A Sunday sacrifice condensed
Golden amber sprites compete
Cries of life echo their last bequest
As prongs and tongs poke
Black bars sizzle on cold dead flesh

Sweetened smoke invokes
the demon's first bite
Mind controlled spoke of rites
The decree of three hundred degrees
Old and new viewed
on separate pews
Charcoal bright a dusty white

Rules do vary with belief in
the division of meat
Breathe in look up
Give thanks to the energy received
Respect both life and death in defeat

The Lingering and the Unconsoled Heart
by Michael R. Burch

There is a silence—
the last unspoken moment
before death,

when the moon,
cratered and broken,
is all madness and light,

when the breath comes low and complaining,
and the heart is a ruin
of emptiness and night.

There is a grief—
the grief of a lover's embrace
while faith still shimmers in a mother’s tears ...

There is no gruesomer time, nor place,
while the faint glimmer of life is ours
that the lingering and the unconsoled heart fears

beyond this: seeing its own stricken face
in eyes that drift toward some incomprehensible place.

Keywords/Tags: lingering, unconsoled, heart, death, bed, deathbed, silence, last, rites, hospice, eternity, finality, infinity, grave

A trail of smoke rises,
A died down pyre,broken clay ***,
Crows eat scattered rice.

Eck Ramsay, a retired underwire manufacturer,
bought a boil in the bag cod slice at his local Spar shop.
Upon removal of its cardboard outer garments
he was surprised to find it contained a small book.
The book titled the Plaice of Cod
(a philosophical treatise on theology)
contained many essays on the ancient rites of summer,
several of which were wildly inaccurate
and a few that were accurately wild.
In the appendix there were twenty-three songs
attributed to a medieval troubadour,
who led a travelling medicine show called the Rollwrong Stones.
  
William Lancaster Blake built himself a chocolate castle
on a hollow hill and sold it to his mate Bill,
a scribbler of worthy words who wrote of the hills and lakes
and how long it takes for the ghosts of soldiers to cross the fells especially when led by centaurs.
  
Self-proclaimed king, My Other Pen drags on,
took to haranguing passers-by with tales of dancing seals
and Jewish fiddlers who wouldn’t play marriages on the Sabbath, and how the wedding guests always got ******.

Stan Tony and Drew made up the crew
which some say numbered sixty-nine
or seventy-two, but no-one could swear
how many were there especially
on the Whispering Nights……… when nothing seemed right
and the cattle lowed on their knees.
And the slightest breeze on a pewter plate
would vanish the seed that couldn’t be seen,
and dreamers would dream
of jumping through flames
that carried the names
of those who were soon to be dead.

Goats head soup
with yarrow root
was served to the guests …..whose favourite request
was Wort of Sacred Johnny,
they'd dance all night …..till the Isis light
sent the Oak root bones …..scurrying home
to the place where the days are shorter.
When the dew on the grass  …..comes to pass
and the herbs have been nailed to the doorway,
when the heron's been kissed…and all are well dressed
and the False ones only moved slightly
the cuckoos will sing. "a new day I bring"
and the treetops will shake with the dancers
the day is but done and the Knights just begun
to get a little bit longer.
   But stranger than this was the wish of the dish that had it away with the spoon. "hey.. kat play that fiddle"
And riddle me no riddle
I need to get high as the moon….
"which moon?" enquired the hare "Kieth or the very Reverent moon?"
"Oh either will do…. Their just different shoes
to the ones I'm currently wearing"
and with no more ado…… Stan Tony and Drew
the Stones roadie crew
withdrew
for the next seven years
their horses drank tears
and everyone's fears
were fried up for breakfast
with marmalade toast
two sausage
mushrooms
and beans
eggs over easy
rashers done crispy
a fried slice or two
and a teapot of glue
to ensure it stuck to the belly.

The mushrooms of course enjoyed these proceedings to such an extent that they were inspired to compose poems praising the nights adventures, these were subsequently published in the society pages of the Lost and Found trade journal.

Promises made by diviners: first,
the month of my undoing dissected,
uncertainty excised. Fingers splayed,
the prophet makes a pretty ritual
out of ribcage. Says: any bone
can be an oracle bone, given time.
Unhook the vertebrae, then.
Plate apart the musculature
and there’s fate, that red spool,
that hungry spine. Ask me if I
believe. I believe all prophets
are butchers. The small chime
is her fingers at my glass rib
and not my leaving. Ah, fate,
that tangle of guts, of chyme.

Ripples lead to bows  .  .  .
After fish breaks the water,
  .  .  .  A kingfisher dives.