Craven cupidity, contemptible crow
Your talking is squawking as black as your soul
If birds of a feather would gather your hem
A collection of seamstresses darker than them
Would weave from hole cloth a pattern of lies
From a harvest of calumny dark'ning the skies
Who rates this performance, whose benefit there
With bait this enormous just fit for a bear
Who else in the forest could relish this feast
Galumphing, triumphing, it must be a beast
Wallowing, swallowing, swampy at best
Content to recline there and dine on the rest
Immobile as a trophy, stuffed for display
On future repast, blackened feather filet
Blow hard and bellow with yellowing cries
Gather like fellows who feast on these lies
If chapels had been churches, your cathedral would loom
'stead of gathering shadows in this canyon of gloom
With your bins full of blight and your gather of smut
We hasten to bid you not good night but... what?
We wonder still under quick'ning despair
In search of escape, it must be here but... where?
There must be some light lest this darkness o'erwhelm
We must brave the night til the Good take the helm
I told the mirror not to answer
but it wept a name I had never spoken
yours. The one with no god,
no grave, only silence for bones.
We made chapels of each other's mouths,
your breath the liturgy,
mine the dagger.
We knelt. We undressed. We bled.
Each kiss a benediction
spilled on the floor of the forsaken.
You called me a cathedral;
I called you a ruin with holy teeth.
We carved poems on the inside of our skin
so when we died,
they'd read the rot
and say: "This was once love."
But we were never alive enough
for it to end that gently.
Only ghosts would make love
the way we did
with war
with fever
with famine
with cum.
(The Hollow City Cycle include:
The Hollow City
I Remember You -- the city speaks
Last One Left)
They never saw me--
not fully.
Even when I begged them with my eyes,
or left poems scratched on alley walls
between peeling posters and prayer graffiti.
When they fled,
I stayed.
Not out of bravery,
but because I had nowhere else to go.
Now the city wears silence like a crown,
and I walk her streets like a loyal dog
chained to a ghost.
I sleep in shattered chapels
and drink rain from rusted fountains.
I whisper names to broken windows
just to hear the glass shiver.
At night,
I dance with shadows
that don’t know they’re gone.
I don’t know what I am anymore.
Not memory,
not mercy--
just the last heartbeat
in a place that has none.
I walked through the valley of Death,
Where so many had walked before.
On every tomb there lay a flower,
That had taken their last breath—
For it’s darkness that holds the power,
And it’s darkness you can’t ignore.
I saw demons chanting songs of woe,
I saw babes wailing, lost; alone.
Black chapels crumble, halls decayed,
Mourning love lost long ago.
For it’s the season of loss that stayed,
Echoing in their hearts of stone.
Yet I too can see a gold Light,
Walking through the tamed vale of shade.
A tender hand, outstretched and brave,
That lights a burnt candle bright.
For it’s God who holds the love we gave,
And shares it as his hallowed blade.
So, let not worry chain your hearts,
And know the value of your loved breath;
I do see the White Bell’s chime call,
And destroy Death’s dark arts.
For it’s God who gives light to all,
And it’s God who walks warmly ‘longside death.
John did not try hard with his first wife
she was married, he was not
second wife cheated on him
served him right, he deserved that.
third wife was an accident.
They had gotten drunk in Vegas
Too many chapels there
and too many drinks
Fourth wife thought saying “I am his fourth” was funny
Her disposition was dour, she stopped being sunny.
He got tired of her sense of humor.
Fifth wife died of a cancerous leg tumor.
At age ninety-two he just married wife number twenty-one.
Wishing he had tried harder with wife number one.
A cracked and empty skull
makes a beautiful flower pot,
desk tidy or paperweight.
Place a nightlight in that osseus cave
and it will become a small table lamp.
Through the ages
monks have harvested skulls;
some sanctuaries and chapels
are built on human bones
and the skulls form their central alter.
Mystics understand
that this is the ultimate jaw-dropping sermon.
The human skull reminds us that death leaves
its own gravestones.
We can grin back at that once visible face
pondering its ever static tidings
to wit, that this rattling boneyard dream
simply must have its One Last Word.
It's Yuletide - hope's renewed, love grows,
Bringing warm memories of Christmastime,
All 'round soft carol music flows;
Porch lights twinkle e'en as it snows,
People flock to chapels as church bells chime,
It's Yuletide - hope's renewed, love grows;
Pies and cakes, families get close,
Recalling our Redeemer's birth sublime,
All 'round soft carol music flows;
Hope of a thousand tomorrows,
Jesus was born to change sin's paradigm,
It's Yuletide - hope's renewed, love grows;
Trees adorned, sharing gifts well chose,
Snowmen are built in a white pantomime,
All 'round soft carol music flows;
A cold wind in December blows,
The warmth of a fireplace shows it's peacetime,
It's Yuletide - hope's renewed, love grows,
All 'round soft carol music flows.
12.03.2020
For Joseph May's "Deck the halls" contest
Crimson coats
Truth laces on the sleeves
Layered pinks
Weary wants within
A chink in the sky
Chapels clarify
Words that smelled green
Promises pristine
Doting on the dark dew
Musk settles anew
Unruled pages
Ruled roads
Caveats mistaken
Heart carrying the heaviest load.
The path forsaken
The path forgiven
Some of us aren’t meant to be tamed
Come, this is the way.
Love’s Extreme Unction
by Michael R. Burch
Lines composed during Jeremy’s first high school football game (he played tuba), while I watched his mother watch him.
Within the intimate chapels of her eyes—
devotions, meditations, reverence.
I find in them Love’s very residence
and hearing the ardent rapture of her sighs
I prophesy beatitudes to come,
when Love like hers commands us, “All be One!”
Keywords/Tags: motherhood, mother, son, Mother's Day, mom, love, family, relationship, extreme unction, devotions, meditation, reverence, love’s residence, beatitude, beatitudes, heaven, unity, solidarity, togetherness, oneness, one
were is the African God
yesterday never lie
cos it marks keep
speaking on today
we can't deny it facts
either could we erase
it effect on us today
from the longs gone
yesterdays
we understand we were
invaded
off curse the hunters
stoned us with a new God
on the name of missionary
we adopted a strange religion
till today it still lives on
it popularity grows
everyday everywhere
in our homes
in Africa we are use
to two common religion
make it your duty to
find it out
cos am just a writer
whose heart differs
in the quest of originality
I search for my religion
cos he was in existence
before any religion
in my doubt I keep
looking for my own
cos our God is been
replaced
we build temples
we build chapels
to the hunters God
yet before the hunters
invaded our land
our God was our source
to life to peace to love
we lived with it guidance
we were protected by
it blessing to life
it was in existence before
the strangers gave us
their picture
so in my quest of worship
I don't need a strange god
in my quest of protection
I need the God of the land so
were is the African God
I have written myself into a web of madness;
where hideous creatures troll the dark streets,
where angel wings fan the souls of the newborn,
where pirates sail on traitorous seas,
and young maidens seek safety in the chapels of God.
Adventure, fantasy, faith all tumble upon the written page.
SCARLET BREEZES
Scarlet breezes swirl through the square,
Beckoning us to come
In bright, elysian fare.
A cello and a drum,
Clarinets and trumpets
Arise and stir and glitter in the fountain,
Around your sable ringlets,
In the cloister on the mountain.
There are diamond drops of rain
In your long and raven, perfumed mane.
Let us wander to the amorous refrain
Of violins by the ivory colonnade.
And there in the somnolent, redolent shade
I shall take your tender, fair, white hands,
Where only rapturous love commands,
As we rove among the blooms,
In the garden by the ocean,
Reveling in deep emotion
Beneath our gilded palace,
And its grand, palatial rooms.
And I shall kiss your lovely face,
In a state of imperial, gracious grace,
To the chime of harps and wedding strains
Which will emanate from daisies, dahlias and the breeze,
From the chapels by the rustic lanes,
Beneath the golden linden trees.
JOHN LARS ZWERENZ
The land of my Fathers is where I belong,
Its valleys and hillsides all bursting with song.
The tale of 'Myfanwy' is often retold
And grown men shed tears as the sad facts unfold.
This haunting refrain from a Welsh male voice choir
Will cause even cynical hearts to admire.
Welsh daffodil woods put forced roses to shame,
Whilst Cambrian coastlines make others look lame.
A fearless red dragon fires mythical tales
Along with Saint David, the Patron of Wales.
And soulful Welsh poetry lives on with pride;
Its lyrical excellence can't be denied.
Like Bard, Dylan Thomas, Welsh spirits still fight
They 'do not go gentle into that good night'.
Old chapels still echo revivals of old
And heart-rending tales of brave miners unfold.
The land of my birth and my forefathers' rest
Provides a warm homeland for which I feel blessed.
02/09/18
'My country 'tis of thee' Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brahn Bailey
revised : 10/12/18 for the contest : 'Tribute to native culture poetry contest'
sponsored by Line Gauthier
I see the murals on the walls
And the paintings adorning
The ceilings of these churches and chapels,
Depicting great deeds and I then reflect on small me
How can I compete and rise up and be,
Someone who enacts change as great as enacted by these deities,
Then it comes to me
Just be who you are meant to be
And if it's destined and ordained to be
You will get there in the end
Through the messages we send
And the kindness and love that many do not comprehend,
Will mean we will rise us up into the heavens
And we will rise up and give it everything,
That's as much anyone can be expecting,
Just don't be afraid to dream to big,
The universe and deities want you to reach out for the stars
And show just how enlightened you are,
Through being the peaceful and compassionate person you are
Lighting up all of the dark.
Red maple reddening still further
Yellow and green hug in arbour
Shadow of sugar maple in water
Pink murmur in aroused lake
Black tupelo in colour avalanche
Many a shade on the same radiant branch
Magenta and orange in chocolate romance
In blue paint the pigments break
Children are picking apples
Smiling the sombre chapels
Roads covered by dark maples
In cold wind a coloured shake
Under the brilliant yellow of Aspen
In the green rocky surrounding
Through kisses into a heaven
Foliage of love we make
Our orange desires breaking into
On Baldcypress a deep reddening view
Reckless waves in joy we plunge through
A crimson boat to take
_______________________________________________
September 21, 2017
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