drunkards shamble on beer-stained coliseum floors, grumble,
mumble incomprehensible diatribes into thin air;
the memorial park benches flake skin and rot within,
white spirits rape the dreams that anyone should care.
Deserted boardwalks spool a crooked travel,
unravel with myopic glint and blink, cat's eyes dying, died,
and the desolated song from night's deflated lung
hums doggerel consolation with no meaning left inside.
Illegitimate offspring of fatherless daughters and sons,
buns in sceptic ovens, burnt baked black offerings;
sacrifices on toilet stall altars, to lie in state
no more than ether, aborted ghosts, empty superfluous things.
Saviours ride no pale horses, immaculate white stallions,
galleons never sail to where the sun pristinely sets,
for the purpose of this life resides in its conclusion,
deserve has nothing to do with it and nothing is all it begets
Categories:
altars, life, people, philosophy, places,
Form:
Verse
The Garment District
Overnite
City trucks slowly rumble along the street
Dust
Dirt
DNA
All powerhosed
What's left suspends like your aura
Perfume lingering
Forgiveness falling, gliding almost
unseen
a golden leaf deep in the forest
Resting among fellow leaves
Experienced in changing seasons
Cautious
but not fearful
Cautious
but not fearful
15 Pews
The backward glance the morning cast
Without regret on midnight past
And lives now strewn to what may be
Where once the stars shone bright for thee
Must gather centuries eternal dust
For only darkness, graveyards trust
The whistling wind, her tall tales told
Of demons, dragons, warnings scold
Where earthly altars blessed the few
That knew their place…….the fifteenth pew
Categories:
altars, life,
Form:
Verse
LIFE IS POETRY...POETRY IS…
Poetry wears the words of smiles and tears,
And speaks of stumbling through graveyards
And up the aisles to ancient altars;
Falling off of sidewalks and through the cracks of life
Then rising up to stargaze from thin lines;
Tripping over can’t and could have,
Butting heads with treasured idols;
Tracking sticky mud across the new waxed
Marble floor of the soul –
Scratching graffiti on the walls of the heart
Or gently laying kisses on fresh jagged wounds –
Carrying baggage filled with
Stones of calendar pages;
Chanting loudly of sunrise and sunset,
Blending crystal snow with newborn leaves;
Escaping clutches of midnight marauders
Embracing the fairness of rose and mauve;
Ignorance ignored screaming,
Scrapping tender knees and elbows on pebbled concrete,
Painting chaos – weaving breaths – unclogging drains –
Knitting together quietness in blooms of Claire de lune.
Poetry wears the words of frowns and grins
And tells of fat ducklings waddling through spring;
Wrapping scars in isolation,
Discarding blindness
In ancient hearts and newborn souls
And all the in between;
Cleaning closets stuffed to overflowing
With emptiness;
Running with ambivalence,
Looking into the eyes of the unresolved,
Fighting wrinkles or teetering on high heels –
Tuxedos rushing by the tattered,
Ragged holding hands with
Fire dancers balancing upon tight ropes –
Drinking fully from a trough
Of clearest spirits, giving up thirst,
Then wrestling with the fevers
Of inspiration through witness eyes,
Shouting across the centuries in baritone and soprano,
Reaching out and gathering in – juggling balls and overflowing plates.
The very marrow and the core.
The words of a poet yesterday – “Pretty, hell, poetry is life.”
Robert Penn Warren – June 1986
Categories:
altars, life, loss, love, poetry,
Form:
Free verse
I watch the pillars crashing all
around your face
I see you start to disappear
into the altars cracks
Your blood mixed with tears,
your desperate screams
Your prayers for saints lost in
cathedral downpours
Your sins finally catching up to
you
Dragging you from angels arms
Ripping your tattered heart into
bloody fragments
Your chains shattering into
scalding shards of glass
Engulfing you in icy tendrils,
the flames ripping into your
chest
The cyanide in your veins
purging out your unholy
humanity
Categories:
altars, religion
Form:
Lasting Treasure (2/11/23)
Lord, in this Bread
I see Thy Face
Bread that’s not bread
Sight of which, the only trace
O Jesus, Your countenance
With radiance shines
Garment of white
This beauty, Thine
Highest Priest, adorned in glory
Red stole, Your mercy reminds us of
Your Body and Blood always given
On Your altars from Above
Your peace streams forth
From Your welcoming smile
Pulling us to You to
Love You and stay a while
Your heart of gold
Your perfect will
Draws me further in
To be closer still
O loving Host
Christ, not bread
Keep hold of me
That on my final bed
This time spent aching
For You eternally
Be granted to Your servant
Lowly though I be
Each moment I crave more
Though treasure these moments, I do
Break my chains of sin
My lasting Treasure be You
Categories:
altars, faith, jesus,
Form:
Rhyme
I press my hands into the ruins of you,
fingertips cut in the quiet rot of ancient wounds
that have never quite been touched.
Beneath splintered ribs,
your earth is sulfurous in suffering—
your volcanic pulse muffled under sediment,
heart-rages arrested in amber.
I carve through your marrow-deep dusks,
knuckles bloodied on the bedrock of guilt,
digging past rusted veins and forgotten altars,
until my hands unearth something
promethean and glinting—
not relic, not wreckage—
but soft golds of you,
burning like a mantra
like a last prayer.
3.8.24
Categories:
altars, blessing, devotion, extended metaphor,
Form:
Free verse
I have loved like windows love the morning-
quietly, without asking to be noticed,
just hoping someone would open them.
There were nights
when the moon knew more about me
than anyone ever would-
how I curled inward,
folding grief into origami birds,
sending them across invisible winds
toward the edge of forgetting.
I have lost things I never held-
names, chances, whole lives
that might've been mine
in another version of the world.
And yet I still dream in color.
There is a longing
that does not shout
but lingers in doorways
-in the way I hesitate
before saying I'm Fine
It builds altars out of absence
and worships with quiet hands.
But healing,
it does not arrive like spring.
It comes with the slow thaw of winter-
a drip,
a pause,
another drip.
Some days, I am the storm.
Others, the shore that survives it.
I have learned to carry my name
without apology,
to wear my scars
as punctuation marks-
not endings,
but proof that the story moved forward.
And if I ever forget who I am,
let me return to the silence-
not to disappear,
but to listen
to the heartbeat beneath the noise.
Categories:
altars, 6th grade, absence, deep,
Form:
Free verse
Still sacrificing needs for us on altars that surround your heart.
Unwavering your love and patience raising the two gifts from him.
Suspended hope in burden when life’s hooks come to tear you apart.
A saving faith beyond the sunset of your life as it fades dim.
Now left a man, to know the best in me, my mother did impart.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Form: Acrostic: Iambic Octameter
Grateful to God and my mother. A blessing I didn’t and will never deserve.
A love upon me that I can’t fully comprehend.
Categories:
altars, blessing, christian, devotion, family,
Form:
Acrostic
Balcony moods
Morning offering;
Song of bird duo
By the yard edge
Bird frolic twitter;
A cheery quartet
Song fills dawn
Sunlight slants;
Window view sparkles
Last night's rain
Wet grounds betray;
Uneven footsteps traced
Joy after sorrow
Traces of old grief;
Ushered out abruptly
Old sepia memories
Silver nitrate etchings;
Old time photography
Haunting faces preside
Mother and father;
Yesterday's courtesy
Today flings
Doors wide open;
Strangers in paradise
Prayers on altars
Everywhere we go;
Living burying the dead
Can you hear
Sounds of old strains;
Voices calling in echoes
This life we live
Takes sterner stuff;
Hope feeds effort
Do you notice
A common melody;
Swirling time after time
Mundane routines
Calls time for after shocks;
Trauma feeds norm
When I listen
Do I hear
Sounds in the silence
Trip to market
Buy and sell;
Barter for things
Hate is fear exposed
Let love attend trade;
Poverty lives painful hatred
Look up and see
Dawn in a flash;
Insight reveals truth
Leon Enriquez
15 July 2014
Singapore
Categories:
altars, appreciation,
Form:
Haiku
Carved and hued In solid bed rock are locked the voices
Echoes of the ancient past, blood shavings of symbolic
Expressions, that whispers ever so softly within the desert
Winds, beneath our cryptic dons lay the tombs of pharaoh’s
Kings and Queens.
Living stone bleed’s sacred blood from the hardened heart,
Of nature’s rocky ridged souls quarry, dragging it’s marble
Spinel column then shoving it upwards to heaven’s might
And glory, behold the shimmering monolith displacing
The height of Egyptian power, etched in rock forever.
Creeping shadows of the fallen guardian’s watch towers,
Statues frozen faces transfixed, with fierceness’s veracity,
Lay in wait to strike, at any outlander whom may trade
Within this sacred valley of the dead.
Whisper do the walls in forgotten tongues lost languages,
Hammered by the scribes of the dust, cures ruins of long ago,
Foretelling the death to grave robbers whom defile these
Treasured tombs of the Pharaohs.
Idle worshipers altars flames remain extinguished,
Yet the firer of the Egyptian people still burns with prides
Honor, blazing within the stars of the heavens, igniting
The spark of legacies divinities to smile down upon them,
From a far.
In historical ruins stone of red brick the falcons soars
On wards into the everlasting sun, it’s feathers never
Waver and its eyes of emerald brilliance shine, as it’s
Break bites at the evenings stars tail, screaming the
Names of the Pharaoh’s evermore.
Carved and hued In solid bed rock are locked the voices
Echoes of the ancient past, blood shavings of symbolic
Expressions, that whispers ever so softly within the desert
Winds, beneath our cryptic dons lay the tombs of pharaoh’s
Kings and Queens.
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
Categories:
altars, adventure, history, imagery, imagination,
Form:
Free verse
Stellars under the darkest night
Glowing plight in constellation
Silhouettes afar from the moonlight
Speeding lights in formation
Stellars faint in a blue Moon
Sellars taint in a covered Moon
Faces of stellars form in names
Braces of altars dorm in flames
Stellars catalyze in many places
Like sheer diamonds in pieces
Stellars ascend in night's bleakest
As the Moon descend at its weakest
Each stellar behind the Moon smiles
As the Moon traipse and beguiles
Facing all other crystal lights
Moon stays bright like Stellars in spotlights
Categories:
altars, celebration, journey, moon, relationship,
Form:
Imagism