haiku

cobwebs from corners
through treasured icons reaches
for my dusty soul

"benign mother" excerpts

fiendish gloom robs heart of its warmth;
thoughts have turned pale and cold
sole query does my mind raise
"Has the spring lomg way to come"
robed in anguish, wake i, all days
sighing over duties undone, prayers unsaid.
sins make a grim dance on my eyes,
wonder how large a troupe they are.
i don a cloak of ritual penance
still withholding my goodness,
makes unfeeling vows before Lord
knowing each word waits to be broken

ad libs

the old organ reworked
had sung with the cantor,
an incognito i've never seen,
before the sexton dumped it.
now pedals fitted, bellows mend
keys reset, lid hinged, polished over
it finds a place of rest
by the wall of the prayer room.
uncle's boy wss playing tenor
with bass accompaniments after
his lessons was a rare sight
even more as he left the place.
when i sit working the pedals
groping keys with a single hand
it's nothing but a puerile vigour
or unquenched curiosity, not more.

the statuette of sancta dymphna

I found her in a trashcan
nose, chin, pedestal chipped off
the sword still thrust down, in hand,
showing what she is composed of.
there was not she used to be
she was in a nook in the niche,
overhearing the pious pleas we
at the Lord and His Mother unleash.
when i retieved , she was decapitated
thought i'd fix it with a dab of glue.
her ancient broadsword incapacitated
we have to forge one new in lieu
to connive this inadvertent iconoclasm,
to fracture these embodiments in plaster
that sooner we may gaze at chasms,
our ways to the heights hamper.