Long Crypts Poems

History’s Greatest Miracle Play

Let me tell you a story - Prologue

Actors gather to play their parts
To set the stage – backdrops and props –
In history’s greatest miracle play
Called to speak their lines
On redemption’s stage
In a...

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The Raven and the Bard
-Daniel Henry Rodgers

The Raven's quill drips shades of blackest night,
Its haunting words, a melody of fright.
The Bard's natural lines, like "Evangeline's" fair hair,
Shed history's warm light to chase away all care...

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As hapless vapors of decay, surround us, suffocating the fecund earth. A blanket of suffocating grey, born from the diseased aspirations of humanity. We, the self-appointed masters of a planet in shambles, gaze upon the...

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(Dedication: For Ann)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~



The tale now mints: a hero hears
A call that tints, a choice appears.


It cannot be, this journey quest
To cross the seas, to face the test.


Denial comes brisk, no hero here
To dare grave risk,...

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"Drip, drip" said the mildew-stained stone cellar walls of St. Peter's cathedral,
Where a goblet of wine dripped into a priest dressed in robes violet and medieval.

Down into the crypts beneath the church's alter he had...

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NOTE TO THE READER
Once Apun a Time

This yarn is a flossy fabric woven of several earlier warped works, lightly laced together, adorned with fur-ther braided tails of human frailty. The looms were loosed, purling frantically...

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Whistle does the lone desert winds, flowing downwards from
Boot hill cemetery, in icy chilling breeze full of echoing voices,
From the past, begging for redemptions last chance of salvation.
Roll does the crimson tumbleweed, towards the ghost...

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Students their little burning harmonies | you compos’d it 
One single gallery | public arras blasé debate re-placed
Sheets just- | cool on clothesline whiskered with wear.
Variousness was it| trusted its core | bayou, brilliant books
In...

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by Michaelw1two

Mind’s deep permits, darkness’ caverns crave, I beseech of thee
 one light defined in candled flame hides in that blue
 profound indeed these depths despair; oh savage light, make bright
 release these binds, of...

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Written: April 5th, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Robert James Liguori

              ***************

Crimson blood-colored sunlight 
seeps upon the pyramids —  
Shadows cast...

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(Prov. 22: 6 /  Heb. 5: 14  /  Deut. 6: 6-9  /  2 Tim. 3: 13-15, 16  /  Matt. 19: 13, 14)


(Part One of Two)



If A Child Wants...

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Though these words are all true
I never knew how much they meant 
They’re the makings of my diary 
Which is compiling with my every whim
And I know the future seems grim 
When the sun descends...

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She is standing alone under the street lamp,
The light reflecting off her hair, 
The steam mists from her lips
She doesn’t notice that I am there.

So I pause and watch her leaning on the fence,
Lips and...

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Dusk marks stygian depths of this eldritch eve quay grim specter beneath the moon's silvery sheath surf cleaves with a hiss as the banshees keen weave lure to the thicket where shadows deceive yet beckoning...

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A peaceful cemetery, silent world, shiny existence, sweet death, restful dead
I love the feelings of cemeteries, everybody is friends, and I really love them
Living death, yes death is lives, lives here, everywhere, in my heart,...

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Echoes from the Realm of Forgetting
In the silent temple of my mind, a once-sacred tongue
Weaves its mantle of shadows over memory's altar,
Words, once whispered prayers to the gods of familiarity,
Now obscure incantations lost in time's...

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Black Lives Matter  

They gave me a college education
But left me unemployed
But they say
Black lives matter
I won 7 Grammy awards
I didn't get a ceremony to recognize my work 
But they say
Black lives matter
I have...

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Where can I go to bury love?
To the cemetery at dusk when the mist softens
Further the already worn corners of granite markers?
“Beloved Father and Friend”
“Cherished Wife”
Sister, Brother, Son, Daughter—
What will my epitaph read?
Here lie the...

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Continued from Part 1

The City’s blur? A sepulcher for Christians, Muslims, Jews –
Cathedrals, Temples, vacant now, enshrine their residues,
for churches, mosques and synagogues abide without a bruise.

No cantillation, belfry bells, monastic chants inspire
and Minarets, though...

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In the tumult of rays and shadows, I was born and grew,
Upon the altar of existence, self-sacrifices I laid to burn, to sanctify the past,
"But how do you soothe this fragrance of pain?" with wide-open...

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I
Even in this 
crypt,
me soul wait 
no longer! Its 
crest burnt-
The Eagle 
velt; born of 
virtue,
Less 
corruptible, 
grieve in its 
lounge thirst!
The Sandy 
Storm.

A day without 
rain calls the 
storm
Within the 
crypt, the 
souless wails!
Whose...

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Coast to Coast

The sun ascends over the Great Lakes
Settles back into the indigo depths
Flight of a copper swan shore to shore
With her sweeping wing tips skimming

Commanding
The azure locks of eternity to open
Gather her iron-ore souls...

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The End of Love

A secret grief rips apart all that was
Slaves to the sexual caresses of time
Stallions in black gallop gallantly in fields
Of spring full wishes
Thou seeith the birth of love
Naked hopes surrounded by sweet...

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Dictators roamed the earth, enforced the hand of justice blinded
And tipped the scales on youths defending lives of those like minded
Tenaciously with tooth and nail they’d claw instinctively
But barely scratched the surface of surviving through...

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Just a glimmering astral spark births in the gloom a crest of day,
A solitary thread of wax dancing its aura
Scatters the night -
In a delirium of gleamings that chase phantoms of fear away,
Shaking the hegemony...

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