Bull-black boots
stamping
like beating skin-tight drums
steel capped
with arched hands
clanking castanets
with crimson coronations
like a goldfinch neck
A guitar's fevered fret
crescendos
a rite of spring
kicking dust from bloodied boots
stomps off the romany's yoke
I watched King Charles’ coronation this morning.
I’m not British and some things confused me.
For instance, they kept saying “The new king.”
New? The guy’s a boomer - at least - right?
Apparently, he is, at once, the oldest king
ever and the newest king yet.
Can we talk about the old lady with the crown?
The wrinkled one on the right of him, in white,
the crypt keeper, with genuine platinum hair.
At first, I thought that it was Charles’ mother.
But apparently, the old Queen died.
Has anyone looked into that?
Anyone who’s read Shakespeare knows
how brutal royals can be and successions,
over time, have earned a sketchy reputation.
Anyway, I wish him well. I wouldn’t want to live a life
where everyone around me moves up a notch
if something sudden and nasty happened to me.
.
.
Wobster’s Dictionary, word of the day: Coronation: “when you put a target on someone’s back”
*Is it me, or is his family so high school - why?
slang: ‘why’ = because I said so
The British royal family is front and center this weekend. How unusual is that?
The empire may be gone, but it’s time to recall its ghost, dust it off and invoke the ancient spell of monarchy.
A coronation, The original dog & pony show - God’s kingly sinecure. I can’t even remember the last one.
You have to know who your great, great, great, grandfather was to be nobility-class smug or to don those getups, with medals that would have made Caesar blush and Attila laugh.
The cast is familiar, if somewhat balding, The too-old king, his - whatever -wife.
I can’t help mourning Diana. Accident, treachery or karma, grown men cried at her passing, Shakespeare’s darkened heavens blazed in sorrow and, eventually, even the gray queen bowed her head.
There’s no more honor, in 2023, and if there’s any glory, its light has grown as dim as the glitter of gold.
The fact that the royals are better than us, is axiomatic. Not morally superior, of course. That’s the Pope’s job. The royals are like Britain’s Mickey Mouse, and any civilized man, who’d strike at that, would have to be a fool.
She is a beauty with her vaulted ceilings and cloisters.
Has been parading about for over a thousand years
Showing off her English gothic architecture.
Cathedral Church of St. Peter and the Holy and Invisible Trinity.
We have seen her in films and movies – The Hollow Crown,
Doctor Who, Sherlock, and Harry Potter.
She houses at Gloucester, Gloucestershire, UK.
She was once a pilgrimage for Christian seekers.
King Henry the Eighth established her current choir in 1539.
Today her choir boasts thirty-eight choristers and twelve adult singers.
So when you walk through, you are a historian, so much has gone on.
She is magnificent with her beautiful stained glass windows.
Her organ was constructed in sixteen hundred and sixty-six.
She has been the site of graduations, coronations, and weddings.
In medieval times she held daily worship sung by monks of the abbey.
Gloucester Cathedral, a gorgeous example of what architects can do.
Parisians looked upon it with sadness and awe.
There was plenty of disbelief with what they saw.
Notre Dame de Paris in the heart of the city
was going up in flames! What a pity!
The great church was filled with priceless artifacts galore.
Many of them were destroyed, and will be nevermore.
This eight-century-old edifice played a major role in history.
Coronations and royal weddings held there were many.
With much grief are the hearts of French citizens filled.
However, they say they will get together and rebuild.
From the spot where ashes and charred rubble lies,
a new Notre Dame cathedral shall soon rise.
From various news sources
Oh, pencil pusher,
your meager ambitions are few
Looking across the human prairie
what do you office see?
Your cubicle is left of center,
on the low rung of the corporate ladder
Middle management is not your destiny,
mornings are your richest coffee coronations
You revel in the small talk
carried to your cubicle by the gossip pigeons
Such a downcast view
you have of society
Two week vacations are your highest aspirations
Such a broad, bustling view
you have beset in front of you
But business chatter never interest
your backwater occupational view
Sitting in your cluttered, square chateau,
you envy not the frenzied activity
of the driven few
Those who fight to swim upstream,
unlike you ... just single tasking
and fluorescent basking
Being a cubicle fly,
curious buzzes always catches your eye
What’s the latest sordid affair
fumigating the office air,
this intrigues you mightily
Who made the fateful, fireable mistake
that cost the company a bundle,
this is your lure cast over the carpet lake
A quaint view from a cubicle,
with your clock ticking,
until it’s time for the next lunch break
I wanted to plant flowers at your grave,
and you so loved roses and carnations;
now, their beauty dances- sways in a wave,
roses stand at your grave as guardians.
Charming clusters of carnations enchant,
graceful jewel-toned roses so joyful;
in the sun like a painting by Rembrandt,
not mournful, but peaceful and blissful.
Flowers in a place remote and pampered,
where chipmunks and squirrels run and birds sing;
where teardrops fall on bright roses treasured,
and on the gems butterflies wing and cling.
Until my time on Earth ends- till that day,
then- can the flowers lay in sweet decay.
___________________________
October 9, 2017
Poetry/Sonnet/Flowers For Mother
Copyright Protected, ID 17-9482-13-0
All Rights Reserved. Written Under Pseudonym
Submitted to the contest, Best Sonnet Oct 1- Dec 31, 2017
sponsor, John Hamilton
Seventh Place
_____________________________
Written for the contest, Roses and Coronations
sponsor, Julie Rodeheaver
Second Place
My soul is among lions
I lie among the sons of
Men who are set on fire.”
Dramatica; expect the worst
And hope for the best
Is what some say ?
In life and breath and love and death
Portents..
Stopping in front of the Azteca's
Theatre admiring the lovely
Mannequin girl adorned as a communal
Daughter with long flowing hair and beads
Her many colours; sitting amid the tickets booth
Draped aneath cobwebs smiling and speaking
Unto my spirit in hues of yesteryears arrays
These, pantheon coronations....
Red double doors with circular windows trimmed in black
Conversing an entrance to cross through its beckoning ?
A schizophrenic passing by again; this, a portal unto the sun.
“My soul is among lions; I lie among the sons of men who are set on fire....”
Dramatica; expect the worst and hope for the best is what some say!?
In life and breath and love and death; portents ~
Stopping in front of the Azteca's theatre; admiring the lovely mannequin girl
Adorned as a communal daughter with long flowing hair and beads of many colours
Sitting amid the tickets booth draped aneath cobwebs smiling and speaking
Unto my spirit in hues of yesteryears arrays; these pantheon coronations?!
Red double doors with circular windows trimmed in black; conversing
An entrance to cross through its beckoning; a schizophrenic passing by again....
****************************************************************************
....“A Portal Unto The Sun` *
My soul is among lions
I lie among the sons of
Men who are set on fire.”
Dramatica; expect the worst
And hope for the best
Is what some say ?
In life and breath and love and death
Portents..
Stopping in front of the Azteca's
Theatre admiring the lovely
Mannequin girl adorned as a communal
Daughter with long flowing hair and beads
Her many colours; sitting amid the tickets booth
Draped aneath cobwebs smiling and speaking
Unto my spirit in hues of yesteryears arrays
These, pantheon coronations...
Red double doors with circular windows trimmed in black
Conversing an entrance to cross through its beckoning ?
A schizophrenic passing by again; this, a portal unto the sun.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“My soul is among lions; I lie among the sons of men who are set on fire....”
Dramatica; expect the worst and hope for the best is what some say!?
In life and breath and love and death; portents ~
Stopping in front of the Azteca's theatre; admiring the lovely mannequin girl
Adorned as a communal daughter with long flowing hair and beads of many colours
Sitting amid the tickets booth draped aneath cobwebs smiling and speaking
Unto my spirit in hues of yesteryears arrays; these pantheon coronations?!
Red double doors with circular windows trimmed in black; conversing
An entrance to cross through its beckoning; a schizophrenic passing by again....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
....“A Portal Unto The Sun` *
(letters to my presido-elect): ii
the dregs
of the libations
enticing the gods
upon the shrines
of the uncurbed squander
of the treasuries –
o, the squander
of earth’s roots!
& the kins sigh
as the mothers cry
for the fathers lie
in the tombs
the untimely tombs
of countless days –
& the uncurbed coronations
of the cows
reached the pompous limits:
the roof of native skies!
(TO BE CONTINUED)
Dearest Prof –
I did not title them:
These ever-ready logs
Ready to assemble ants of cowries;
They dance from sea to land
Wishing to be titled by exigent gods
Who watch over their lonely coronations
Lavished with sacrificial songs!
I did not title them:
Pot-bellied officees of faculties
Chewing mouthfuls of the land’s laws
Their neighbours:
Half-truthful goblins of tax-collectors
The smiling kick-backers
And officees of admissions –
Who titled these men?
Dearest Prof –
Many are these titled men of today
Are they found everywhere?
Do they mount uniformed road-blocks
As we pass safety-roads without eyes?
Head-strong: are their skulls also fragile?
Could the husk of a tax-collectors mouth
Eat the husks of his pot’s bottom?
Who titled these men?
Matching boldly with wrong titles?
Of course, the red-caps of the under world
Visited the newly world-renowned ref
(Prof, a roused lad heard it told!)
Did they leave the corpse by the ref?
Sadistic: are they also shrewdly fraternal?
I cannot lavish the sacred lines.
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