Métis, Themis, Ma’at, their banter was for naught.
All the tides and tithings wisdoms and their teachings, Daemonium forgot!

But the heavens cry  manna as Nix cried out reprieve!
An act that loosed the flood, the chaos of her sea.

Her pain arose a champion to tend to all her needs,
Formed of Celestial Ocean he bore down on the freed.

A giant wave of madness, thrusting mist of sadness eradicating gladness... One led the ruthless breed.

Opaque in their beginning, formless shapes in twining.
Conjoined but not together, accompanied the weather.
Thalassa’s stringy tether wrapped them all forever.

Come or go in seasons, live or die in age.
No Spring to Fall in reasons, travailing of the mage?
Black tentacles the streamers, rooted into wave.
Witness the all-wise and snaking phantom phage...

Chiron watches while he prances, his dressage on the shore.
Arising liminal of beings wettened ambiguity of yore.
Even Iblis is impressed, such black rotten to the core!

Merkabah or egg, mountain, belly, tree they squabble.
All elements do I cobble, such are actions of the wobble.

I

I see the boys of summer in their ruin
Lay the gold tithings barren,
Setting no store by harvest, freeze the soils;
There in their heat the winter floods
Of frozen loves they fetch their girls,
And drown the cargoed apples in their tides.

These boys of light are curdlers in their folly,
Sour the boiling honey;
The jacks of frost they finger in the hives;
There in the sun the frigid threads
Of doubt and dark they feed their nerves;
The signal moon is zero in their voids.

I see the summer children in their mothers
Split up the brawned womb's weathers,
Divide the night and day with fairy thumbs;
There in the deep with quartered shades
Of sun and moon they paint their dams
As sunlight paints the shelling of their heads.

I see that from these boys shall men of nothing
Stature by seedy shifting,
Or lame the air with leaping from its hearts;
There from their hearts the dogdayed pulse
Of love and light bursts in their throats.
O see the pulse of summer in the ice.

II

But seasons must be challenged or they totter
Into a chiming quarter
Where, punctual as death, we ring the stars;
There, in his night, the black-tongued bells
The sleepy man of winter pulls,
Nor blows back moon-and-midnight as she blows.

We are the dark derniers let us summon
Death from a summer woman,
A muscling life from lovers in their cramp
From the fair dead who flush the sea
The bright-eyed worm on Davy's lamp
And from the planted womb the man of straw.

We summer boys in this four-winded spinning,
Green of the seaweeds' iron
Hold up the noisy sea and drop her birds,
Pick the world's ball of wave and froth
To choke the deserts with her tides,
And comb the county gardens for a wreath.

In spring we cross our foreheads with the holly,
Heigh ** the blood and berry,
And nail the merry squires to the trees;
Here love's damp muscle dries and dies
Here break a kiss in no love's quarry,
O see the poles of promise in the boys.

III

I see you boys of summer in your ruin.
Man in his maggots barren.
And boys are full and foreign to the pouch.
I am the man your father was.
We are the sons of flint and pitch.
O see the poles are kissing as they cross.

Of all of God's children,
He was my favorite,
With a smile of saviors,
The handshake of pastors,
The attention of preachers,
And the prestige of a priest,
But he lived nothing like Christ,

I payed my tribute,
Paying the weekly tithings,
Of a dutiful wife,
By Cooking, cleaning, and closing my eyes,
To all the nights of listerine and dilated pupils,
To all the mornings of an away of strange perfumes,
To all the mid colored splotches making a Dalmatian of my skin,
Those were my tithings,

But he must have been in favor with the man up stairs,
Because he strode freely,
A man of god,
Faces no persecution,
For his acts of hate,
But the son of god,
Dies for sharing love,
But no love is shared,
With a ministers wife,

I wept my prayers nightly,
With my knees indented by the carpet,
With my hand clasping my broken wrist,
Dear father who resides in heaven,
Why do you leave me here in hell,
With a man who loves like purgatory,
Why let such a man live,
Who lets your name jungle gym,
Through his vocal chords,
While letting the devil,
Strategically blockade his heart,
God,
Fill this silences,
With verses of hope,
With scriptures of love,
And books of revelations before my eyes,
But the only thing revealed,
Was the dismissal,
Of a ministers wife,


When asked why I'm an atheist,
I'll always tell you this,
My faith died with my blindness,
My god died with my marriage,
Now,
Let the minister dismiss his wife,
One
Last
Time

Happy tithings
Slither your sadness
And madness flies with you
Buzzes through your skull
Dull little headache-
Stop

The sheets are too soft
No one is screaming
walking
moving
Moths eat your town

The mad goat laughs
A wail and a stare
Little red eyes eat you alive

But it's all rather funny
Everyone in black
Weeping souls love
A laughing attack

the worship service looks full this morning
though, admittedly, i haven't been
in attendance since Christmas.
families in their Sunday best
sit on wooden pews
in a patriarchal church
that spent its tithings
on a multi-million dollar
gymnasium rather than the poor
their savior told them to look out for.

men, women, and children
awkwardly pretend
to sing contemporary hymns
beneath their breath,
hoping no one will notice
as they pick their noses,
thinking absently of Easter dinner.

i write poems
while the pastor prattles,
his shallow words
an empty drone
filling my ears
with white noise.

i feel myself drifting.
i haven't been sleeping
lately. the news has got me thinking
each passing day might be our last
on planet Earth and i'll be incensed
if i waste one minute more
than necessary
in this cramped
and ugly church,
a sanctuary smelling faintly
of old ladies, cheap perfume,
and wilted flowers dying silently.

just one more week
and i'll have been
god-free for half a decade.
for now,
i grin and bear the tedium
and mourn the tarnished legacy
of the radical rabbi,
a Nazarene who took on an Empire
and died by his convictions.

i daresay,
he'd be rolling in his grave
if he could see
these rich, white
Presbyterians sullying
his good name—
provided, of course,
he'd not so famously
vacated the premises.

Beyond tomorrow
onto the marrow
lives my sorrow
and pain.

It’s always flooding
with rain and the clouds
never fade. Yet I am
a survivor and brave.

I bring my umbrella
and meditation with great
breathing techniques
to help me through the
hard times.

Sometimes the shadows
settle for awhile, I’ve
learned to be calmer and
at peace with restful nights.

Within my restless hours
I am inspired, deeply
expired yet not tired
enough to sleep.

My weathered mind
tick’s on upon
the last hours of
the nightly dreams
I should be experiencing.

Yet I become one of the
shadows lurking about
the dark. Not extinguished
for I still burn bright
like my past bridges
I’ve left behind.

No regrets but embarrassments
light up my cheeks.
We all of those blushing
moments like these.

Beyond the sun’s ray
I come riding on the moons
beams. I am a star upon
the stage just for awhile.

Long breathes drag on
hour after hour,
line by line, beyond
the horizon of tomorrow
lives my tears and sorrows.

Fading with the light
raising upon my return to
life.

Good morning my marrow.
What tithings you bring
of golden rays and silver
linings. Ting!

© 2019 Amanda Shelton

I wrote you a sweet song,
a melancholy tune to pass on,
some lyrics and a rhythm
that were only mine
but now I give them.

I gave you the best part,
of this farewell I kept to myself.
A streak of tears
drops that no one hears.

I kept you in my mind
slightly shaded and distorted
by the passage of time.

I know you are not rocking
safe in some heavenly embrace,
and all that is left is a rotting face.

If I could turn back time
for just a few moments
I’d give you a day with
all of my loving hugs and kisses.

Instead, you pass on in proses
and passages in these poems
I wrote.
Each line written
was once hidden
but came when bidden.

A weeping melody,
for transient beings
whose life is over
but still it sings.

So, here are my tithings.
It is better than nothing,
noting my sorrow
and gratitude
that I lost,
but at least I had the chance
to know you.