Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
Here the horse munches the grass
little knowing the trots of yore
for time when lays the bricks with curse
unhinges the strongest door.

Here the horse is tethered to feed
little hearing the neighs of past
for time when crumbles sows a seed
grows new order from soil of dust.

Here the horse lazes in sun
little seeing the shadow's growth
for time when ends a period's run
buries in the walls a lover's oath.

Here the horse walks in a round
little feeling the earth's spin
for time when shrinks the highest to ground
kingdoms fall in heaps of ruin.
On visiting a palace in ruins on a June afternoon, whereupon a lone horse was grazing.
 Jun 2017 SK O'Sullivan
L B
I was wrong about the rain
Robins are calling for it
Fragrance of honeysuckle and pine
have joined the ozone--
Priest in swirling raiments
dangling sensor on a chain
waving it in air before the altar

clink   clink   clink

Releasing smoke that bends the mind
before the monstrance of the sun
with storm surrounding
Clouds sift through the rays and rain
Bowing thrice--

clink   clink   clink

He waves it in the air before the altar
releasing smoke
into the high and holy
Inchoate murmurs
follow
incense hands
down
into the nave
As Catholic kids, we were dragged to mass pretty regularly.   Between being terrifically bored, I got my little spirit elevated by all the pageantry of bells, and music, art and statuary,  the Latin litany with its dead language, foreign sound.  I was especially fascinated by worship of the incense-- the atmosphere it created.

The nave is the main rectangular hall for worshipers. Related to the words ship and belly.
Music sleeps.....
In my un strummed chords
I wait for the touch of skillful hands
To turn it into flowing melody
A lotus dreaming to see the sun!

How long can I remain silent?
Oh touch me, shake me
Wake me from my slumber
Make me into a throbbing rhapsody

Set free this prisoner
To birth soothing chimes
Note after note in tiny wavelets
Let my vibrations carve circles
Growing bigger and bigger
Oh, give me the timbre and tone
Let me sing once more!

Let the music drizzle down
In healing murmurs
Lifting troubled spirits into calm repose
Leading them to a quiet fold
Free of all fever and fret
Let my soft rhymes
Fill the empty cisterns of the night,
Wooing the hearts
Weaving mystical spells

Let it rise and sink
And finally fade into a soft breath
A hushed whisper
A faint vibration
Over a gliding stream!
 Jun 2017 SK O'Sullivan
r
The mist in the collard greens
is moving like an old woman
in dusty lingerie making sparks
with a *** where it lays tired
and the moon looks right odd
like an albino hawk in a dead
tree -  branches of solemnity
and worn out blue guitar strings -
while that old locomotive
of darkness  blows its steam
through my back porch screen.
No one goes to the beach anymore.

Through the casuarinas the waves look a long trek
the lovers when from the city take a break
can only hold hands on the sands
wistfully eyeing the sea a mile away
then kissing and making up the day
riding to where the winds take them
spinning yarns along the thickly saline haze
of what could be and will be
downing the present in the crystal pool
placid as the lost yearnings in their hearts.
Juneput, a beach now almost abandoned, April 8 2017, 2pm
 Jun 2017 SK O'Sullivan
L B
Waiting for the storm
to lower its head and charge

In ozone incense of unstable air
Eons of ions ago
horned and heavy negatives
lock prey within vortical-eye
Angelic flutter of electrons struggling on--
in yellowish friction above...

“...Did I tell you?”

Love is lightning hotter than the sun!

Schism--

resolving in the only way it can
a design that cannot save itself!

Clouds roar away--
For a minute-- I think that I will too
-- along with all these words and rain

*“...and did I tell you...

how thunderstorms remind me
...of love...the way it should be

and the worship after?”
Published in the April 2017 edition of SWITCH magazine
Next page