Tag Archives: church

Crazy Angel

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12

Chair with the Wings of a Vulture ~ Salvador Dali

Chair with the Wings of a Vulture ~ Salvador Dali

 

Orbs in rows
shine hallelujahs
as the crazy angel
spreads vulture wings
above strait jacket spoons
that nail her to the wall.

Her restricted thoughts radiate
like spokes in a tireless wheel,
a beautiful nimbus flowing
beneath the cross of Jesus.

A nautilus shell
spins circles beneath stories,
and the crazy angel wonders
why she never bleeds.

Brenda Warren 2014

Thank you to Salvador Dali, Tess Kincaid, and The Mag for ekphrastic inspiration.

Fields of Forever

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17

Thundering jets,
hooves spew fountains of dirt
as arrows arc from rider’s bows
into rows of Saladin’s Ayyubid army,
lances forward,
fighting on fields of forever.

Silver shimmers on hilts spilling blood
slashing as swords clash and clang,
amputating hands, answering God’s mighty call.
Knights Templar wield their holy swords
warring for Jerusalem,
an unfolding jihad.

Overhead a crow caws,
a tether rippling from its talons
as it scans the warring hordes.
A page of history rises like a status update
while the black bird circles the two Gods’ fighting yard,
an unholy park of steel and flesh—
spilling blood for a city,
spilling blood to prove which God is just:
Allah or Yahweh,
Allah or Our Father.

Horses step and scream.
Chinks in chain mail armor open,
as Ayyubid spears thrust through warrior chests.
Knights Templar rise and fall.

Neither side rests
unable to curb adrenaline’s slice
until death does them part
fervently falling into fields of forever.

Brenda Warren 2013

112

VIsit The Sunday Whirl

Process Notes: Salah ad-Din, or Saladin lead an army called the Ayyubid army (I did some searching to find that name, as I wanted to be historically accurate). He captured Jerusalem, defeating the Knights Templar in 1187. I’ve been steeping myself in medieval movies, and watched Arn twice yesterday on Netflix. It is also a six episode series on Netflix. The series goes into far more detail. Both or either are worthy of watching. Arn is a Knight Templar. War in the name of God seems contradictory, yet it is common.

Banana Split

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36

for len

circle my lost spirit
church me up with concrete
make me stable
make me strong

I remember how it felt
to be cobbled by passion

crumbling pieces
a myriad of me
dissipate and wait
for a sign
for a passage to adventure
anything but now
circling my lost soul spirit
floundering alone
church me up with concrete
make me stable
make me strong

take me out for hot dogs and holy wafers
let the preacher’s words tell you everything that I can’t say
fearful of my non-reflected face
I cringe beneath dismissal
and hope you know
I love you

in the middle of this shit
you’re the mustard to my hotdog
the banana to my split
Brenda Warren 2011
~~~~~~~~~~
Process Notes:
Hoping for a positive piece with the whirl words, I wound up here. Len and I exchanged heated words earlier in the week, and then a conflicted work schedule kept us away from one another. The angst of words left hanging drove this piece.  I’m certain the last two lines are not original, but then is anything, really?

Visit The Sunday Whirl, for some great reads using the twelve words that shaped my piece this week.

Mercy

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Battered hymnals agitate restlessness as
glaciers melt into clouds
carving stone across Earth’s face.
Sun over clouds
bruises peopled fields.
as  the choir’s amens feed her pulsing heart’s
delirium

and she falls to the ground.
Her tongue spews ancient
secrets of serpents and gardens
rich with the soil of everything
that is or is not what it claims to be.
She’s touched.

The other congregants call her “the tortured one.”

Afterwards she wakes
to the tremendous weight of
mercy in their eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Free verse for Form Monday at One Stop Poetry. Thank you to Shay for the prompt.