"reliquary" poems
hand cranked
re-imagined 35mm slides
Rough Trade posters
on the wall
Pepsi and premade sandwiches
on the counter
aperture: wide open
he sees her often at the multiplex
there she flirts
from the third row; second seat
sheer blouse
hands in elliptical motion
pointing toward
silk chiffon shells
the invite in a tilt of her mouth
lip; gloss
eyes hidden from the light
a prayer before intermission
celluloid reliquary
reveals God's plans
lest her trifling with him
cause a miss in changeover
enraging his self-regarded audience
the walk back to his car
one long montage of her lacing up
May 24, 2023
May 24, 2023 at 10:02 AM UTC
The snowflake is castellated cold,
Of chill crenellations and turnings narrow.
Court of pie-powders and gray-skied brazier smoke,
Of inner mazework dimmed to ****** holes,
Or the hooded machicolations from tower spire
Of oily darkness and arrowslits of Greek fire.
—
The snowflake is Medieval reliquary,
The frozen skull of rain and blood clear of sin,
Wind-captive with its prayer of quiet
On quietest lips, close to wine and sacrament.
Or the chapel and its waxen paramours
Of incorrupt body and candlelight upon the moors.
—
The snowflake is the mighty frozen spark,
Fire-forged and ironwrought,
Under the eye of Hephaestus,
Blacksmith of sorrow’s wind.
May 11, 2019
May 11, 2019 at 7:47 PM UTC
Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
Of lofty contemplation left to Time
By buried centuries of pomp and power!
At length—at length—after so many days
Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst,
(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,)
I kneel, an altered and an humble man,
Amid thy shadows, and so drink within
My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory!
Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!
Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night!
I feel ye now—I feel ye in your strength—
O spells more sure than e’er Judaean king
Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane!
O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee
Ever drew down from out the quiet stars!
Here, where a hero fell, a column falls!
Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold,
A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat!
Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair
Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle!
Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled,
Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home,
Lit by the wan light of the horned moon,
The swift and silent lizard of the stones!
But stay! these walls—these ivy-clad arcades—
These mouldering plinths—these sad and blackened shafts—
These vague entablatures—this crumbling frieze—
These shattered cornices—this wreck—this ruin—
These stones—alas! these gray stones—are they all—
All of the famed, and the colossal left
By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?
“Not all”—the Echoes answer me—”not all!
Prophetic sounds and loud, arise forever
From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise,
As melody from Memnon to the Sun.
We rule the hearts of mightiest men—we rule
With a despotic sway all giant minds.
We are not impotent—we pallid stones.
Not all our power is gone—not all our fame—
Not all the magic of our high renown—
Not all the wonder that encircles us—
Not all the mysteries that in us lie—
Not all the memories that hang upon
And cling around about us as a garment,
Clothing us in a robe of more than glory.”
2.5k
I.
Waves crash into roiling warmth
Foam settles, slows, then stops—
a moment’s pause,
the bottom of the ocean’s breath,
waiting for the pull back to sea.
Receding, a grief:
friction twixt the sand and water,
the wave inclining to gravity,
sinking through the grains.
Each touch a bond—
temporary, fleeting—
lost to the reliquary,
in every wave retold.
II.
So grief lays down
its film of salt—
to remind the sand
of what was and soon will be.
Each crest a vow
that cannot last,
each fall a promise
to begin again.
Sep 7, 2025
Sep 7, 2025 at 12:17 PM UTC
(Or Bi-Polar Disorder)
I. Depressive phase-
I love you for your kindness first,
then for the peace in your eyes.
How could anyone as sure as you
not be the one sent to save me?
But save me from what?
From doubt? From myself?
You are God’s gift to me yet
I can't help it sometimes
I picture myself ten years down
the line with you not caring
and me destitute and homeless,
living on the streets, alone.
*When the transition comes
I see it come and embrace it,
picking up speed it screams over me
like a snow white avalanche,
a huge chemical ****** in my brain
that cannot be stopped.*
II. Manic phase-
Here I like to entertain myself
with vain fantasies of sainthood.
I’m standing and waving
to the faithful in Piazza San Pietro,
doing what’s necessary to secure
my martyr’s destiny in the after life
where I’ll have a place of honor
in the great hall of God, and through
a window in the floor I’ll be able
to see my mourners
filing past my gaudy reliquary,
crossing themselves as they gaze through
the philatory glass at the peaceful repose
of my sequin studded bones.
*I have come to understand that
this matter may never be settled.
I’d truly give anything for you
to have power enough to hold me
in the middle, to hold me in
the purple fog nothingness
but I believe it tires you
to prop up a puppet all day.
You’d rather love me in each moment
which is the truest love there is
and that makes me the luckiest
man on the face of the Earth.*
Jan 10, 2014
Jan 10, 2014 at 4:59 PM UTC
I - stricken biped
Reside
Arranged on patina of dust
Compacted from its own breadth and comingled humid vacillations
Misplaced intent resides carking upon my ribcage
Cerebral reliquary reprises
Enunciating: distaste – mediocrity – insufficiency
Clandestine exhalation configuration obliges principal
Luminous descants evade ebullition bound in stained crystal
Eupnea elapsed - foreboding
Enigma binds frame to pith
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 9:04 PM UTC
He reclines in his brittle chair carved from his own grief,
Not very regal, but heavily resigned to the aches.
The weight of silence cleanly cuts through the air.
His hands, now mapless, no longer seek.
Memories he left behind in clouds, were few and brief.
Books cradle their breath upon the shelf.
Never once a glance as he knows their unchanging tone.
The windows screech with tempered light
As regret drips down the pale pane of ivory bones.
His posture reflects the weight of years notched in his belt.
The leather groans, stretched too thin like his sense of self.
The hour never bows a whim to beg his name.
Dust circles, never sure as to where to fall.
His suit of choice is a reliquary of loss.
Each button, a distant memory hard pressed in shame.
The air is stained
The room too small.
A silent gasp
The last breath falls.
May 19, 2025
May 19, 2025 at 11:15 AM UTC
Graveyard cherubs look so cold,
Immune to cries of sadness; fear,
But there are reliquary angels,
And old paintings, that wept real tears.
You plant your loved one
Like a tree, and never look back ever again;
But sing the songs and fight the battles,
Unearthly wars, of virtue; sin.
You do your time until it's done,
And then they'll come, to bare your bones,
Unto that crypt, with impassive angels;
And say with grief, that you are home.
Aug 1, 2010
Aug 1, 2010 at 7:23 PM UTC
The prelate opens
the ancient reliquary:
holy is the dust.
Apr 16, 2023
Apr 16, 2023 at 3:27 AM UTC
In the reliquary there is the censer, and the book.
In the reliquary, which is the fields and
the little hidden place known only to you,
there is also a plant with plush green leaves, hung
from rotted twine, going yellow and ancient
in the native light. The word is a rebuke and the
plant is the rebuke of the word,
and the water that kept the plant
green and lovely is vanishing
and the plant can only be used when
it is rid of it.
Buy them by the carton and smoke them
so when he sticks his fat head out of Heaven
we can catch his beard on fire.
Draw his fat head as if it is magnificent:
draw it next to the lamb reposed
and the crossword in the children's Sunday pamphlet.
Remain quiet. Read instead about
the flight of the Jews and their wanderings.
There is smoke in Exodus. There is smoke in Leviticus.
There is smoke in every cell of your body
and if you are burned you will rise.
Remain quiet. The silence is a wall
you can crush with a fist until you recognize yourself in it;
a sanctuary is any four walls that contain peace;
white panels hide the baptismal and are the only way out:
we recognize our end in the quiet, warm water.
It gets in your ears like water does. When
the saints speak or the doves cluck you can only hear
choking, like a storm drain ******* at leaves. What color
is the water that is not the River Jordan: clear unto the tile.
What color are his eyes that are not
the River Jordan? What color are his eyes when
he looks at you bowing and scraping
in the closet with the believer in a spaghetti strap top
she cannot wear to school? What color?
The hand on the bell is profane so the sound of the bell is profane;
better to hold what is already ruined and ruin it further
says the land that was given
to the men who **** it,
and the stars misconceived
smile at those going North
and are silent in cities.
Apr 2, 2019
Apr 2, 2019 at 8:00 PM UTC
Lips parted, wet to smother
me, and
The galvanized gibbet of your stare . making myself small . knees to the floor
Swallowing my own unquiet heart the battery acid bite of ****** foreboding
I require your alms approximately once every 18.75 hours
Pitiful, fragile: a dove with two broken wings
For this, I yearn for the heavy hand of your regard
Render my flesh to the pulp of my ancient beginnings . born again
If you are willing, I am able . I pray
I will look to you . your appalling prophet . made whole in my unholiness
And I
Fling myself to flagellate my prostrate body upon the temple stairs
Each bruise after counted
My proof, bludgeoned on a tablet of tissue.
I will guild the seed of your mercy . bind it in stained glass . idol for my reliquary .
I have played Mary: both of her faces
By the Book
but only to drive away
So many to alien lands, discovered as a *****
Unable to accept my enormous blood debt—
Condemn me, the abomination: I beg
It is my calling
Shove that cross into my arms, nails and all
I will drag my carcass forward through the spitting masses
My heart, full of rapture.
Jan 18, 2012
Jan 18, 2012 at 7:36 PM UTC
*The Moonlit Aethers bleed Titanium Rays
As mine Forlorn Eyes
Saunter thine Porcelain Skin:
Platinum Matriarch upon Swarthy Expanse reigns
Azure Luminaries cascade
Upon The Forested Glades of my Airy Soulwaves.
Ensorcelled is that Sylvan Shrine,
The Reliquary of the Starry Wish.
(O, that
Loveless Blight
might cease)
I Besought the Firmaments
From Dusk to Dawn
Lamenting in Dirge
Of the
Revenant Skies;
Eons transcended yet no hand to hold
The Benediction of Romance
An Ephemeral Throne.
The Pandemonium corporealizes
Wraiths in my mind;
(Perdition is Thew
The
Poltergeist's Might)
Ivory Visage of the Impearled
Hallows my Spirit
Quells the Abyss.
The Thew of Deities
Purged from my veins
Quaking my quintessence,
I fathomed
I was naught.
A mere figment,
An existential vagary:
~BUT NOW I SEE
We are
All
But a
Dream
Clinging yearningly
to the
Promise of Hope
(The Covenant of Ensouled Dust)
Groping for Eternity, Memory, and the Lightwaves
To be
Vested in our pulse;
For Corporeality;
Ascendency
To the Chrysalis of The Astral,
The Cradle of Cosmogenesis:
Our Cosmos,
Our Zephyr,
Our Magma,
Our Torrent,
Our Tremor,
Our Thunderclap,
Our Time,
Our Space,
Our Nexus to Efflorescence,
Our Incorporeal Sublimity~
I shall surrender to
Providence of the Supernal
His Empyrean Wings
(An Impregnable Aegis)
A Strewn Vestige once was I
But the Somnolent Beloved was roused
Whence I glimpsed into thine eyes.
The Vagrant Loveless is resurrected
Reawakened as a Doughty Knight
Warring against sequestration
(Until by Nirvana)
Abeyance devours this blight.
~Dream
You starry-eyed wayfarers,
Surrender sovereignty to credence
When Star-crossed
Conspire against the Fates
For when Elysium
Is your Beloved
The Ancient of Yore
Shall lead you nebulous streams
To the Holy Oracle
Prophesying the fulfillment
Of your Intemerate Hope
(For Love, myriads doven the skies)
Please Believe,
Just,
Believe in me.~*
Nov 21, 2017
Nov 21, 2017 at 3:02 PM UTC
He did not upon the coffin place a wreath,
to do so, he felt, would have been obscene.
His wreath, instead, was just a metaphor
to symbolise the life that once had been;
a memorial to spirit that remained
and not a talisman of something pre-ordained.
The years had been filled with inconstant strife
to enter the parnassus of an exalted life
Aug 30, 2015
Aug 30, 2015 at 5:07 PM UTC
Lifetime warranty spiked above the headboard –
Pounded, driven in.
A ****** memento for spellbound comfort.
For beleaguered convenience, every vindication.
From the reliquary a
Prefect draws Scrabble squares:
Transgressions divined in crossword.
Taking them on, like Him, and
Glaring, feeding them back to you, a
Beguiling grin:
Absolving all.
Not quite the mother, at least
Present to explain the
Pain she bears for you.
Not Santa, not Tooth Fairy,
Unworthy of the wall.
The Easter Bunny,
Harebrained scheme,
Foot hacked clean at absurdity’s altar, keeps
Suffering
and suffering
and suffering.
But you do clutch, and do not falter.
****** magical pretense,
Lurid, laudable as a
Hotdog on a stick, and just as
Tasteless.
Snake oil, tendrils crossing paths in a
Greasy Baptismal pool,
Soliciting the stranglehold.
No grace; just a
Wolf and a
Sheep.
Guess which you are.
Jan 27, 2015
Jan 27, 2015 at 5:36 PM UTC
A hidden corner's shadowy cast,
a trapped reliquary,
unfashionables crafted in the past,
pending rebirth.
Banished by media teacher gurus,
punished for flouting current taste lore,
distressed, wasted, awaiting expert pleasure.
Aug 12, 2016
Aug 12, 2016 at 6:15 AM UTC
It is dawn again in the periphery.
Slowly beings a rehearsal.
A furious want only brought
the tint of the sky down to its last trinket.
Glides over air – resigns under dissonant skies.
First angle: tiptoe. I admire your machines.
Second: a song for no one to hear but your presence
my adulation sings with.
You are a farewell for no one.
The cotillion undone under pirouette of Suns.
Music still for the mouth to bloom,
awakened at the edge of the world
that tastes nothing like metal.
Housed in reliquary assumed by the hands,
committed to duty:
contain the coryphée – body revolving, breath held to count,
how many days expire to bring
back the black of night.
May 19, 2016
May 19, 2016 at 8:08 AM UTC
Nascent thought provoking
threads flit to and fro
unseen solitary pinball wizard
cavalierly fiddles indiscriminately
leveraging outcome
silently holistic thought fragments
strewn staccoto scattershot
attenuated blitzkrieg
brain storm saturates,
par for course sandtrap engulfs,
chaos reverberates within
besieged cerebral corridor,
quotidian mental onslaught
spurns refugee exodus,
psychological ploy asper viable coping
function forgoes figurative
foothold toe tully forfeited
tenuous grasp slips forcing migration,
Sans psychotic shrapnel
clefts emotional well being,
without rhyme or reason
sense and sensibility rent asunder
rational, overall logical
modus operandi quashed
dealt fatal savage ******
soundless insanity relentlessly pounds
fifty plus shades gray matter
noiselessly bombarding
lofty craft cognitive faculty atelier
strafed emotional rescue
relegated to twilight zone
outer limits house barbed bereft ken
dolled, hallowed, and lobotomized
mined kempf desecrated sacred reliquary
orbits like a neurological asteroid belt
Self healing fragments repelled
despite fervent application grounded
evincing proof of positive thinking
courtesy Norman Vincent Peale
fore gone conclusion crowning
accursed albatross gussied as SPD
(schizoid personality disorder)
undefeated champ decamping forever
within noggin of this mortal male
til death do me part!
May 23, 2018
May 23, 2018 at 6:28 PM UTC
when they're together,
a girl always seems to try and remember
and recount her past loves,
a boy always seem to try and forget
to recount his past loves;
one always tries to love,
one always tries to make the other jealous,
it's hard to love something
that tries to make you jealous
of the past you were not part of
and asks to be awarded a leash
of safekeeping, to not venture outside
the zoo of feeling;
why do girls always wish to recount
their past loves to incite feelings of
jealousy and further jealousy into
impotence? oh right,
so men can slave away, and the household
can be abundant in triviality of possessions
they cannot internalise;
in terms of matriarchal politics,
if i'm not one of her own, i'm disposable...
not even an extension of being in glorification
later as disposable... if i'm not one of her own,
i'm nothing... if fathering mankind
gave us the history we know so far...
i wonder what mothering mankind will
give us, as years come to date,
and be dated in the reliquary of cannibalising saints
for the artefact of the self-serving entitlement of mr. or dr.
Mar 27, 2016
Mar 27, 2016 at 7:48 PM UTC
Every man is a leader
Leader of his life,
Chief of his destiny.
What incongruous cards
Fate can deal us
To permit the interruption
Of the aforementioned
And render some potential limited
The oyster we shall crack;
To unearth the pearl in every person.
Fix, any ill. Cure any poison
Oct 20, 2023
Oct 20, 2023 at 9:12 PM UTC
Love knows no true boundary,
Nor does it need a name,
It has no care for history,
Nor will it suffer blame.
Love gives all for honesty,
All secrets must be known,
For those that have integrity,
May reap the bounty sown.
Love calls for no property,
Nor gifts to play its game,
It has no god or reliquary,
Nor has it need for fame.
Love provides a sanctuary,
A home away from home,
Regardless of geography,
It follows where we roam.
Love asks no eternity,
Nor offers up the same,
It has no immorality,
Nor does it make such claim.
Love confers indemnity,
Acceptance of past sins,
For truth and self in synergy,
Is where true love begins.
Aug 29, 2020
Aug 29, 2020 at 10:00 AM UTC
When I asked you what I should do. you told me...
"Yeah, I guess it would make sense to end it now."
I could feel a crippling cold in my lungs mid summer
my heart is no stranger to a strangers lack of care.
It's just a summer ******
At least when left alone, let alone the thought of being lonely, I never consider taking my own life before its meant to be taken from me.
At least when I talk to you, you remind me like your reliquary for lost tears, you tear through me unraveling my armor to all my inner most fears.
Giving myself a gift of agony inside of antagonizing images of my self.
Ambition and bravery give way to craven humility. disguising howls towards the moon as laughter laughed to soon. I dug my grave today just to give prayer to the future,
I piece myself back together with my words like a surgeon who's done this a thousand times.
He who is practiced in the way of emotion suture
His hands never getting steadier operating on the child inside him with his rhymes.
It never gets any easier
it only gets worse.
After all,
how can you do your job,
when you run out of thread
and there's a thundering in your head.
When you've got twenty-five to thirty for life to become death.
You kind of want to be in control of your last breath
Apr 2, 2020
Apr 2, 2020 at 4:11 PM UTC
And when captured, the Miller,
her husband and her young children
are the light of the world in the eyes ||
of the night that is a girl; and on the day
of their naked descent from Alba
a long time ago, hot over the city,
poetic poetic forms in the Age of Death
of the Calisine
future wars & ||
| LDS snooch carved into the moon's core
as terraces upon terrace; multicolored terraces
with tight security even in the age |
of beautiful hell's living gold;
gold fire's cold landscape of American States,
Sky kids on the moon at last. Spirit
of the yellow water's Idiom,
a little early for the wind; Nature's Natural Voice of Asian Stone:
BI-LEX powered to ensure that sturdy bones
tend to write the name of the beast:
Wall Kiss II,
and in the use of color images,
the window onto Barbie's Russia
may win ur igniting garden's |
blue ribbon with the hissing |
liquid reliquary of a gay alchemist's pedestrian secret. |||
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 at 3:17 AM UTC
while lucifers steal the light
of this world,
and take to stage...
basking in the frightening
light of Icarus....
monotheism
via plagiarism...
synonym, god,
vector...
the satans bask
in the ***** of....
a reliquary of shadows;
some people
are just too stupid,
in order to lie...
lacking in chrono--stamina...
biologicznie... słabi;
"stupid"...
herd mentality
always scoops up
the remnant...
odd...
not inanimate pluralism
of hoarding....yet stI'll
a pluralism...
BØRG...
the remnant contra the remnants
of...
soft J
Norwegian fjords...
callous Y... a tree,
a tongue of hydra...
dirge, and prior
to aeons ago, a Hindu cremation...
a burial at sea...
lost, labours of artefact...
gained...
a love,
surmised via copper.
Apr 14, 2018
Apr 14, 2018 at 8:58 PM UTC
Poison reliquary to dammed Cardboard hearts
Seeing in black walk to the shade
Crimson hands cake an obsidian bible
But if you need me I’ll be there
The priest protests
Less fire more drowning
in water
Can you smell the **** of god?
Accept his unnatural communion.
Eat the paper skin
And drink the cheap corner shop wine
What a life. What a god.
Jul 5, 2020
Jul 5, 2020 at 11:06 AM UTC