Short Altars Poems

Vanishing beauty
Your charms rest in memory
Altars chant her name...

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Stones, boulders of hate
Our armor dented but strong
Builds altars of love...

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Where do tears come from?
  --They come from the heart
Eyes see what hearts feel ~
  And tears rain down on their altars...

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Mankind
was never meant
to survive the future
Technology
 a trap
their greed as bait
Generations
sacrificed
in self destruction
On altars
of indenture
— their natures gone

(Calvary Cemetery: May, 2024)
...

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an apology approaches awesome ambience
adverse advances amass at altars
academically aroused arcades are absolved

astonishingly abrupt adverbs articulate arduously
atlas awakens all around
arrggghhhhh audacious aardvarks attack aimlessly...

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conjure cumulus frost bitten clouds
blinding billows sculptured shrouds

zeniths growing burgeoning flowers
amplified pulsing pastel towers 

cotton confections mountainous might
splendiferous altars vestal white 

veiled vapors frosty smoke
cumulus canvas draws cloud gazing folk...

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Winter nights. 
Soft lights. 
The fog floating around reminiscing of the ghosts of your past.
Two souls, bared in silence.
Whispers of doubt and assurances of love,
Touching your skin with cold hands feels like sin. 
But the pools of brown look like altars. 
Where I worship you and continue to sin for my mortal body....

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Over two thousand gone by
Still trying to figure out just how
Another can take the life of someone
Whom raised their dead ? Or decapitate
His baby because they didn't condone such
Evil as taking perhaps this greatest love her gift
Left languishing amid deja vu's, twenty first century....
Lexicon's litter less majesty: altars volcanos venom subtle....

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I cracked the olive pit
between my molars—
bitter pod,
black shrine.

The sea came through my teeth,
settled brine, at the root.

They said do not name the god,
so I lit her symbol
with hyssop oil and lemon peel,
dragged it across my tongue
like a net.

The temple was inside me,
sealed in salt.
Each time I wept,
I baptized
what I could not forgive.
...

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I built an altar
To my love
Of lies and tears
And pain.

I built an altar
To my love
But it was all in vain.

My love was not 
An honest man
And drove me
Near insane.

No altars built
For mortal man
For none of them are worthy.

I will build my altar
Unto God
Cause only he's
Worth serving.






                                       Josette Davis Key        2016...

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Alligators bleed a passing style.
Shot birds freeze in a look of disbelief.
Leopards fall in wraps and cooling guts.
Snap and clack of traps grind mental teeth
In living bone. Flash and zing of wire
Scald ruts in moving flesh.
Whoosh of nets and sudden crack of guns
Hold down the gelatin that was an eye--
And heaps of trinket feathers and trunkless hides
Are lain on altars for a current god....

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Our young man no longer
are pulling out parts of their skin
to free themselves
from leather band binds.

Nowadays they are pulling
themselves to science
and colleges
to cultivate their minds.

World changes
and so do the ways of life.
Brothers look at other nations,
how far they got.

Spirit is mighty on our altars
of our creator God.
He gave us his son
and we give ours to imitate his love....

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The sea sings its endless songs 
over the rocks.
The waves kiss like a soft rain
the beach in their way.
Red flowers of water 
are blooming in the storm.  
The sky  is  desperate
about the sun,
scorching the day with thousands candles.
But the sea sings its songs
of light and of hope.
The sea rises its voice,
cover the wet altars
between sand and vibrating air,
and a far distant horizon
captivates the ardent sky....

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Home You Bastards

Are we the same species living
flaming bright but for a moment
weeping laughing in our turn
before the altars now and ancient

and frightened of frigid border
breaking glass covering our fear
we shouted with a rabble rousing
home you bastards you're unwelcome here

yes we once the strangers cowed
now cover the ears of children
in case they believe such evil dwells
in parks in temples in civic building...

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All of these things that weave our attention,
bind us to the altars of our history
They offer the cold comfort of home, the strangeness of familiarity 
and promise of dark days
I have been brought to this place with the hope of silent dreams and illusions not yet tested on the bridge of my life. 
Hoping ever silently that the binds will loosen and I will be cast over the edge into the moving abyss. 
Ever to be held, ever to be known , forever....

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The signs scream in color gray,
autumn warnings in cold wind
dead leaves exposed  in scars
new season comes, shiver brings ...

Landscape dressed as a wake
hides joy and shows sadness
it seems that here is purgatory
not holy land of mother nature ...

But flowers look to victory
flowering fields and orchards
burn the bitterness with glory

And life reborn and erects altars
to the natural triumph of renewal.
 elder turns fresh magic, annual ...!...

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They do not know I name them—
the trees blackened by exhaust,
asthmatic, stoic gods lining
pedestrian bridges that never forget.

Each leaf is a reluctant confessor.
Each trunk remembers
how I once pressed my palm and thought:
You too are surviving this.

I walk past ads that scream at no one.
Past lovers who will never call again.
Even the sky here has bills to pay.
But I stay, because someone has to remember
the dust collecting on invisible altars....

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Round goes the spiral
looping the path.
Straight stand the stones
high in green grass.

Round goes the moat
circling the tor;
solitary stanchion saracens
high altars they bore.

Round goes the blood
red twining the past
tall stand the grave stones
memories n’er made to last.

Round goes the gate
in the churchyards mall
through walks the sacred
peacocks ashen white pall.

Round go the penitents
lead through the hatch
lonesome lost lifetimes 
Avebury’s dispatch....

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