Your first touch awakened in me
A longing, a lotus
A love I once thought dead
You stood there and filled
My entire sky with only that sole
Moonstone look in your eyes
The one that told me I was
No longer alone on this desolate plain
And then something broke free
From the dusty shale and quartz
Shaped like a heart inside of me
As deep as a well
And as dark as the eyes of a barn owl
Unearthed from beneath the wild mustard
On this grave a graven image
Of a love I prayed for in vain
Somewhere buried beneath
The shattered asphalt of indifference
You freed that moth-winged hope
Because you touched me that deeply
Filled me that fully, that completely
How you slivered me like lightning
Resurrected me with a kiss
And then you rained.
Sans mind and body— who am I?
Nothing, nada, no one— I am not I,
Sans brain, I am mere flesh and bones
Sans body, a graven image in stone;
But mind, Ah mind, is of another kind
Perceives the secrets of God of a supreme kind,
There’s no concept of the soul without the mind
The mind coalesces with the soul to find
The sense of self, the concept of eternal mind—
It’s the seat of human consciousness
It’s a sight to see your way in darkness.
Inconceivable, indescribable, transcendental,
The concept of the soul is not merely accidental.
In a chariot of fire in the sun
blew a pale horse and pale rider’s last breath,
and on your grave sings a boding raven
in the shadows of the valley of death.
Where no graven image rise from its bones,
only a cold wormwood wind on death row
pipes through the rushes beyond the tombstones
where time cut short above stood still below.
But far more does sound a haunting in me
as if your faint voice my ear passing through -
and I trapped betwixt next world and earthly
sit this day communing with God and you.
Yet I fear death itself I shall not mourn
when diviners blow its fiery flamed horn.
Written: July 1995
Grand basilicas
built to papal false idols
of graven image -
to apostate relics from
pagan Rome and Babylon!
the conversations are rolled into the corners
stretching into a fifth dimension
perpendicular to all points
this is where i love you
curled back upon itself
unavailable to the eye
the physicist’s graven image
produced at energy levels
no longer on demand
counterfeited
lying useless on the floor
moments escaping
till you do
back into the visible spectrum
where the colored quarks
come to rest upon
a mask i have come to know
all too well
and given up all hope
of ever removing it
we chat in silence
the quietude in our pervading existence
is what we ultimately share
the empty spaces between galaxies
collisions that are temporarily ignored
a cosmos enveloped in its own existence
a life to be never seen
conjectures upon a table filled with mathematics
and nothing more
the weak force begetting pyrite
once radiant and full of promise
now lies a barren moonscape
awaiting expulsion, embers now ashes
fate in the coming winds
Fergus Falls 2000
URGE OF MY SOUL:
I always feel some urge inside of myself,
Although I can't describe exactly how it's shelved.
It's supernatural and so great,
And it pushes me to walk with strong faith.
So I trust in the existence of this Sovereign God,
Who birth the universe with an accord.
Yet, my own eyes have never seen Him before,
Nothing stops me from getting God adored,
As my soul keeps singing these words to the creator as an applaud,
"The name Jehovah is so divine,
His Supremacy is totally everlasting.
All His creations prove He is really kind,
And He gives rest to they that are heavy laden.
In fact, He is the sage's utmost desire,
And in His goodness, I'm gracefully hidden.
So why should I idolise mere humans,
Whose ambitions are carnally planned,
Or why should I worship a graven image,
That would profit me nothing but gabbage?
It's only the fool who doubt Jehovah's existence,
But believe in unnecessary stuff beingness..."
I was told I was liberated
by the children
of the people who enslaved me
I was told I was emancipated
by the graven image
on the penny
The children said:
“Please forgive their forefathers —
It was only business,
nothing personal”
The pennywise children said:
“We were taught to multiply the dollar
Every money tree
need seed money to grow
Deprive not the blood soil —
Tear dirt needed
for the golden apples”
The children of the profits told me
their living will ~ last testament legacy
was to vow forevermore
to keep romancing the stone
The devout offsprings told me
they remained genealogy faithful to giving widow coin charity
See how the blood diamond riches of their mercy
have grandfather clause grown
But what the children of the profits
neglected to tell me ...
they were market driven
to set me free
That my unpaid labor
was bound to be replaced by soulless machinery
Children of the profits
do usury deed show forth their brotherly love greed
They are some things that are not good
being harmful sinful to lead us away
but God has given us His famous ten
commandments to lead us in the true way
God is to be our God and only Him
with no graven image to bow to
taken never in vain the Lord's name
keeping the Sabbath holy and true
Our father and mother we must honour
never to enter our minds and thoughts to kill
be faithful to one's love not seeking another
never to steal this truly being God's will
Make sure no lie comes from your mouth
have no covetous spirit in you ever at all
these are God's commandments for our good
so make sure to be obedient and not to fall
Learn to fear God with due reverence
this your duty showing love for your Lord
bowing heart and soul to Him alone
His blessings will come your way in accord
(Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind." Ecclesiastes 12:13)
A quintessential graven image
A bunkum to this present age
Destructive and repulsive
Crisps grips with hands sieve
Pismal dismal for this mar,this mar.
Dictative,will never mind your scars
Disgraces all graces with one face.
Defaces characters in different jiff phases.
Addiction is perdition
It disrespects all traditions
Advances by graduation
With granular measurement
It weighs more than a person's sacrament
Adapts easily to evil
Works with covenly devil
Good addiction, am afraid is now rare
Leaving the opposite with posing flair
Addiction is evil
It disallows decisive decision
Brings preclusive deception
Takes you back with no solid description
Disallowing you with grips of concocted confusion
To blend with it's impending conclusions
What proud Americans see,
has been done before
Graven image glory ...
Mount Rushmore
Four faces carved into
a mountainside
South Dakota idols looks like
the one in southern Sudan
Mount Abu Simbel,
circa 1200 B.C.
Four Pharaoh figures
standing tall 100 feet
Graven images carved into
a mountainside
To bear witness
of things to come
That in the future,
this again would be done
Washington
Jefferson
Lincoln
Roosevelt
Every Pharaoh from the past
had the same pride those men felt
That their nation
was the greatest one
in the Earth
That their kingdoms
would forever remain
above the dirt
What was done before,
has been done again
Graven image idolatry ...
Mount Rushmore sin
I immerse ...
nigh naked
in your keen and carnal insight ...
the rags of my inhibitions
strewn at my feet …
are my thoughts still my own
care and coil
or have you plucked those from my boughs
made ripe
the fodder for your dire divination?
peel the fruit, fresh
and slice it to your taste -
there is a neoteric bounty for your appetites
seasoned to sate
the desires of a goddess ...
laid bare
offerings for a graven image, pure
and devoured
as love's absolute oblation ...
thine.
~ 4th Place ~ in the "Mid-Summer Premiere Poetry Contest", Brian Strand, Judge & Sponsor.
Praise not icons
But follow the unseen
God's larger than a portrait
That of faith and blood is what washes you clean
So be strong and wise
And do not make a graven image of thee
Repent and be earnest
Because great rewards await thee
Perfection, is an evil lord
demanding ever greater tribute,
it wields a sharp and heavy sword
that pierces deep to persecute
I fear this liege, this graven image
there's no resistance to his wants;
no will, nor the amount of courage
can protect me from his evil taunts
Forgiveness, I may grant to all,
no act's too grave or sin's too much
and yet, no matter however small,
I dare not grant myself as such
Idealized, I must not fail
this thought's so manifestly flawed;
and yet, it does but so assail
my heart, my mind... my God
I heard an angel speak last night
and he said "write".------------------Elizabeth Barrett Browining
So I took my pen to mark his words.
No angel would I slight.
There’s a corner in the graveyard
where the small ones lie in death,
some torn from their mother’s wombs
before they’d taken breath.
Other dates show three short days,
or a month up to a year.
This is where the graveyard angel,
the most often will appear.
You will find her graven image
on the gravestones all around.
Older graves will have no flowers
to adorn the little mounds.
The grass grows with abandon
as it always has for years,
saturated splendidly
with grief-stricken mother’s tears.
But mothers, fathers, siblings die.
The graves could be forgotten.
God sends his graveyard angel
to guard each and every one.
She will be there to guide them
when that final trumpet sounds
and their souls are all transported from
those tiny little mounds.
By: Joyce Johnson 6/15/11
Won a 5th
For "Angels in Cemeteries" contest. Sponsored by Constance LaFrance
(Poetry) let it thicken as it stands.
Let it be beautiful, unharnessed verbal rage or
song or deed, or graven image set in stone, where
walls fell around some demagouge in
some ill-remembered time.
$IN
In our arrogance we place this
joyous thing in
chain$
We seek to give it rules and charter, duties and forms but
the ravenous beauty of our thinking has outsmarted us.
and,
much like pandora's discretion,
when the first man (Or Woman)
-chicken or egg get over it-
pressed his stick to dirt and made his mark he unleashed a
torrent that can never be held at bay.
(Poetry) will not be held in fief, and the
Box which was held by the daughter of Zeus
is
open.
And I for one am glad of it.
Let it light our hearts ablaze and temper our
might with frost, let
the last vista overlooking the plauge of perpetuity be
LOST
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