Long Buttresses Poems
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Unbelievable- Paris stopped breathing and even the world,
the cathedral spire shuddered, clung, trembling;
then, plunged burning and the crowd and the world itself,
wept, for the beautiful Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
Construction of the cathedral began in 1160 to 1260,
a wonderful example of Romanesque French Gothic architecture;
I recall the vaulted ceiling and the awing flying buttresses,
the colorful rose windows and the medieval sculptured decorations.
I watched the news with the world as it burned for fifteen hours,
five hundred firefighters managed to save the facade and towers;
the buttresses, organ, and many precious relics and art works,
before the wooden ceiling gave way, falling in flames.
Oh yes, the whole world stopped spinning on its axis in shock,
every bird on earth fell silent and all the oceans went still;
and the world was left weeping and waiting and praying,
for the destruction of something so glorious is- unbelievable.
____________________________
April 20, 2019
Poetry/Verse/Our Lady of Paris
Copyright Protected, ID 19- 1136-107-02
All Rights Reserved. Written under Pseudonym.
Written for the contest, Notre Dame In The News
sponsor, Kim Rodrigues
First Place
Decay gnaws at a country church.
It's homeless; it's lost its congregation.
Molting stones crumble, eroding away.
Mice nibble at the altar.
Winds twine through cracks.
Rain and dew drip through.
Roof slates slip down.
Each year it's more decrepit.
As nature slowly moves in.
Edges made to endure,
fracture, collapsing into rubble.
Plinths and buttresses
forsake their faith.
Agnostic shadows creep in.
As nature resumes,
its inscrutable ways.
Bells corrode into silence.
Tongues stilled in the throat of dome.
Hymns survive only as echoes in
whistling drafts through splintered rafters.
The pews sag like tired suspenders,
long unbent in prayer.
Rain scrawls psalms on walls,
scripted in mildew and moss.
Stained glass panels drop down
into the rubbish and weeds.
Crossbeams become bird-nest perches,
for swallows and doves, now the choir.
This homeless house of God laments
in the nettles, thorns and briers.
Seeking nature’s absolution
for its forsaken ruin.
A scar upon the land.
A desolate homeless being.
A blot on the earth.
My Home Is No Fortress
Speechless thoughts flow out as words when the drawbridge is upended
From turrets they wind down and spiral into a stream of consciousness
Gently wind to and fro processions of images narratives a dreamy river
Drought happens as I resort to the keep when beleaguered by onslaught
of foes breaking barbicans collapsing foreign walls in the most barbarian way
Crowded rampage seizes ramparts and bulwarks of my own defences
Baileys and mounts scream battle cries of injustice injured in ignorance
Thus I decide there’s no longer a need for arrow loops since my truths
reject the heart ache of anger and would much rather be conquered by love
I conclude therefore to raise spiky stakes portcullises and misconceptions
and suppose that it is not me who built their house on evaporation and sand
When my thoughts slide up and down buttresses and find their words
vulnerable projections dissolve and my home is once more a wide open space
16th November
Deep in the woods, nearly three miles back,
far from New York with its tall glass and steel,
on a low ridge that has no proper name,
I stumble on something that feels surreal.
An old-growth forest grove, somehow survived
the thirst of furnaces and logging claims,
straight white pines that, in centuries past,
would’ve been masts for ships sailing the main.
Thick, furrowed bark runs up the branchless trunks
up to a one-hundred-fifty foot height,
maybe they’ll never beat a sequoia,
but in the east, they’re one hell of a site.
Now this hidden plot has dozens of trees
that must be six-feet in width at the base,
throwing so much shade the undergrowth dies,
and you can walk easily through the space.
Jail-bars of light that somehow make it down
do little against the shadowy cool,
fleet squirrels will scamper, disrupting the calm,
as they’re chittering away like young fools.
Trunks rising around me like buttresses,
smooth boulders scattered about are the pews,
the altar is the crest of the low ridge,
for a service know to a blessed few.
Birds high above are impromptu choirs,
communion wine is the babbling brook,
mosses are vestments, worn close to the earth,
pine needles are incense when by the wind shook.
I may like those churches of wood and stone,
but for all of their grace and beauty,
somehow they cannot hold their own against
a seemingly random mish-mash of trees.
How nature so red in tooth and in claw
can create something stately and sublime
out of the chaos that Darwin’s law brings,
has always baffled my poor, human mind.
But feeling so small against aged giants
makes me think these is much more yet unseen,
I do not think it can be an accident
that there exists such a place so serene.
Much as I’d like to show you all the path,
I fear doing so would only end wrong,
great trees last longer when they are unknown,
and I mean for this grand place to live on.
Beside a babbling brook I browse
By a bridge braving bleak winters breeze
Beaver is busily burrowing beneath
Before bitter blizzards batter beaver’s bunker
Beaver beavering as he barricades the breach
Bedtime beckons before darkness befalls, but my
Bright my blue backpack bounces into the babbling brook
Begetting a bung of blue, Beaver buttresses his breach
Bewitched by Beaver’s busyness and bidding him bye bye
Before a blizzard begins bouncing big ice balls from the sky
Back inside my bungalow beside a burning fire
Buoyant my backpack had blocked Beaver’s breach
Bedtime was beckoning as I began to fall asleep
But beaming - for my backpack had really worked a treat
By bunging Beaver's breach beside a babbling brook
Burgeoning with self-belief I’ll write a ‘Beaver Bedtime Book’
Written: 1st April 2019
2nd PLACE
Contest: Pick A Title, Vol 3 Alliteration - By The Water's Edge |
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
3rd PLACE
Contest: CONTEST no 620 in alliteration style,any theme ,any form
Sponsor: Brian Strand
Contest Name Alliteration 004
Sponsor Poet Destroyer
22nd October 2020
A couple of ruins leave the cathedrals
nave and portico;
it is always molting season,
mice and beetles help
they nibble and gnaw,
wind-laborer’s, labor,
their whiplash backs bent,
to lever slates and all things loosened.
The sanctified, they guard their stony hearts
but the edges were made to crumble,
made to be returned to rubble.
The two twined ruins
exiting these ancient piles
were created to be spans and transits
for the upliftment of saintly figures,
no one will miss them, yet their
plinths, their buttresses
their embossments
until recently
held a small alcove heavenwards
a niche, that will probably
lose its faith soon,
toppling one year at a time
into an agnostic downfall.
The two ruins are so disfigured
as to be nothing at all,
but they are moving in mysterious ways
to where a tireless worker
will help them rise again,
but of course dust will stir up dust,
the mice and the beetles
will continue
to nibble and gnaw, however
the Maker will be ready
once more
to return dust to cathedrals.
The grand, half-ruined Parthenon,
once a sublime, Doric grace,
Even now, in broken, stone blocks,
always takes my breath away.
The rich, classical detail,
fluted columns without plinths,
to imagine what it once was,
the mind can’t even begin…
That towering Coliseum,
the great masterpiece of Rome,
even half gone it’s staggering,
to be so tall, but made in stone.
Go down to the domed Pantheon,
still so perfect to this day,
these are not just random buildings,
they stand with something to say.
And those long, Gothic cathedrals,
so ornate and yet so light,
stained glass alone is enough
to make these churches a sight!
But all of that fine tracery,
those magnificent cravings,
the rows of flying buttresses,
inspire the soul to sing.
The Byzantines and their tiles,
Tudor masonry and wood,
Romanesque with its arches,
Art Decco looks oh-so-good,
Baroque with all its fussiness,
Victorians with their quirks,
Renaissance sports Italian flare,
Palladian’s subtle pleasures…
And yet in Albany, New York,
there stands the featureless ‘egg,’
That’s its name and its resemblance,
I am not pulling your leg.
No decoration, no windows,
as it stands there in the sun,
people call it ‘modernist,’
I call it ‘concrete abortion.’
Worse is the post-modern trash,
theaters shaped like hunks of cheese,
painted pink, spattered with portholes,
a mad-man’s monstrosity.
That is the product of our skills?
That is how we would inspire?
By building things that look like they
have been melted in a fire?!
They bulldoze down our heritage
to throw up more of these things?
And the big-wigs who approved this,
what the hell are you thinking?!
If these buildings of the future
are to have no beauty or class,
then you can keep ‘modernity,’
I’ll gladly live in the past.
A Propitiation of Blue Tears
On this highway to where the skies bleed blue tears into vases;
on ornate buttresses they sit and saturate us,
they cry and douse us,
they contract, expand, release….up from the bowels,
out into the time continuum, wetting the things
below in layers of satin and matte finishes.
They converge with the sand motions
prone to time signals,
they bend to the forces of beeftime,
finding dazzling hours lost in the haunted bunkers
where dead reptiles find savage grace and a fork.
Foraging through time files,
scratching out a dirt-bath patch,
switching-up the game,
ratcheting a firm grip,
delighting in a geyser-water soda drink,
we looked and saw high peaks
belching snow through ejaculations of ice and methane, you who were with me at Orange Grove
that whistling foggy night,
the high forging time,
like an eating bear in the muck.
The withal that composes an early humanoid,
assembles an adroit package equipped to message
the night skies of its dominion.
Oh this highway, to where the skies
have no answer for the frostbite or the death of the sun;
we are not equipped to handle such a client,
the skin is gone,
and the seedy highway is coughing up yellow blood.
Gather up the detritus of illusions,
rustle up a repast for the “El Rey”,
sweep the streets into asphalt rolls,
spread the skies blue tears over the mantle of this space, where the sacrificial ogress dines on her own offal, offering up a propitiation,
to the Milky Way’s highway of stars.
28 Cracks In The Ceiling
I take my red-inked dagger in hand
And succinctly spew its secrets for all to see.
28 cracks in the ceiling, and I lost count.
There’s a storm moving out of the west.
I can smell the thunder and
The titillating turbulence of tintinnabulation.
An old lady sits cross-legged and knitting,
Waiting for the sweating sun to sink.
“I was just a girl in 1925… and now…”
The endless strained faces out there
Tell stories of death, disease and depravity.
They know the eternal worm is the other one
In this passion triangle.
28 cracks in the ceiling, and I lost count.
Snakes frothing in suburbia.
The megabytes of Zanzibar jettison out naked bone chips.
Later months and trivial dimes.
Smokestack realizations in a tent.
Church buttresses holding up my whining soul.
Green Edsels down in San Pedro.
Michelobs and round sassy broads fingering erect nipples.
With a Susie in each arm
He lights a cigarette in honor of grand appeasement.
Sensuous sinews entwine effervescently.
More loose chicks in short skirts,
Pouting and scamming.
Times are hot in the old town tonight.
Music and misery, wine and wickedness.
Stubborn clocks disarm with water-resistant influx.
I was a princox in petticoats.
We met at a Tastee Freez at twilight.
28 cracks in the ceiling, and I lost count.
Standing for freedom’s supremacy
Legitimately granted to be enjoyed
I am the "Freedom Pub*"
Tenaciously upholding what I believe is lawful
Anchored by the Constitution
Which strongly buttresses this nation I am part of…
Speaking for humane practices
That exposes unlawful mandates
Imposed by the government
I am the "Freedom Pub"
And I refuse to discriminate against anyone
Who is fulfilling his/her granted role with peace.
With this declaration
I am the "Freedom Pub"
Inviting all to feast rightfully inside my building
Against fear of being segregated or neglected
While welcoming the vaccinated and unvaccinated
To dine in, celebrating good health… blest by the Almighty**.
*Caledonian Hotel of Singleton NSW, Australia
**Psalm 91:1 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
January 7, 2023
2nd place, "Freedom Pub" Poetry Writing Contest
Sponsored by Joe Maverick; judged on 1/9/2023.
Edited on January 14, 2023