Porches,
attached decks,
patios,
intimate places for alfresco,
These make a difference
between a fortressed house
and a transparent home,
between an ego castle
and an eco-habitat.
We also spread rhododendron bushes
and hostas,
flowers and ferns
around our stone
and concrete bound foundations.
We want stable defenses
but prefer to camouflage houses
in organic color,
life giving and taking shapes.
These boundary vistas
speak of heart felt reminders
our habitat is rooted
in Earth's wilderness
In vulnerability
hidden from transparency
except with those who share our sacred space
inside
and upon,
within our co-passioned present time,
Presence bonding,
double-binding,
re-membering past wildness
anticipating future re-generative
re-storative
re-habituating
re-acclimating
re-bounding win/lose less
for more win/win paradise
Just barely 2020 visible
and silently audible
and fresco fragranced
and tasted,
felt
and so nearly touched
longing into belonging
on our cooperatively-owned front porch.
Categories:
fortressed, games, health, history, home,
Form: Political Verse
Viewing eternity with faith’s vision
my spirit zooms to celestial city
exploring fortressed mansion of great love
secured upon gracious peace-filled freedom
constructed by the sovereign Architect.
Along heavenly avenue, I stroll
on golden streets, divinely euphoric
then in saints’ closets, very welcoming
I fellowship with the heroes of faith
reminiscing jubilant engagements.
As my soul longs for that forever bliss
now I yield to the Saviour by His grace
to serve with love, reaching-out joyously…
since in the twinkling of an eye*, we’ll meet
yes, I’ll face Him with body glorified.
*1Corinthians 15:52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
February 11, 2020
Honorable Mention, "STRAND SELECT T, any form ,any theme" Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Brian Strand; judged on 2/19/2020.
Categories:
fortressed, appreciation, blessing, christian, faith,
Form: Blank verse
Born in Whittlesea,
Lately fortressed in Granby,
Sir Charles crossed an ocean,
Happening upon Lady Renee, a damsel distressed by devotion.
Forthrightly, yet politely, he comes to her aid,
With courtly dances, duets and serenades,
Awakening this maid from endless reverie,
On loss that caused her injury.
His knightly bearing reassuring and winning,
His humor sudden and cunning.
With such chivalry her life force is rising,
Suddenly she’s a Phoenix, finding it all quite surprising!
Having forsaken her own crusade,
Everyday life became a masquerade,
Recalling unbidden her grail, she asks, no longer constrained,
Was this encounter preordained?
Is it her destiny to help this noble soul mend,
From wounds in recent battle sustained?
So she prays the power descends,
To rescue each other and be joyously contained.
MRT
5-12-10
Categories:
fortressed, devotion, love, spiritual,
Form: Sonnet
On caparisoned, filleted camels do they
Over the great, soft, tawny sands
Ride;
Unfurled flags and tribal standards flown amidst them,
In the very midst of them-
Of they, who astride great tan camels,
Seem rather scandent and saltant.
These are the irregular, well-armed cavalry of the
"Men In Ambush," for such is the literal translation of their
Nation's cognomen;
And on the sands of the undulant, granular, eminent
Near-Judean wilderness do they ride.
Photographing these from atop the vespertine-hued
Summit of a delivery truck from the nearby
Eminent, circumvallatory, hilly
And fortressed city;
From the very roof of an antiquated bread truck
(Though 'twas then very new by the standards of those bygone days)
Whose radiator is soon to vaporously explode
Amid the oppressive, anhydrous desert heat,
Photographs an American, hatted in the whitest
Of Panama hats, who is a correspondent reporting of wars.
The Arab cavalry ride for locales
Damascene, in order to pursue one's kingly wish
To renew the gardens Cordovan and long-vanished.
Categories:
fortressed, adventure, allusion, analogy, anger,
Form: I do not know?
how can a speck of dust
comprehend the universe
in all its glory and majesty
I am at times beyond overwhelmed
past the point of feeling my smallness
infinitesimally minute barely even a presence
and yet you have generated
a wonder beyond anything
I could possibly feel outside of
a magnitude of gratitude
for the minuiscule perception of glory
you have taken dust
and congealed a realization
that gives light to life
and touched even the broken
with a glimpse of paradise
of a grace that even in our brokenness
that you could reach deeply
beyond all that an eye can see
and touch the hidden
that we have fortressed
and sheltered and not allowed
violence of nature or men to touch
for only your divine purity
and innocence will we
even allow to enter this room
COPYRIGHT © 2014 C Michael Miller
via Duboff Law Group LLC
Categories:
fortressed, creation, eulogy, faith, god,
Form: Free verse
Tireless Universe
by Odin Roark
Time defies denial,
Knowing well its empirical presence
Will never be of absence.
Dense as its surrounding matter,
Its aged archives remain
Forever fortressed beneath passage and growth,
Like termite mounds of tunneled journeys,
A labyrinth of cosmic dust
Forever of remnant coatings
Upon endless bell tolling posterity.
Here within the maze of stellar nurseries,
Time’s infinite presence passes through our microcosm
As we attempt to aggrandize selfhood
Beyond its limitations.
Like the beam of a miner’s lamp,
Our import seeks to impact the void,
While this depth of immense profundity
Reveals our illuminative essence
As more akin to a spark of flint
Confronting the revelation of existence.
Perhaps…
Somewhere beyond our consciousness,
Smiles mix with duration’s yawn,
Humoring the metaphysical malady of rest deprivation.
After all,
Like time,
Existence has never slumbered.
Such a tireless universe this.
Categories:
fortressed, philosophy, universe,
Form: Free verse
There Once Did Live...
by Odin Roark
There once did live
This tree now of charred tenacity
With crumbling faithful statue of strength
Steadfastly stationed atop its roots
The stone statue of Hercules
Father placed so long ago
Now defaced with apple in his mouth
Made buffoon by children
Enjoying hijinks of youth
There once did live
My fortressed escape
With hammered sticks as steps
Giving flight from reality
My stronghold in the sky
This tree that housed so many dreams
Now but a burned out cavity
Remains of remembered life
Entombed by climbing vines
Flowered embracing round its trunk
Reaching up left and right
Forgetting not the limbs
That once shaded its mythical protector
Now with mouth crammed of apple
How cruel
Yet forgivable
The ignorance of youth
An age clinging tight
The few years it has
And how impassioned we become
Upon visiting where once I did fantasize
My own kind of mischief
Hidden by the branches and leaves
Guarded by mythology I knew little of
Yet
Yet today…
How prescient this head of stone
Askew like a court jester pondering me
Seeming able to laugh at himself
As I remove the apple
Coaxing from me as well
A grin of acceptance
Categories:
fortressed, life,
Form: Free verse
Candle Whispers
Moths and other creatures
find peril in hovering
especially above seductive candle flame
Yet
We sentient beings
hover not
instead
keep vigil over imagined messages
awaiting the magic
the comfort of vision
As we stare
Buried passions
encouraged by flame
make sacrificial
the walls of insulation
while our fortressed barriers
forfeit protection
dissolving resistance
becoming a river of liquefied defense
We wonder
Is the flame but deception
entrapment
subtle weaponry
seducing the innocent
destroying the gullible
Or
Is it pure light
ignitable by will
extinguishable by nature
its essence of imagination
weaving a ribbon of warmth
among the unlit kindling of love
For just as the cynical enemy
bounces its cold shadows of hurt
restlessly about the wall
waving its determinant position
one's heart beats echoes of defiance
Such are the candle's iconic images
empowering the ether of life
ever simple
ever flexible
even as its waxen folds
melt into mounds of spent energy
awaiting recycled resurrection
Darkness questions
But if we listen
Flame's inner glow whispers its promise to return
Categories:
fortressed, imagination,
Form: Free verse
Fragile: Handle with Care
We write in bright red
On the boxes that carry
Our treasured breakables
Fragile…..
Our human souls
Wrapped in all kinds of protective material
Some of which look sturdy
Able to bear…..
Life's daily wear and tear
Others which seem so frail
Not able to take
Rough handling, shoving, pawing or even a shake
Fragile……
I, for one, wish the world would take note
Of the bright...blood red letters
That with my veins' life fluid on myself I have written
The delicate condition of the state of MY heart…
Fragile….
Oh, reader, you whose lips now smirk
For to your strong fortressed soul
the label doesn't apply
…or so your inner voice implies
But what was that?
The faint tinkling sound of shattering glass
As they bounce you around, trying to make you fit
The right place….
A tiny bullet word pierces the bubble wrap of your dreams
Making contact with the heart of your treasure….
…With the treasure of your heart!
Alas, my friend… It's too late to write the warning:
It's too late to heed the warning:
F r a g i l e….
Fragile…
Handle with care!
Categories:
fortressed, allegory, write, write,
Form: Free verse