"catacombs" poems
The first sorrow of autumn
Is the slow goodbye
Of the garden who stands so long in the evening-
A brown poppy head,
The stalk of a lily,
And still cannot go.
The second sorrow
Is the empty feet
Of a pheasant who hangs from a hook with his brothers.
The woodland of gold
Is folded in feathers
With its head in a bag.
And the third sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the sun who has gathered the birds and who gathers
The minutes of evening,
The golden and holy
Ground of the picture.
The fourth sorrow
Is the pond gone black
Ruined and sunken the city of water-
The beetle's palace,
The catacombs
Of the dragonfly.
And the fifth sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the woodland that quietly breaks up its camp.
One day it's gone.
It has only left litter-
Firewood, tentpoles.
And the sixth sorrow
Is the fox's sorrow
The joy of the huntsman, the joy of the hounds,
The hooves that pound
Till earth closes her ear
To the fox's prayer.
And the seventh sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the face with its wrinkles that looks through the window
As the year packs up
Like a tatty fairground
That came for the children.
20.6k
You say doctors will
make the best poets.
They will search your emotions
by the skin; cutting open to reveal
and revel
with surgical precison.
They will play with
heavy drugs and blades--
nothing shall hide beneath
the armors of bone and muscle.
They know the anatomy
of the heart too well.
They will find the things
you have hidden in your chest.
I say
doctors will never be poets.
They are too mechanical,
too fast with their edges
and ridges.
They cannot see the pain
as pain but merely as an anomaly.
That sadness is black bile
not melancholia.
They cannot sing to you
but only clammer in medical jargon.
Poets will use their imperfect words,
and perfect rhymes
to find the secrets of your rib cage
with ease.
They will find every flaw
of your broken body
and make it the best story
you've never heard.
Doctors,
they will put love to define as
a momentary rush of adrenaline,
an arrythmia for another human
caused due to an imbalance of the heart rhythm.
Poets will tell you
that love is the first jolt
of life for them.
They will say love is a state of euphoria
that takes those irregular rhythms to perfect symphonies.
Doctors say that
veins carry blood
devout of oxygen.
I say that they carry your broken emotions
to their feelings factory
to mend it within its beautiful catacombs.
All those doctors
will find and fix you
with perfect solutions.
And these poets
will do their best
to be your perfect solution.
Jan 31, 2014
Jan 31, 2014 at 8:25 AM UTC
May we live in and see interesting times, the old saying goes
another offers that when the mind is blind, the eyes cannot see
for me my days are interesting and the laughter readily and often comes
for the grapes of wrath brings forth mirth filled grapes on grapevine tendrils
As lemmings and sheep enact bellyaching absurdities, as the ridiculous does
Veracity on sojourn and falsehood in residence with doors firmly closed
Hamlet re-enacts hapless role, with Red Robin Hood and vigilantes to a tee
eager audiences, participatory scenes in towns and cities, leaving empty homes
come all and vent your spleen and satiate your prejudices without paying a fee
This land belongs to us, it is our birthright and we will send Hamlet to the catacombs
Nothing is private anymore, rights and freedom nailed, anywhere we roam
Ophelia not only went to Italy, she went to Hull, Turnpike Lane and even Essex
but a joke here, if all these were good, why did she come to me, you simple gnomes
perchance unlike you common goons, she knows distinction has no comparison to thee
Your vacuous hate filled mind cannot see that difference in a Prince, that regally looms
Act two, dim, fooled actors in their Beggars Opera, screaming, 'we oppose' with glee
so called republicans, laughable in their ardent favor, ignorant of their lobotomy botches
we will do Hamlet's head in, totally unaware theirs been done in, for the brains of fleas
in a civilisation, our conscious and stable populace, roots for vigilante and mob rule, yeah
for a man of distinction is a threat reminding you of your insignificance and lack of tomes
Come friends, lets see how the home of Democracy, hounds a citizen for us all and we
lets know that Robin Hood is alive and taxing, and 'Windrush' is still active in dispatches
indigenous people power, meets criminal gang stalking, meets racism and we all drink tea
and in true cowardly fashion, its all done by insidious, indictable, nefarious, malcontents and psychopathic crazies
It is our proud duty that we should all ruin Hamlet, for mediocrity has no distinction for aspiration et excellence
Copyright LaurenceA. JUNE 2018.All rights reserved.
Jul 25, 2018
Jul 25, 2018 at 8:00 PM UTC
only wanted to enjoy the same unusual things
with like-minded people
the concierge of dystopia fnording *******
messing around with the octopus
cyberpunk nightmare with blue sky
expect a deluge and then wonder what happened to it
evaporated anxiety due for a downpour
catacombs rented by the hour
she typically cares about those
who don't care about her
abandoning me without consequence
don't ever come back
ungrateful swine of nowhere!
loyalty exists only in a parallel universe
where they locked themselves up
and destroyed the key
they feed the rich and ignore the poor
in the end the strugglers will prevail
and the ones who had it easy will suffer
game shows that punish the ignorant
rage that never ends
scoring infinite points in basketball
and still losing the game
only wanted to enjoy the same unusual things
with like-minded people
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 8:59 PM UTC
Arise! Oh Heart, from the catacombs of the dead
Shake off the dust, for Life beckons you like a buddy
Peel off the weariness that wraps you like a shroud
And walk to the open to perceive the light.
Arise! Oh Heart, from the dungeons of gloom
The dawn is at your door step, waiting to break
Sing with the koel, merrily warbling in the woods
Dance with the billows, wildly prancing on the deep.
Arise! Oh Heart, from the ghettoes of *******
Break loose the ropes that moor you to the past
Dart through the panorama of the cerulean blue
And fly high into regions, uncharted and new.
Arise! Oh Heart, from the citadels of hate
Listen not to the shrieking and howling behind
Drink from the goblet of conciliating love
And rejoice at the birth of a dawn with promises galore!
Mar 2, 2018
Mar 2, 2018 at 8:28 AM UTC
Dirt crumbled at my feet, as moths finish off my sleep. My whole skull is uncovered, unconcerned with greener leaves.
Will this comfort ever stay? I'm losing hope as it decays. Decorate my heart with iris, because its carcass has faded grey.
Lace my body for the crows; nest my ribs, and clean my bones. Residue of torture palpitates, from within its catacombs.
Who knows when winter will come, so freeze your lungs until they're numb. Because breathing isn't worth this turmoil, and I think the dark swallowed your Sun----
Jul 24, 2018
Jul 24, 2018 at 1:30 AM UTC
An earth sized boulder
dislodged with the thunder
Unleashing catacombs
of terrestrial darkness
lay compressed beneath it
for a thousand years
The hidden ancients
heard its soul hold forth;
their rumbling silence
― laid bare ―
They heard its voice
rises up with the ears
of a new-born fawn
Beguiling roots,
solid as a rock,
hold together
like dark matter
A soul weight
beyond measure
shouldering the torn
of a divided heart
Heaviness ...
O' the heaviness ―
just a platitude for
what you feel
when it all comes
tumbling down
to the ground
Venerable
times immemorial:
an urging silence
pushing down
to the grave,
trying to unlearn
the things
never known
about the hearts
we leave behind
Jesse Stillwater
May 1, 2018
May 1, 2018 at 2:01 PM UTC
The spider Queen, aloofly vain!
She rules a silent ruthless reign,
with black-bead eyes like pearls of rain
that damp the depths of her demesne.
.
.
.
A spider spins, with nimble feet,
a sticky web of grim deceit
that drapes the corners, dark, discreet,
in catacombs of her retreat.
Her jointed legs (in number, eight)
traverse the threads with stilted gait,
but often more she'll lie in wait
within the hub of her estate.
Shy spiders live their lives alone
ensconced within a silky throne;
unless a transient guest comes flown,
their lives bide empty, monotone.
.
.
Well, now and then, a sullen breeze
may twitch the toils, begin to tease –
yet nothing's caught and nothing pleas,
so patience's bid at times like these.
But then again, when stars ignite,
may maunder by a gnat, by night,
be taught a dance, a writhing rite,
within a lace of death, wrapped tight.
Sometimes a spider's in the mood
and waits awhile, whilst being wooed –
and then, to later feed her brood,
the widow slays her mate for food.
In time a spider dies, 'tis true,
bequeathing but a residue
entwined, devoid of retinue,
in fibers decked in silver dew.
.
.
.
One asks "What purpose serves the GNAT –
to feed and make the spider fat?
Well, 'tis perchance just naught but that
within a mindless habitat.
.
.
"Yet, what's the aim?” you may inquire,
“at the heart of MAN's desire.
To which goals should WE aspire
reaching high and reaching higher?"
We've, through the ages, left the mire,
trundling wheels and taming fire,
doing deeds that must inspire,
nursing needy, calming crier, …
Such things as these, most may admire:
- placid dove and war defier
(some are bolder, some are shyer)
- patience (mess-up mollifier);
- humankind (Life's justifier)
- charity (charmed self-denier)
- tolerance (proud pacifier )
- love of Life (folk unifier).
What more could we, as flesh, require?
Needless kneeling neath the spire?
Childish chanting in the choir?
Preaching hell's impending pyre?
No, Death's the only rectifier,
comes the instant we expire,
nothing after, sentience prior.
So, treasure Life and don't deny Her.
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 1:29 PM UTC
A Poem in 3 Parts by Sara L Russell, 4/6/15; 00:51am
I
There is a grey area between
this world and the next.
People can be foolish; they dabble in ouija, in
dowsing, in automatic writing;
and - wittingly or unwittingly,
they may open a portal
to the other side.
That is how they enter.
Beware of inviting them in.
Shadow people are there
where needle pierces skin; where the ******
sits, glassy-eyed, on the precipice of oblivion;
they lurk in unholy places where godless
politicians declare themselves to be
speaking for God;
they haunt the dreams of drunkards,
schizophrenics, junkies
and the paranoid.
But they are not spun out of dreams,
they are real.
Shadow people were there
when the ancient pharaohs of Egypt
were interred, with all their gold;
they took them to Hades
for also burying their wives
and servants, alive.
They were there
in **** concentration camps,
sitting on the left shoulders
of those who blindly carried out
orders of death and torture.
They subsist in underworlds of catacombs,
they lurk in the spaces between
our conscious and unconscious minds;
In blackened mirrors they seek out a vortex,
My friends, be the light that
keeps out the darkness,
Do not seek to question the dear and foregone,
No matter how much they are missed;
for there are others lurking in the shadows.
Be not the portal inviting them in.
II
Did I see you in Bohemian Grove,
smiling at the Cremation of the Care?
Were you there,
and did you have more than one shadow?
Did I see you in that Great Hall
with chequered floors,
where the Eye of Horus
watched over a pyramid of gold?
Did you lift a cup of
the good red wine,
did blood brothers drink each other's health,
gazing through a glass darkly?
Did we toast the Cremation of the Care,
and how many others were there?
III
Sometimes we visit Hell in our dreams,
though we may fervently pray before sleep.
There is no shame in sleeping with the light on.
Wear a cross, if you think that it will help.
Sometimes the citizens of Hell visit us,
in that stasis between sleep and wakefulnes;
they are only ever seen at the outer periphery of our vision.
It's never a good idea to look at them directly.
Sometimes they venture a little closer than the rules allow.
Sometimes the line between their domain and ours is blurred.
Occasionally, the breeze seems to whisper your name -
only, it's not the breeze.
Be vigilant.
Always try to see them first.
Jun 3, 2015
Jun 3, 2015 at 7:55 PM UTC
trapped in a ribcage
frail and fretting and fettered
hummingbird heart beats harder and harder
your skeleton fingertips tilling the ground
combing for the catacombs
of all your past lives
look what i have done for you
teeth marks to chart your growth
black red purple sky no stars no light no
for thine is the kingdom, the dead leaf diadem
battle-ready raccoon eyes, scored and scowling
if you do not run you will be left behind.
Oct 8, 2012
Oct 8, 2012 at 2:49 AM UTC
Seldom doth man stop and stare
At the caste iron manhole cover there,
Seldom doth he analyze
The majesty, which beneath it lies.
The pipe work systems vast and long
Dark catacombs so precise and strong,
Buried deep beneath our feet
Extending forth from street to street,
Out across the breadth of town
Those secret fluids trickle down.
Laser levels carve the pathway
Through the walls of solid stone,
Shovels scrape and dig with effort
Forging hard trajectories home.
Digging, digging metal mountains
Sweat cascades upon the brow,
We lay the pipes in straight formation
Precision's satisfaction now.
An Artisan's great work is hidden
Lost beneath the earth's grey stone,
Appreciation camouflaged in that,
The cast iron manhole stands alone.
Magnificence unrealized
For deep beneath your feet,
A subterranean Michelangelo's
Sisteen Chapel, lays discreet.
Unsuspected rivers
Flowing darkly to the sea
In caverns of unwanted waste
Quite unbeknown to thee.
Vaulting brickwork chambers
Which are ancient works of art,
Carry oceans of excretement
Far from where their journey's start.
With thunder's crash and lightning flash
And torrents of cold rain,
The road's awash and gutters flow
Through roadside grates to drain.
Gushing torrents cascade down
In waves of flowing might
To the storm water system
Which promptly swallows it from sight.
Magic, you say ?
Nay, nay I say unto you
That the drain layers artistry
Is unappreciated, that's true !
That the Herculean effort wrought
In winning his great fights
Is largely lost to all and sundry
Who avoid construction sites.
They miss the planning and the layout
And meticulousness too
And the rubber seals which stop the leaks
Which really bother you.
The massive holes and danger
Of being buried in collapse
And the wondrous satisfaction
Of achieving downhill flows... Perhaps!
Marshalg
Apprentice drain layer
MHX Beachcroft site and Eastport
19 September 2009
Jan 22, 2010
Jan 22, 2010 at 3:08 PM UTC
Leashed by loves lynch till I’m dropped by my lack of respect for the beauty’s presence
Thank god she wasn’t curbside taking tips with perked lips for a stranger’s ****** fix,
But I needed to feel the evidence that the pieces fit,
That’s why this is about me and a barstool princess
Getting close enough to taste the moans of vodka’s venom
Get close enough so I can know my needs can be fulfilled
Like a lunar eclipse this species keeps grinding its teeth when teased
Time and time again we’ve been taunted by,
The mistress our ancestors once described as the serpent of Eve,
When procreation was preached as an STD
Yet we’ve been perpetually pivoting,
To defy the chastity of a species
Grandfathered misconceptions relating to why you and I exist
As wickedness warms in the covers of the lustfully parallel
So let’s drown in this bliss,
From head to toe, eye caught, grazes at the nose,
From the bar stool to a lonely man’s home,
From one dollar tips for two *** and cokes
To the bedroom of this writing,
The nights like this, that remind me I am alone
But this isn’t about me loathing the fact that I won’t hear her whispering for more body warmth,
Nor am I looking for you to pity me because I’ll be sleeping solo
Enough is enough since we are humans seeking ****** catacombs
I’ll try to be an adult about how the human molds but it started me at childhood,
When those that conceptualized love gave me this world,
And now I no longer have to listen to what I’ve been told
This is about how to perceive something we can never truly control,
Lucky enough to avoid a contraceptive despite unable to remember the doctor’s pull,
Its night’s like this I get to question,
When will my sheets meet the perfect fit?
When will this be more than just a humanizing fix?
Apr 23, 2012
Apr 23, 2012 at 12:41 AM UTC
caveat! —bursting out as the fuse fetters away
wafting t'ward oil spills, tranquilized guns
with pace maker minds
and time to ****
sickle celled, graving shores
plead to crawl underground
through cascading bile and sedatives
that sift through these negatives
like bangled thieves
who crawl on broken knees
and lie idle under haunted bridges.
bouldered bones intertwine
or veins cut along a dotted line
caveat! cries the sayer's sooth,
for he says it scours and devours—
the slinking nightmare sleuth.
the tar is interrupted in carved equinoxes
soak in the crippled toxins
as the air becomes as thick as theophany
and tharm like grease in blood that take me in,
through ash and mud and
all the spider webs caving in
like delicate gorges forges beneath
nightmare sleuth reaching zenith
caveat, silhouettes
stretched out like oil in water
and this silicon tomb can hold me no longer
for i must break out before i am a goner
because it's a mistake that i'll never shake
your face turns opaque
and there was nothing in your eyes
but dripping flesh
wring out all your words for me
your jeers and your juries
but go cling to your crutch
your kings and your qualms
and the church that burns
in its hallow vacancy
for none can resist the urge
that thieves its delinquents from catatonic catacombs
and quagmire junctions
where the swamp will **** you in
and festering sweat sticks like guilt to your skin
and hell is a nightclub where every loss is a life
and heaven's a daydream with your neck to the knife
it needs no rhyme or reason
and every slip of your broken lip
just lose your grip and give in to the treason
would you rather burn at the stake
than suffer your cement heart break
with no reason or rhyme
it's just the weight of the season
backdrop collapse
railroads unfolding
and like a cell storm the train
is coming your way
and slinks away like a nightmare sleuth
it just takes one swipe of the claw
or one bite of the tooth
and it drags you in
feel the sidewalk sleeping
and the blinking lights creeping
above the overpass
and the cold wind reeling--
it'll be your last.
Nov 18, 2012
Nov 18, 2012 at 6:36 PM UTC
A massive weight shifts between my shoulders. It’s another fight, I am getting older. One more step, I grow bolder. See me out there, on that thin wire. Juggling my life at the same time trying to aspire. The pain didn’t set me back; it lit in me a fire. Your words sharp like a blade and my heart for hire. Elusive to the noise, I climb higher.
I’m eviserating the catacombs of an empire.
I am not trying to scale the ladder. I’m tearing it down to the mire. I am not dousing the flame, I am feeding the fire.
If we are walk this way, we need to dress the correct attire.
Clearly there is an internal fight, a struggle for power. I am not built to last, I eventually get tired. But the problems that disappeared just reappear taking on another form.
I do my best to keep my balance and keep walking this thin wire.
There is a silence in the noise of a mob
I can feel my heart. The story has to end or at least on my part. Will I hit the net below to sweet depart?
Or Shall I just keep juggling as I walk? It doesn’t matter if they think I am a fool; just as long as I do my part.
Life is a circus, living it is an art.
-RSC
Mar 8, 2022
Mar 8, 2022 at 6:48 AM UTC
my silence is burrowed in these bones, my bones
let me go alone into the catacombs let me breathe the heart of this impenetrable darkness
I swear to god I never meant to hurt you
outside, on your doorstep I am worn out
sick and tired, and so on
these cave walls hover on my ribs I will never make you understand how the music
of this death march haunts me in my empty chest I am filled with the waning moon
the song of our sorrow overflows me my bones, my bones,
weaved within the stone floors our bones, your bones stacked against the walls
let me go alone into this hollowed darkness this
hallowed ground
in the dead of night this void shudders in my bones, my bones
I swear I’m dying I swear to god the cavern of this morgue is
my only home
let me go gentle into this good night
this holy unborn chaos under cover of darkness our world is small and scarred
someday I swear I will be still my shaking hands
will settle in these bones, these bones, let me die among the dead
under cover of darkness this new world washes over me the water of my veins
will flood this empty sky
there are thrones in the corners of this room and we turn away
(the underworld is not in flames it is drowned
in this cold breathing earth) there are thrones
in the corners of this room, and they
are empty
let me go alone into this heart of darkness, when I fall upon this floor my soul
will dance on torch lit walls my heart runs cold across this sacred stone
let the pure unsettled darkness strike in me that kind of hollow
I am trying to build a home here, these bones, my bones
the music of our heavy mouths drifts upward to the sky
I am a tragedy, for the last time
we will lose our senses underground and we will thank god
as my eyes fall wide on these hollow walls I am more at home than I have ever been
let this open earth bite me to my core
as my chest is bared before this empty sky I will not rage against the dying of the light
I am worn out
sick and tired
the chorus of our footsteps echoes on my bones, our bones, my bones
melted in this torch light we are dying
sacred
Nov 9, 2014
Nov 9, 2014 at 12:22 PM UTC
Bone-white moon.
Lacrimosa caught
in the mechanisms.
Can you see me?
Of course not.
I blend in
with the sawgrass
and the catacombs.
With beach glass
and stones the color
of rust. I am a
microcosm.
Can you hear me?
My tragedy is in
the way I keep quiet.
Silence like ashes.
I am ethereal now.
This is my requiem.
Send my regards
to Mykonos.
Burn the screaming harp.
I am subterranean now.
Someday it will all turn
to gold.
Nov 17, 2013
Nov 17, 2013 at 1:27 AM UTC
punto / contrappunto (patty m /nat)
(on the why of messaging, on the Underground HP)
none can fly, all can fly
except in words, in deeds, indeed,
yet others turn those who believe turn
lead into gold, golden faerie dreams real,
penciled in the salvation hints inked upon the skin
of the host, the blessing are the blessings of the host,
of solving great puzzles. deeds of salvation solutions.
Yet unbeknownst for many. known to all
its jiggling all the quarks, the clashing of the neutrons
spinning electrons that within all of our protein protons
affect many, effected upon each,
invisible all is hidden. where all was hidden, now visible
the message that isn't let our acts speak ever louder
transmitted, realized,
holds no power, yet it a time for action
remains a black screen for each message, now an action
in the catacombs in the clarity of daylight
waiting, waiting there, no longer waiting,
millions of little pieces each action a deed
when finally viewed the summation total
grows gargantuan
funneling radiation
from the sun.
Climbing roofs, to the streets leaping
sliding down drainpipes knocking to open all doors
to the street, filling the stadiums & squares
I'll wait with you, no laggards, all in attendence
**they will come,
poet after poet,
spreading the word,
words to deeds, each of us
a messenger and a conductor,
orchestrating the symphony
of revelation.**
Patty m. Nat
Jun 9, 2017
Jun 9, 2017 at 11:50 AM UTC
This is ancient land, this is
hallowed ground, this is
21 kilometers worth of tunnels.
Blood stops flowing after death
because the heart is no longer beating;
no longer forcing blood to gush through veins and arteries and vessels.
It gets lazy, becomes stagnant.
Slowly slides down to the
lowest point on the body; creates a
reddish purple discoloration on the skin
similar to a bruise, but not quite the same thing.
This is what I imagine the fifth level of the catacombs to look like:
a reddish purple discoloration
spread across my mother’s back.
This is what I see when I close my eyes and rub them a bit too hard for a bit too long. This is what I see when I look into a hole in the stone walls that is big enough to fit an infant. This is what I see in the reflection of the Trevi Fountain. This is what I see when I try to remember the shape of my mother’s sleeping body as it curled in on itself on top of a flat hospital mattress.
The color of death is not black, is not white. The
color of death is the color of blood: the way it looks
through the skin after having
hours and
days and
weeks to
slowly slink down into the
lowest bend of the body.
This is the reddish umbra of the earth that the
eclipsed moon hides behind.
This is my body given for you.
Take and eat.
Do this is the remembrance of
me.
Jan 26, 2016
Jan 26, 2016 at 6:40 PM UTC
Thanks thespis for another muse anew,
Filliping my soul with the spirit of a song,
To chant for the young world in these pepperish letters,
before my callous eyes on the skull of historical future
on my pykitonic torso of I another African pykin,
as I finish my coffin for the cadaver of poetry
that the law of poetry is a distorting neurosis,
neurotic abnormality its baseboard of time
giving classical balance for wondrous poetry.
Compensatory motivation a charm of its seed,
Taking dear eyes from the skull of Demodocos
Leaving songfull mouth his legacy for humanity,
Warped physique not short of history,
Teaching the world to drink in full pyrene spring
As hunchbacked dwarfism of Alexander Pope
was not in any sense dwarfism of his poetry,
nor club foot of Byron in ******* to Maugham
Byronic heroism to Europe of yester times,
That sired Proust, the Jewish neurotic
And Keats the most dwarfish and Wolfe the tallest
Of man and woman to the cultural matrix
Of Europe, the mother of art, poetry and synaethesia,
From which was born Pushkin that took poetry
Out of his nymphomaniac heart, to the solace of czars,
And Shakespeare the dear thief, luckily converted
Childhood kleptomania into royal theatre of King Lear,
The parallel of four brothers from the house of Karamazov,
Their father; impecunious penny penchant muzhik
In the name of Fydor epileptic Dostoyevsky.
A lull of the time to escape from world of rent and tax,
Gripped nerves of the duo to a new realm of art
wherein sensuous glory from ***** and Indian hemp
propelled the souls of Coleridge and De Quincey
to grandiose highness of poetry in the dreams of *****
bordering on the teutonic greatness of ritualistic breed,
poetry that transcended from rotten apples in the writing desk
of Fredriech von schiller the begotten son of Germany,
writing under the arms of Balzac dressed in monkey clobus,
that along with Milton in the lost paradise, gave him swaddles
only when the poetic vein of Milton flowed happily from nothing,
but from the ritualized autumnal equinox to the spiritual vernal,
as Coleridge was in full recondite of marquetry,mosaic and miracles,
the miraculous white male sheep, the white ram of Wole Soyinka,
that he gave as a gift to Achebe at the last anniversary, evil decoy
that become a car which deathly crushed Chinua Achebe
down to demise in the catacombs for the law of poetry
as abnormal human neurosis an equation of perfect art.
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 8:26 AM UTC
Robot rendezvous and electric engagements
Android alimony to cyborg sexists
Weve created our technological truces
Bound tightly to this digital dance
We wont work without electronic easing
Copy and paste emotion
Upload desires
Forward your sentiments
Firewall the insufferable experience
Logout of life and reboot reality
Let the dry bones regain their flesh
The empty eyepits become filled and see
Electro-spark the cognitive cardiac arrest
And reascend the route from the CPU catacombs
Feb 12, 2013
Feb 12, 2013 at 2:28 PM UTC
You will know the house,
Caught up in a spell of tales played out for a century or more
Within earshot of whispering catacombs
*** mortuis in lingua mortua’
You can’t miss it –
Architecturally complex, ornate with ormolu,
Elevated, enigmatic, a work of art.
You’ll be enchanted
But take heed, its façade will beguile you.
There is no sweetness of honeysuckle,
No singing of ascending larks to embolden the heart.
The plot is strewn with hen-bane, stinging nettles, snakeroot.
Generations tell of a skinny hag feeding on innocence,
A path scattered with ashes of children
Whisked away with a broom of silver.
Don’t dare to stray beyond its palisade of porous bones.
Don’t bide your time admiring its guilded thistle.
Appreciate if you will, this well-crafted masterpiece from several angles,
then make a hasty escape to Viktor’s Great Gate at the end of the walk.
copyright © Caroline Grace 2011
Jul 16, 2011
Jul 16, 2011 at 8:56 AM UTC
#
*There is a love, deeply embedded into
fear's reverence.. and what we fear most,
is the threat of annihilation.. yet, is not
that, which is within the deep hooks of
annihilation's looming leer, that which
is also the very seeds sown-- giving way
to the very firstfruits of Life-Anew..
within itself?
So then, is not death's very fear,
in itself, a conceding to the inevitability
of Love's unfolding conquer?
The condemnation-shadow, so unfairly
placed into you, at such a tender
young age, has run amok for so many
unrestrained years within your beautiful
spirit, and body.. is no longer
an end-all..
or catch-all,
But is now, but a spring-board; albeit,
fear-driven.. into that (finally, Beautiful-one)
which brings Life.. directly out of death--
Not with the annihilation of the very Death..
(which gave you Magic) but through its own,
very power to draw us towards Love,
through its own, very fear (respect) of that Love..
does not then, death.. through Love, become upheld?
So how then can the condemnation within you, be bad
except that it be allowed to, for life.. keep you
hidden in shadow? Is not then Love's Light, the
very thing that creates Shadow's, shadow, therefore
exposing Shadow's nature by bringing forth,
its own shadow.. leaving the vulnerable rawness of
condemnation, exposed..
Hence, the horrendous sting of Love's truth.. yet also,
through the Faith-increasing training of experience alone,
is the strengthening into resilience the beautiful, war-torn
Spirit that has become able to begin to finally.. take in, Love.
This is where you are now at, beautiful girl. While under
condemnation's death-hold, you have hated me for so long
that the love.. mixed with fear.. became its own natural
concession into Life, itself-- giving way to the Magical
falling-off of the scales that have covered those beautiful
eyes of yours for so long
Bring your Death, beautiful-one. Through your Faith, it is
established.. and then made, Complete. The giftedness, borne
from the deep, catacombs of Death's Unholy Hold, come forth
in fullness.. into fruition.. as you pass from Death, into Life--
right here.. in the land of the Living.
The Death you have known, does not fall off at the gate
as you pass through it.. but instead, through the newness
of your beautiful eye's, Life View.. Death's previous Unholiness
becomes instantly, Holy.
I am in love with the death that is in you. From its hold,
were born every Magical gift that I love so much, in you..
and while in your presence.. will forever
take my breath away.
Welcome to my life, Beautiful one.*
#
Nov 4, 2021
Nov 4, 2021 at 10:00 PM UTC
I’m in the dream again: not the one I had while awake in
the catacombs of St. Callixtus in Rome. Where the darkness was
so impenetrable that it began to echo. To look like the mixture of colors
that burst when you rub your eyes too hard for too long. Like the
neuron rupture before death. To shape and morph and become liquid.
Where the darkness cobbled itself into a physical form.
Not the dream where I kept seeing
flits of my mother out of the corner of my eye. Behind
every street corner.
Every turn. Every tunnel.
Reflected in the casts of the bodies in Pompeii.
Mirrored in the waves of the Trevi Fountain.
I’m in the dream where the soil churned from the bottom to the top.
where the hand outstretched from the grave.
where my grandfather clawed his way out and returned to my grandmother﹘sopping wet, covered in thick mud, socks torn, skin sallow and jaundiced, spitting out the wire the embalmers put in his mouth, melting makeup, and ravenously hungry. And it’s been so
long since he was hungry.
“He came back to me, Taylor,” my grandmother tells me.
“He came back to me.”
I don’t have the heart to tell her that he’s undead.
I’m physically unable to spit out those words.
And it’s a dream and it’s a dream and it’s a dream, but
it just fits so perfectly. That he would come back to her.
That death would not be a barrier. I can’t explain it. It just is.
My grandmother is a shell without him.
The body that’s missing the limb.
The body that keeps score.
Jun 13, 2021
Jun 13, 2021 at 11:36 PM UTC
I'm afraid to slow down, as if loss of repetitiveness allows for sediments.
Mind races, paces.
Over works its self in the wake of new faces.
I'm begging for acceptance to follow this direction.
Harvesting all this love, gaining gems of affection
Scarred and torn my flesh is my own,
I'm grown.
Up, I climb further into danger's soothing catacombs.
The shells of un-fulfillment shed with precision.
I'm dreaming of blackouts with a blurred vision.
Steeping tea of poor decisions.
Wasted, wasting, weightless.
Repetitive, sediments, settling into broken dreams.
Filling the corners of my mind, spilling hope,
Tethering seams.
Jan 25, 2013
Jan 25, 2013 at 10:19 AM UTC
You who have lifted up your sunburned face,
Long-told of peasant warmth and the forest tableaux.
Barefoot, you brought the book of hours upon dusty roads,
Ungoverned, little flower from Jeanne to Lourdes to Lisieux.
Our Lady, osculum pacis, the kiss of peace in wood and stone.
Burned out to those dusty eyes,
Now-empty look of rosework from the forest-fall of sunlight.
Medieval prayer, earthly-dim to its rafters of oak,
Come un-cinctured in ashen cloud of amice and alb,
And the murine blackness of plague-like smoke.
Birds that sit blinking at the winged fossil of intrados,
Pipe air through your own ribbed vaults, organum pulse.
Let the city rise in your vining voices—and hold the note.
The great ***** intones from the runs and pedal stops,
Along the turbid streets of the rue de la Cité to the empire of catacombs.
Beside his candle, the monk in sadness knows
All loveliness of heaven except his own.
Our Lady, every sunset is your faded candle hour of peace, for us to know.
Holy Father, so passes worldly glory,
Over the roofs of Paris like fire-scorned and leaden wings.
Apr 24, 2019
Apr 24, 2019 at 1:47 PM UTC