We were once rivers,
braiding through each other’s lives,
carving valleys of shared wonder.
Now we float in bubbles,
soft-walled sanctuaries of sameness,
drifting past one another
with eyes turned inward.
The more we seal our edges,
the less we feel the ripple,
of another’s breath.
Categories:
sanctuaries, age, change, childhood, youth,
Form: Free verse
We are natural bodies outside
engaging spiritual souls inside
So also,
and with more significant integrity
in this domesticated
desecrating
lack of thriving home
We are timeless souls
with spacious bodies
Sexual souls
with sacred bodies
Sensational sages called
to musing ordinations,
sensexual singing souls
communing sacred dancing bodies
Inside pleasure history's
reweaving healthy rites
outside passion mystery's
re-ligioning wild wealth sights
Of natural wilderness bodies
restoring spiritual sanctuary souls.
Categories:
sanctuaries, 5th grade, health, integrity,
Form: Parallelismus Membrorum
Sanctuary, a sacred place
Holy, Holy, Holy
where worshipers reach
for the heavens
Sanctuary city, anarchy and chaos
crowded, unsanitary conditions
tempers flare, a taste of hell and Hades
no place for the spirit, for gentlemen or ladies
Categories:
sanctuaries, city, immigration, stress,
Form: Rhyme
CHURCH HOPPING CHRISTIANS MOVING FROM SANCTUARIES TO SANCTUARIES
searching,
churching,
perching,
lurching,
In my soul, searching churching ease;
Perching, lurching sanctuaries;
For Contest: WRITE ME A TYBURN
SPONSOR: Kim Rodrigues
2/1/18
Categories:
sanctuaries, addiction, anxiety, community, confusion,
Form: Tyburn
Our hearts have strings like guitars
Once passionately tuned
With melodious notes
Beautiful harmonies
Are conceived
These guitars
Instruments of bliss
Send soothing vibrations
To the universe around us
Totally energized
By these heavenly lyrics
The dervishes swiftly decide
To whirl around their hearts
Sanctuaries of love
Categories:
sanctuaries, inspirational, joy, love, universe,
Form: Free verse
be it the barstool at a favorite watering hole
or a stretch of a path trod daily in silence,
an independent movie theater whose matinees attract only the dedicated,
time spent on a park bench in the overcast afternoon,
a table at a favorite café near the window,
a gym in which one works off steam,
the top of a mountain hiked up to on the weekends or
a stretch of the city bridge biked when its not raining,
there are places that one feels comfortable alone
(even if surrounded by others),
that hold a calming quality wherein the mind is allowed to
wander &
where no one can get in from the outside
even if they wanted to---
how fortunate are those of us who can still
push the rest of it all
completely out of the picture
to focus on ourselves &
appreciate the shortness of life
for exactly what it is,
in an instance of peace brought on by
our own doing.
Categories:
sanctuaries, life,
Form: Free verse
When all the business offices shut down
And every bank in town has closed their doors
There are two places that will welcome you in
That’s all of the churches and the liquor stores.
When calamity and disaster fill the streets
And even atheists think the end draws near
There’ll be an open chapel to go pray for salvation
And a man behind a counter to sell you some beer.
In this age of terrorists and suitcase nukes
It should be comforting to know
That both the pious Saint and gin soaked sinner
Will have some place familiar to go.
Come Armageddon this you can hope in
Cathedrals and booze merchants surely will be open
So in the last day get saved or drunk,
Whatever you chose don’t forget though;
If you want fortified wine or cheap malt liquor
You’ll still have to drive down to the ghetto.
Categories:
sanctuaries, satire
Form: Rhyme
Do you see the fractured mind?
Always solitude in any crowd.
Monologue conversation with ether friends.
Normals, gracious, to side-step confrontation.
This street nomad once had a home,
where soft cotton sheets
greeted a weary head.
Now yesterday’s man sleeps
with yesterday’s news.
Ikea packaging his castle.
McDonalds doorway his address.
Dining in suburbia; before the bins are emptied.
Breathing life into discarded cigarette,
~two drags, before fingertips burn.~
Begging barman’s dregs from beer tap overflow.
Habit deems he return to old haunts,
wandering desolate corridors.
Bed-side table, tombstone to the past.
Epitaph carved in the false wood.
A lost tear slips to the floor.
This legacy!
This tragedy!
This deception!
Where justice has no meaning,
and the backwards glance of integrity
is laced with daggers.
Liberal forces, wrapped in piety,
declared, in false ignorance, this sanctuary
for broken men; broken minds,
should be no more.
From the carpeted corridors of power,
inside their shielded wombs
a piece of humanity died.
Categories:
sanctuaries, sad, social, integrity,
Form: Free verse