Cathedral of Shame


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It was never my intent to return to this place
dark halls of betrayal, and lacking in grace
Lustful intentions, like geysers of steam
sex memories ‘neath mahogany beams

Yet I come on this day to recapture my soul
To quiet the screams now three decades old
Black flowing robes with collars of white
Incensed chambers to the left and the right

The bones of saints litter this brothel of sin
While confessions absolve the evils of men
The innocent novice here silently cries
Behind red velvet ropes of cardinal lies

Like lambs sacrificial to the altar are led
While the pure hearts of angels are quietly bled
I kneel before God, but my prayers silent fall
In the shadow of Christ in this candlelit hall

The peace that I seek here doesn’t exist
Where the holiest men refuse to resist
Hail Virgin Mary, full of sweet grace
Help me to rise and get out of this place

 

A Dark and Vile Seduction


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Photo by MaggieKai

I can see your soul
in the dark pit of despair, my love…
you have a demon lurking.

Sweat drops in rivulets of panic
staining your face with guilty roadmaps;
crisscrossing your haughty cheeks.

I gave you my faith – you whispered a cursed prayer,
condemning me to the eternal flames
of your vile inequities.

How could I not see the beast
raging within your tender breasts;
the sharpened fangs masquerading as nipples
glistening in the dark?

Your undulating hips covered in thorns,
your lying lips sweetened with vinegar.
Your reddening eyes, beacons of hate.

Just what is you think I’ve found?

Something deep and dark and inviting
despite the screaming in my brain –
I have no voice but to consent, not thought but to obey.

Don’t torture yourself with hungered thoughts;
devour me as your wicked appetite compels.
but please, spit out my bones for Heaven’s sake.

The Trinity and Me


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First they took my father,
then consumed my mother –
Without the slightest hesitance
They came and took another

My sister left in tender years
They left me naught but pouring tears
We’re promised today and not the other
So they came again and claimed my brother

I prayed they’d come for me one day
But here I stand with feet of clay
And this belies my ardent fear
They’ll not return for many years
Leaving me with nothing more
Than dreams of how it was before

How cruel and painful can they get
My day will come, but not just yet
And so I stand here all alone
With a wounded heart and an empty home

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
They’ve chained me to their whipping post
The Trinity it’s plain to see
Is all for One and none for me

My Turn From Heaven


God Hate
My ashes are to dust betrothed,
my bones ‘neath lily and the rose.
My soul, which hath no penitence,
shall ne’er see heaven’s countenance!
While God doth cry on bended knee,
“Who brought this vile wretch to Me?”
I have no prayer to speak for me,
nor do I seek His sympathy.
I’ve cast my lot upon this heap,
come now an everlasting sleep.
As angels flee on bended wing
my unwinding was a simple thing.

Light heart though first was given me
soon beat with endless misery.
Once hopeful dreamer fast awoken,
songs unsung and words unspoken.
Continually seeking His advisement,
receiving only harsh chastisement.
As a child I prayed for his bemusement,
though my suffering lent to His amusement –
He offered love, and then he took
my loved ones from his holy book.
He filled my life with misery
and hid Himself in the Trinity.

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
lashed me to their whipping post,
And each with certain celestial glee
tore the very heart from me!
And so began my slow decline
that leaves me now in full recline;
I have no faith, nor do I now,
profess in this my final hour
To seek His love and lifting grace
in this my final resting place.
In timeless repose let me rest,
a thorn insert into my breast.
For pain is something dear to me,
His lust for blood unclear to me:
Why such angst and bitter spew?
You do not know the God I knew!

 

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The Tortured Scribe


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Delusions scatter, inspiration dwindles;
how then shall I progress?
The world revolves on a shaky spindle
and the heart barely beats in my chest.

Having given so much to this wretched life,
I fear I’ve gone insane.
I awake at night with a sudden fright
and a fever in my brain.
I reach into descending light –
a trembling hand extends;
my fingers white, with no insight,
I grip the writer’s pen.

Words drip onto a page uncurled,
a scattering of thoughts still burning –
my soul calls out, “God, let me out!”
and speaks of desperate yearning.
Like splattered pools of fallen rain
that swallow my reflection,
I’m lost again and deep within
the fog of introspection.

And still no words to rise within
my consciousness this day –
expressions of this tortured scribe
Must find another way.

 

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IF JUST ONCE MORE by D.L. McHale


 

A heart divided cannot beat for long
An unsung note cannot be called a song
The dancer spins a lonely pirouette
Who dances only with her silhouette

The un-prayed prayer on deaf ears fall
Despite the soul’s relentless call
This crowded world is such an empty place
When from heaven, too, angels fall from grace

The flames of love that burn so bright
Without lips to kiss becomes a dying light
The promise of love that is unreturned
Is the loneliest truth for man to learn

The sun may rise, but each day descends
Like a long, dark night that will never end
The longest path for he who walks alone
Are the shuffled steps toward an empty home

In winter’s grip, luscious gardens shorn
Though the wilted rose still bears its thorns
Yet all these sorrows I would dare embrace
If just once more I could see your face

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We Are Gods


gods-love

We are gods treading boldly
upon a blue-green marble
beneath a sprinkle of stars,
tossed upon a blue-black canvas.
We blow creation, like a kiss,
from open palms, fingers spread
like the wings of a butterfly;
dreamers who paint visions
upon the granite walls of time.
We whisper songs to angels
while dancing upon mountaintops.
We tread upon the oceans
in wooden shoes with billowing sails.
We laugh and cry with equal measure,
pouring our emotions into silver cups
bejeweled with love and compassion.
We embrace the hour of life we are given
but rejoice in the infinity that follows
and the lifting up of fallen loved ones.
We are gods who sing and speak
with honey on our tongues
the endless verse of truths
and seek a simple understanding
that guides our celestial journey.

We are blood-soaked warriors
who have slain our brothers and sisters
in the name of false religions
for He that stays His healing hand
amidst our pain and suffering;
for He that weeps into the clouds
that rain upon our crimson sins
and washes clean our inequities.
We are gods who daily feast
upon the abundance of our fortune
while the world’s children
wither on the vine and fall like
rotting fruit upon the earth;
flowers that never fully blossomed.
We stop our diamond-pierced ears
to the screaming of poverty and injustice
and look directly into the sun
to blind ourselves to the horror
that stretches upon the horizon.
We are gods without wings
falling from grace and into
the waiting arms of Death.
We have wrapped ourselves in
the burial shroud of indifference.

The Trinity and Me


tombstones

 

First They took my father,
and then consumed my mother
Without the slightest hesitance,
They came and took another
My sister left in tender years,
They left me naught but pouring tears
We’re promised today and not the other,
so They came again and claimed my brother

I prayed They’d come for me one day,
but here I stand with feet of clay
And this belies my ardent fear,
They’ll not return for many years
Leaving me with nothing more
than dreams of how it was before
How cruel and painful can They get,
my day will come, but not just yet

And so I stand here all alone,
with a wounded heart and an empty home.
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost;
which of these I hate the most?
The Trinity it’s plain to see,
for it’s all for One and none for me.

 

Fallen Angel


tear

He writes for a fallen angel
but the rhymes don’t appear,
not in words, but in stilted

verse, in outpourings of
watered down love. She spreads
her wings and hunts the night.

What the poet will not write is,
You hunger for your father’s love;
It never was, but may you find

through the spilling of my ink
Some noble affection upon
which to rest. But I cannot touch

your pain. He drinks a toast
to the memory of her beauty.
No one wants her faded

charms this night. She stands
beneath a waning moon

with a single tear, a cigarette
from her too red un-kissed lips.
The cars no longer slow

down to guess her meaning.
She traces a vein
to where the needles brought

peace a million times.
I hear your poem, thank you
but I must be home to
where the razor whispers.

Immodest Modesty


lucy

I am chastened by my own diffidence
humbled by my modesty and proud of
my own shy reserve. No one can touch
the depths of my self-deprecation, nor
measure the breadth of my charitable
heart. I am the king of paupers and the
meekest of the mighty; who then shall
match me sacrifice for sacrifice? I am
stealthy in spirit and mild in manner.
I am the best of the least and properly
pious. I should be highly recognized
for eschewing any recognition, for I am
uniquely unassuming and insanely
inconspicuous. People sing praises
about my passionate poverty and in my
retiring regality, I demur. I am me,
as modest as can be.

 

A Failed Seduction


seduction_of_innocence_700w

in the cool black-velvety jacket of midnight
she threads her hair with purple lilacs
her lips licked lightly, eyes half-closed
arching breasts filled with urgent breath
dancing under the moon with wild abandon
no care for which way the wind blows
or where the water flows
each step held lightly
pressed upon dew-soaked blades
of summer’s green grass
she sings a broken verse
whispers each refrain, to bury her meaning
while cool rivulets of passion’s sweat
run like melted snow down
from her brow to her rapturous breasts
rivulets dropping like rain on the
broken down-beat wings of angels
dripping to the parched palm of earth
gathering into puddles of sweet supplication
echoes of forbidden memories
perfume the nighttime air
places and spaces filled
with the frivolities of youth
she comes to me on bended knees
reaching for my turned up face
in the ticking of this hour
no time in my disgrace
I push away her yearning

The Winter Years


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These are my winter years – when regret and recrimination ravage the soul. Half-remembered memories rattle like marbles in my brain-pan, conspiring against my forward vision. My voice but an opium whisper, offering no defense in the foul darkness of my affliction.

The souls of my feet rest upon cushions of prayer that never took flight, for my appeals were falsely laid; in this moment, I am content to lie upon my prickly bed, rankly scented with the sweat of whores and cheap whiskey. Offering no apology, and upon God’s ear none would surely fall, I hang contorted upon my cross – He has forsaken me to my earthly transfiguration.

The familiar smell of petrichor wafts through my open window; for a moment the abyss before me appears clean, washed, and inviting, stretching out  beneath a crescent moon like the hangman’s noose. My dreams are shards of colored glass laced with the blood of my inequities. The red cold hours of this night unwind slowly, but unwind they do!

My tortured eyes yearn to see Death’s gnarled fingers reach out for me in the gray fog of morning. These are my winter years – when the mirror of my existence reflects the harshest light and my bones rattle in contempt. Free will was never intended for men like me whose eyes grow dim with temptation’s agony. If He had plans for me, He kept them to Himself, so I have chartered my course beneath starless skies.

Graveyard


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I always found the
taste of Heaven stale,
like coffee three days old.

I prefer to spend my nights
in graveyards with ghosts,
in the company of stone angels
and cemetery cats
whispering my secrets to the dead.

The setting sun casts
dying fingers of soft orange light
through rusting iron gates,
lobbing sharp, offensive shadows
across these cold granite faces.

Above, an unkindness of ravens
caw their unspeakable truth.
Of late, I have been known
to sing with them.

My darkness is a sanctuary,
my voice a broken prayer.
My hope deeply planted
in this field of shattered bones
awaiting a resurrection
that shall never come.

Here among the sleeping dead
I have lain down many times,
and in the stillness of the night
have heard my death composed.

Cathedral of Shame


It was never my intent to return to this place
dark halls of betrayal, and lacking in grace
Lustful intentions, like geysers of steam
scald memories ‘neath mahogany beams

Yet I come on this day to recapture my soul
To quiet the screams now three decades old
Black flowing robes with collars of white
Incensed chambers to the left and the right

The bones of saints litter this brothel of sin
While confessions absolve the evils of men
The innocent novice here silently cries
Behind red velvet ropes of cardinal lies

Like lambs sacrificial to the altar are led
While the pure hearts of angels are quietly bled
I kneel before God, but my prayers silent fall
In the shadow of Christ in this candlelit hall

The peace that I seek here doesn’t exist
Where the holiest men refuse to resist
Hail Virgin Mary, full of sweet grace
Help me to rise and get out of this place

 

An Eternal Sunrise


The sunrise is eternal –

Our measured days are not.

Yet still somehow in this moment now,

I am lifted beyond mortality;

baptized by this burnished dawn

and set afire with daring possibility.

 

All too soon, the damp, cold earth

will grip us by the ankle

and pull us downward.

 

This morning is not that day.

 

Heaven ascends before my eyes,

kissed by the reflection of amber rays.

My heartbeat echoing the foaming surf

while prayers dance among the murmur

of winged clouds in dawn’s soft pastel light.

 

The world spins round.

 

This is my temple,

and my soul, shrouded in the rolling fog

of a new day, is lifted upon salted winds.

 

I slip the bonds of my earthly servitude

and ascend upon the gilded rays of a new day –

lifted gently like a newborn in a mother’s warm embrace.

 

The Absence of You


Yesterday was full of temptation
And I too weak to resist
This morning I’m starved for salvation
But contrition just doesn’t exist

I’m lost in a sweet reverie
Of perfume and a burgundy kiss
And the lure of a cheap memory
From a night entangled in bliss

We shared everything but our names
And the promise to meet come tomorrow
I’m undone and no longer the same
Except for shame and the sorrow

In the cool light of day I reflect
Was it all but a passionate dream?
Shall I remember or shall I regret?
Was it loving or was it just mean?

I’m left where I started…alone
And I guess that will always be true
Emptiness can’t fill a man’s home
Except with the absence of you.