To a Gothic Church in Spring (ode)

Thy soaring ribbs and gaping nave Bought with the blood of peasants, But still a king becomes a slave Amidst your gorgeous presence. What songs you sing, what tales you tell To comfort the believer, Thy myths of heaven, threats of hell O brilliant deceiver! Thy stained glass windows tell a tale, Instructions for the masses, Through rain and hail thou still prevail Commanding hordes of asses. O windows lancet, windows rose; Filters of light and reason, What poet’s prose can thus expose A guilty mind of treason. “Some day they shall believe as I,” His words a dying flame, For every Bruno sent to die I ask “where is thy shame?” Pieta’s Lamenting piety, What cons have thou concealed, Yet I marvel with anxiety as though my fate were sealed. Thy reliquaries’ shine in vain, Beneath thy gothic arch, Who kneels before Rome’s Tree of pain Beware the Ides of March. What dismal deeds of dogma’s dread, Born of blind filial duty, But I broke my stead and bowed my head, stood still and marveled at thy beauty.

gene16180

My muse can be unseemly and nomadic although she fancies meter and good rhyme, her diligence and output are sporadic, and some may say she’s moving past her prime. At times she’s off consorting with the sages reflecting on existence, as it were, At...

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