(Author's note: Traditions of walking a labyrinth as a form of meditation go back many centuries. Labyrinths in Christian contexts usually have a single, winding path instead of a maze’s many possible dead-end paths. Mazes are puzzles to be solved. Labyrinths are tools for meditation.)
Life Labyrinths
By Mark D. Stucky
Nothing frightful lurks in sacred labyrinths.
No Minotaur inside waits to devour us.
No complex branches exist to confuse us.
Only a single, circular path,
winding back and forth,
silently invites us.
A path sketched on the ground.
A path for prayerful healing
of any monsters in our minds.
A path intended for mindfulness,
peace, and private pilgrimage
toward contemplative centeredness.
As in life, our path curves
and endures sudden detours
and substantial reversals.
Our goal comes closer to us
but then recedes from us
over and over again.
But we can be certain
we’ll eventually enter
that elusive center.
(Originally published on Amethyst Review, 1 July 2022.)
(Photo by Erez Attias on Unsplash.com.)
Wormhole labyrinths
bored beneath congested streets
where trains ferry poor people
into the dark abyss,
time weighing heavy on their minds.
(Wayra)
08,16, 2019
SECOND EDITION OF WAYRA Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: nette onclaud
Once agone moments in time
she was poetry in motion,
'til she pirouetted herself
onto dusty versed shelves
midst old clouded rhymes
& recollected love notes
yet, there lingered echoes
glistening 'tween strands
of web's interlacing design,
meshing her finessed
past within gossamer's
complexed entanglements
beyond labyrinths of
anciently grand symphonies
she dances, still ~
silently in her head
flirting with destiny
albeit, not quite as opulently
Baggage within
trappings of illusions,
love packed away
in neat little compartments
gathering cobwebs at
makeshift improvisations,
dusting intermittently
if by chance a light
should shine,
never wholly untangling
the snare
mid a labyrinth of
transparent entrapment,
as violin strings continue
to unlatch the same old key
Strained eyes are lost, smouldering ash.
Transparent silver glazed skin.
Limbs as rigid as bone.
Voices speak to me, voices of sin.
Iced breath rises like steam.
A deathly grip, locking flesh tight.
A wildfire alights my chest.
This insomnia’s lustful whim is with night.
Thoughts recycled, not nearly new.
Lost in the labyrinths of time.
The prism of light disperses,
But I am still colour-blind.
wandering labyrinths of light
leading to dead-end darkness
feeling the cold walls of fright
turning to a hushed silence
finding love gives way to life
transforming through my essence
holding her close in my night
filling it with her presence
From the ramparts of a castle
a wallflower jumps.
A lynch mob discovers a prehistoric sex.
Silent roots crossing the deniability
endorse a fluid dynamics
of a scandal.
The fascination of a fairy tale makes
a lover seek the revenge.
He hates, he strikes, but fails to impress
the horizon beyond the galaxies.
Black laughters of fake seers
make an entry to plunder the stars.
A tremor in the voice betrays
the ambushed faith.
Now where to go, find the peace of death?
Time’s white hands are snarled in pain;
cannot write the elegant script
of surrender.
SATISH VERMA
From the ramparts of a castle
a wallflower jumps.
A lynch mob discovers a prehistoric sex.
Silent roots crossing the deniability
endorse a fluid dynamics
of a scandal.
The fascination of a fairy tale makes
a lover seek the revenge.
He hates, he strikes, but fails to impress
the horizon beyond the galaxies.
Black laughters of fake seers
make an entry to plunder the stars.
A tremor in the voice betrays
the ambushed faith.
Now where to go, find the peace of death?
Time’s white hands are snarled in pain;
cannot write the elegant script
of surrender.
SATISH VERMA