Course of the Phoenix

Part I

Ashes spread, mend in flight,
rise above the steepled night,
soar beyond totems carved from creeds
and the fires of aimless greed,
slowly circle Wittenberg's idle stone,
wing past the towers of sleeping Rome.

Roost not in the tree of thy neighbor's deity,
perching always limits what you see...

Glide eastward wounded bird,
have you not heard
that we feed children smoke in place of bread,
make them drink bullets from fiery breasts,
swaddle them in icy skin,
prefer babies with missing limbs.

Missiles are often launched
from the holy waves of baptismal fonts,
as compassion comes to US easily,
watching the atrocities on color TVs,
yet more often grieved it seems
because we don't have larger screens.

Part II

I traded my bottle for a cross
giving thanks for the painful loss,
knelt at the altar to pray for more,
but the preacher bolted Heaven's door...

The Phoenix screamed from his tented cloud,
thunderous rage shocked the crowd,
"Grind marble and oak into a poultice,
sell your Bibles, feed the homeless."

Mutinous fowl, chose a bastard for our sage,
locked him in a gilded cage,
laid him in a tome bound in leather
written by a broken feather.

Last Sunday some mystic hijacked the book,
orange-red words erupted, the building shook,
an ink soaked man left the pages, rung the bell,
each pew was purged by holy hell.

Part III

Ashes spread, mend in flight,
rose above the steepled night,
From the Phoenix, the voice of Spring
"Finally, a living requiem.”

end/michael