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Terry O'Leary Sep 2015
1
Though still within our infancy,
we strive to thrive, but woefully
we flash and flaunt our 'primacy',
display our trophies pridefully.

Our terra firma ecstasy
destroys survival's harmony,
lays waste to life on land and sea.
Mankind, thy name is vanity!

By doubting Nature's regnancy,
defying laws with levity,
we strain our spheroid's symmetry
(perhaps a fatal fallacy?)

for, swallowed in the 'world of we',
we feed on vain insanity
with thoughts beyond eternity -
so strange when looked at mortally.

No use to seek a remedy
ensconced in ancient prophecy
for if not handled skillfully,
as clay we'll pay the penalty.

                              2
The Moguls rule with cruel decree,
control the crowds like puppetry,
pursuing greed addictively
with no accountability.

The wind, it reeks of Royalty
(awash in waves of perfidy)
while blowing ’cross the peasantry
(eclipsed in clouds of treachery).

The Queen, well steeped in snobbery,
sits, preening proud Her pedigree,
on throne of sculpted ebony
while sipping Sect immodestly;

to sate Her Regal Majesty,
a caviar clad canapé
is served with golden cutlery
by maidens bent submissively.

The King is bailed from bankruptcy
by Knaves who hoodwink artfully
the down-and-outer evictee
who wallows in their lenity.

Forsooth, the Money Monarchy
exalts the dollar dynasty
engaged in highway robbery
by Peacocks plumed in finery.

Yes, Jesters and the Fools agree
to truckle to duplicity
and laugh about it witlessly.
Long live the peon's penury!

                          3
To champion an oddity
(like two times twelve is fifty three)  
one reaches to theology
through paths of circularity.

In bygone trials of travesty
the doubters, draped in blasphemy,
endured the pain and agony
inflicted by the papacy.

Inspired by the Trinity
fanatics bent cosmology
in geocentric fantasy
while Bruno burned for heresy;

and aged women, randomly
accused of wicked witchery
by justice framed in infamy,
were racked and shown no clemency

That epoch of credulity
(when savants fostered sorcery
and practiced ancient alchemy)
arose in dark age quackery

as clerics dripping piety
(while raging, raving rabidly)
pervaded thralled society
with callous inhumanity;

'repent', they bellowed, 'verily,
forsake the world's iniquity,
live lives of want and chastity,
and give your gelt to God through me'.

                    4
The Masters make a mockery
of freedom and democracy
by holding down the uppity,
released from shackled slavery,

now fettered in a factory
else strewn across the Bowery,
still chained in bonds of bigotry,
immersed in seas of poverty.

And colliers, tapping balefully
in sunken-mine solemnity,
yet thrum a mournful monody
some call the digger's elegy.

To children, pale and raggedy
(behind a day of drudgery),
the boss man, oh so gallantly,
bestows a penny, niggardly;

though some are fed (belatedly),
their eyes recede in apathy
while bellies bulge, inflatedly,
with mothers watching, wretchedly.

When met with health adversity
or broken bone infirmity,
the pauper dangles helplessly
with no insurance policy;

and those engulfed in lunacy
are ailing blobs left floating free
in ******-dream obscurity -
a mired madhouse odyssey.

Ignoring mankind's unity,
the rich and poor dichotomy
breeds dismal doomed finality,
eventual nihility.

                        5
Renewing days of chivalry,
wild warriors fighting valiantly
bring freedom neath the gallows tree
while blending blood and burgundy

to toast the slaughtered enemy,
and so convince the colony
to cede with smile on bended knee
and yield her diamonds, silk and tea.

At first they call the cavalry
and then again the infantry,
so proudly primped in panoply,
with arms from finest armory

(embraced in hands so tenderly
bestow benign atrocity) -
and soon atomic weaponry
will extirpate posterity.

                          6
Misusing high technology
(to feed the face of gluttony)
depletes our Rock of energy,
now slowly dying thermally.

Our gadgets breathing CFC
fuel ozone holes' immensity
while cloud bursts, raining acidly,
wilt woods in their entirety,

and rivers, tainted chemically,
polluted biologically,
refill our cups methodically
and drown our souls organically.

Adjusting genes mechanically
may well blot out the bumble bee
annulling fruits' fecundity,
but brings big bucks reliably.

We wager perpetuity
to revel momentarily
in shadow-like obscurity
ignoring the futility,

but if we bet unknowingly
on fickle fate's contingency
and thereby act haphazardly
we're doomed to lose the lottery.

                 7
The modern day bureaucracy
abuses trust egregiously ,
embeds itself in obloquy
and offers no apology.

It paints the past in reverie
to camouflage the tendency
to strip away our privacy
which paves the path to tyranny.

With earlobes lurking furtively
that listen surreptitiously,
and eyeballs peering piercingly
we've lost cerebral sovereignty,

and those who dare to disagree
must hide away in secrecy
else crowd a black facility
(with water board anxiety).

                  8
Yes, sans responsibility,
our marble in this galaxy
will crumble in catastrophe
ere ever reaching puberty…
I.

Hear the sledges with the bells—
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they ******, ******, ******,
In their icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II.

Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten golden-notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III.

Hear the loud alarum bells—
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now—now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the ***** of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—
Of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

IV.

Hear the tolling of the bells—
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
   Is a groan.
And the people—ah, the people—
They that dwell up in the steeple.
    All alone,
And who toiling, toiling, toiling,
  In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
  On the human heart a stone—
They are neither man nor woman—
They are neither brute nor human—
    They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
         Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry ***** swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells—
    Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
  To the throbbing of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells—
  To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
  As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells—
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
  Bells, bells, bells—
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
Michael P Smith Mar 2013
She often walked amidst the shore
In breezy weather or in fair
Now my love will stroll no more,
Nor shall wind play with her hair.


I even knew not of her name
As she stumbled upon me that day
That wild love I could never tame,
All the same, I thought she'd stay.


I lost her, my love, to the placid sea
Her footsteps fading slowly & calm
Only if the waves return her to me,
So we may walk again palm in palm.

©Michael P. Smith
In this Monody the author bewails a learned Friend, unfortunately
drowned  in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637;
and, by occasion, foretells the ruin of our corrupted Clergy,
then in their height.


Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear
Compels me to disturb your season due;
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.
         Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring;
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain and coy excuse:
So may some gentle Muse
With lucky words favour my destined urn,
And as he passes turn,
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud!
         For we were nursed upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill;
Together both, ere the high lawns appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the Morn,
We drove a-field, and both together heard
What time the grey-fly winds her sultry horn,
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the star that rose at evening bright
Toward heaven’s descent had sloped his westering wheel.
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute;
Tempered to the oaten flute,
Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel
From the glad sound would not be absent long;
And old Damoetas loved to hear our song.
         But, oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone and never must return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves,
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o’ergrown,
And all their echoes, mourn.
The willows, and the hazel copses green,
Shall now no more be seen
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.
As killing as the canker to the rose,
Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd’s ear.
         Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep
Closed o’er the head of your loved Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream.
Ay me! I fondly dream
RHad ye been there,S . . . for what could that have done?
What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore,
The Muse herself, for her enchanting son,
Whom universal nature did lament,
When, by the rout that made the hideous roar,
His gory visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?
         Alas! what boots it with uncessant care
To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd’s trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera’s hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights and live laborious days;
But, the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. RBut not the praise,”
Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears:
RFame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.”
         O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds,
That strain I heard was of a higher mood.
But now my oat proceeds,
And listens to the Herald of the Sea,
That came in Neptune’s plea.
He asked the waves, and asked the felon winds,
What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain?
And questioned every gust of rugged wings
That blows from off each beaked promontory.
They knew not of his story;
And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed:
The air was calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters played.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark,
Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.
         Next, Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow,
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge
Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.
Ah! who hath reft,” quoth he, Rmy dearest pledge?”
Last came, and last did go,
The Pilot of the Galilean Lake;
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain.
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).
He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake:—
RHow well could I have spared for thee, young swain,
Enow of such as, for their bellies’ sake,
Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!
Of other care they little reckoning make
Than how to scramble at the shearers’ feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest.
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold
A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman’s art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped:
And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said.
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.”
         Return, Alpheus; the dread voice is past
That shrunk thy streams; return Sicilian Muse,
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast
Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues.
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes,
That on the green turf **** the honeyed showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the ***** freaked with jet,
The glowing violet,
The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears;
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffadillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.
For so, to interpose a little ease,
Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise,
Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas
Wash far away, where’er thy bones are hurled;
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide
Visit’st the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,
Sleep’st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great Vision of the guarded mount
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona’s hold.
Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth:
And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.
         Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more,
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor.
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves,
Where, other groves and other streams along,
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears the unexpressive nuptial song,
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the Saints above,
In solemn troops, and sweet societies,
That Sing, and singing in their glory move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more;
Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore,
In thy large recompense, and shalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous flood.
         Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills,
While the still morn went out with sandals grey:
He touched the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:
And now the sun had stretched out all the hills,
And now was dropt into the western bay.
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue:
Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
Terry O'Leary Apr 2013
Clouds, the clouds diffuse a sad and somewhat somber hue;
Wind, the wind bemoans her loss of reins and calm control;
Crows, the crows flee men of straw, sleeves slapping at the wind;

Grass, the grass defends with blades, impaling truant gusts;
Rain, the rain descends aslant from angry ashen skies;
Stones, the stones repulse the pearls, exploding tears of gloom;

Woods, the woods assuage the angst of misty brooding trees;
Leaves, the leaves desert their branches, dropping one by one;
Fields, the fields imbibe a quaff to quench an arid thirst;

Streams, the streams meander, hushed, to distant vapid shores;
Breeze, the breeze intones a tune, a mourning monody;
Sands, the sands, in chaos, dance across the dappled dunes;

Shades, the shades appear confused, alone in lurid haze;
Mice, the mice discern the dawn, their beady eyes ablaze;
Clouds, the clouds diffuse a sad and somewhat somber hue.
Terry O'Leary Jul 2013
I hear guitars a’ calling in the gloaming’s final fling
when sinking suns subdue their flames and fairies take to wing
as day departs, a yawning ash, beneath a dusky haze
igniting one by one the jewels of midnight’s diamond blaze.

I hear guitars a’ calling in the clouds within the skies,
with tunes which trill like welling tears from somber misting eyes
of misplaced muted homeless souls who drift alone in grief
beneath the silence of the stars that offers no relief.

I hear guitars a’ calling in the beat beneath her breast;
their murmur throbs with passion’s pulse and sensuous unrest
that rumbles deep in worried woods before impending storms
and splits the air in morning meadows, ere the sunrise warms.

I hear guitars a’ calling in the pitter-patter rain
which summons with a soothing sound upon my window pane
evoking bygone childhood dreams within a vagrant breeze
engulfing me in gusty swirls down misty vortices.

I hear guitars a’ calling in the waves on distant shores;
they’re crashing out a monody upon the mystic oars
of phantom ships within the dawn, like speckled caravels
a’ sail on seas of raven wings to moonlit citadels.

I hear guitars a’ calling in the morning’s reveilles;
they’re pouring fires in the skies and burning up the seas,
while waking flowers in the fields and setting trees ablaze,
and closing one by one the eyes of midnight’s starry gaze.

I hear guitars a’ calling in the deserts of my mind;
they’re nullifying hollow realms that time has left behind,
where pathless sands are blazing hot, the sun is set to die
and weary hounds are panting faint’, their tongues hung long and dry.
Neha shimoga Jan 2016
My stomach flips
When I think of you.
My head spins,
my hands shake and
my legs palpitate at the
thought of losing you.
I enter my own world
of the blues where the
monody is being played.
I see the Dybbuk with it's
venomous blood thirsty beasts
dancing to the lugubrious ditty
It's a place of hatred and detestation
where love doesn't exist.
A place that's perfect for your
Stygian soul
As soon as I look into the Dybbuk's
red boiling eyes the memories sneak
out of my eyes and roll down my cheeks
The pain I feel is unbearable and inadmissible
And all I can think of is a way to escape
from this love prison.
But oh, I realized a little too late
that you're the king of the sinners
and you turned and twisted my heart
and I'm just another victim of your favourite crime...
Adesumbo Jul 2013
To dance to d beat of mother nature.
I War silence wars.                                     Everyday in my colourless blood.                
Dine with Angelic devils.                          
Look up in the sky in my peaceful evils.        
Still! I look dry in the Ocean of life.

It takes so short as since BC.
I doubt Cross so many times though.            
Hate to hear about Romeo.                      
And Juliet, a great foe.

Huff!!!!                                                    
Destiny smile turns lightening.                    
Whole world ask after me.                        
As even I appear on every mind though.

My madness begins to make sense.                                                  In my nonsense, all seems to comprehend.                                            My footprints marries all sands.              
Even Devil can't but wish me good.                

Oh!                                                                                    Mama nature was crying.
In my tenderness thought as ever always.                                                                                                                      Baby was on the way.                                       Pictures ran ahead from all ways.                        
Indoor baptism to the fairyland beckons so close Heaven didn't open to bless, but to pick from my chest.

Her tears seems slippery, I call it Onion.
A step just too too deep.                        
Monody steals the show.                                    
Splenkily! Splenkilly, it goes dark without a blow.

Aftermath!                                              
Bring tears from all ears, no one could glow.                                                I.                                                              
Miss.                                                          
Me.
Neha shimoga Nov 2016
A strong rhapsodic feeling
when your face just pops
up for the billionth time.
Emotions just find their way
through and along with it
comes the impermissible pain.
I have started to find pleasure
in pain.
Dancing with the execrable
devil, bare footed on the pieces
of broken glass gets me high
on the poison my soul's dripping.
Reminds me how the wine in the
bottle was replaced with blood
and the scars you left on my
body remained untouched.
The night when I saw fire
in your eyes a feeling was born.
A feeling that brought excruciating
pain.
Fire in your eyes and stars in mine,
we overdosed on ****. We danced
all night on the dolorous monody
and bled to death.
Death was only the beginning,
the beginning of pain.
Sitting in a stygian place trying
to find a way to reach your ******
soul, I denied heaven.
I walked alone on the path that
led to you. That led to hell.
Loving you was wrong. It was
painful. It stung me and injected
venom into every single atom
of mine.
Pain o pain you have never left
my side, all the roses in my
hair have wilted and the violets
have died.
Just leave me alone. Just leave me
alone.
Find a love, that's not painful. Love is like a plant. Nourish it, make it grow , water it daily and expose it to the sunlight. Don't let it die. :)))
Hope you guys like my poem !
Neha shimoga Jul 2017
You were silhouetted against
the dimming sky.
I paused right there to admire
the beauty.
A perfect blend of feelings
coursing through my veins.
A love, so pure washed away
the sorrows of yesterday.
I knew the day I had met
you it would be the last time
I would ever sing a monody,
I would ever write a tragedy
again.  
Sent for me, beautifully
carved by the hands of the
creator, you had me starstruck
at the very first sight.
I will write you until your
heart is filled with my words.
Until my body is dusted
and every bone is broken.
Wrap me up in your arms
as I look in to your star like
eyes, I will love you with
every ounce in every life
no matter
how many times I die. ✨
My love for you cannot be measured. It's irrational and never ending.
A Revised Edition      
From The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe, vol. II, 1850

In the icy air where the stars do sprinkle bright
keeping time, keeping time
with the jingling bells of night
it is there I lay my heart, my lonely heart  

Hear the mellow wedding bells
the golden bells of happiness, ringing to foretell
Through the balmy air of night how they ring with such delight
from the molten-golden notes, the liquid ditty floats

A gush of euphony within her dwells
for a future that foretells of the rapture that impels
from the swinging and the ringing of the bells,
to the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

Later how they clang and clash and roar in the throbbing air
hear the tolling of the bells, the bells, the bells
in a world of solemn thought, their monody compels
in the silence of the night she shivers with affright

And the lover oh the lover, dwelling deep inside the steeple
all alone,.. tolling, tolling, in that muffled monotone
turns her heart to solid stone, as she listens to the bells  
the bells, the bells, the bells...
livianna Nov 2019
I will sing my monody with pride
No matter if you happen to cry
a short diddy I made in class
Andrew Rueter Apr 2020
I live between church and society
never entering either entirely
I go to church and sing with God in me
but each memorable melodic monody
sounds increasingly odd to me
when there are only flaws I see.

Last night I had a horrid dream
I was with my worship team
when their worship scheme
resembled war ship steam.

It seemed like a normal service
but tonight we had special guests
the kind that can afford to purchase
every bell and whistle, nothing less.

I was to be their guide on tonight's spiritual ride
I trailed them like their extravagant robes
wishing to be someone people flock to in droves
but all I have are my words
and the Holy Spirit
so I sing like a bird
with radio interference.

Despite my best intentions of making a good impression
the service was a disaster in need of a master
unchecked videos wouldn't work
preplanned cues were missed
responsibilities were shirked
and I was ******.

My worship team started complaining
in a manner I found to be draining
because my must-see team of trusty steeds
had morphed into prima donna demon llamas
passing the buck and saying "that *****".

Under our Jesus painting
a sight has shanked me
a fire breaking
through our mistaking.
When the fire is small
it's no big deal
but once it grows tall
it becomes real.

We all had to evacuate
for firefighting to actuate
our realization of facts too late
that we'd failed a task too great.
I take my family to the church attic
away from all the stampede traffic
I think up there we can hack it
and look at the area impacted.

The sanctuary is a giant ember
yet dripping wet
I want to return to sender
fire grips me best
and grows at my behest
an emerging inferno infects
the sanctuary's rest.

Understanding danger
I escape with my family
outside with strangers
who all stand with me
we cry over spilt ilk
and brick that wilts.

But people toned down their tears
and stifled their sobs
like silencing fear
was their only job
so as the church was mourned
a makeshift line was formed
to consign Satan's scorn
and be alive and born.

They lined down the street
a church without seats
they still needed to speak
and seek out the meek.
They started praying together
praying for healing
not for the church to be better
but each other's feelings
their friends that were reeling
still needed the word so appealing.

I look back at the church
but I don't see it there
I don't lament its worth
or complain it's unfair
I save my despair
for those that need care.
A humble abode has replaced the opulent cathedral
where the ****** of the masses once found its needle
now there's a house that's meek like the women inside
could this be the house by which God wants me to abide?
I open the doors
and walk right in
I can feel in my core
the removal of sin.
based on a friend's dream
Onoma Feb 2020
hermes winged head

loudly ***** to activate

morning light.

a swelling ember of memory.

sleep's spindrift treble and static snows...

an interrupted monody.

as the hoary lines of a precipitous ghost,

leave off to step into the man.

— The End —