Five Poems by Joe Bisicchia

 

 

Dissipating Suns

 

Sun is a flower.

I go following all flowers

as they race

up the winding earthen path

until I am embraced

side by side

into their colour,

sure as I am here

as the world underneath slides. 

 

Our wars can come and go.

There is far more to us.

Horizon is just a line

never reached,

just is, as it was, and shall be.

 

There is immortality,

despite all the mortality.

I shall die with that belief.

And by mercy of grace,

never cease.

 

Time disappoints momentarily,

if not for seeds.

Therein, find me.

So soon, I have learned of infinity,

and how the one sun is same

for everyone.

 

 

Light

 

In the darkness, I run to You.

 

You see me long before the horizon,

and run to me.

 

 

Battle of the Milvian Bridge

 

See how the unstoppable sun rushes, glints off mettle as men are wont to rage. Wall of them arise with significance, this to scold and to scald my frail unveiled eyes. Beasts charge, they charge vibrant with mission meant for death as voices holler such songs of hatred breathless.

 

Under my breast plate I hold my children. They have endured until now though afraid,

wanting life, home, and all that springs forth by the river where now with mother they cry. The gods, of which earth hath made, will not linger. How might I?

 

O, that in the crossed lines nearby we may find our home beyond human hate where dwells divinity despite divide. All of existence is of thundered clay like my earthen heart, soon empty, soon dark. Outstretched, I know mortality reaches. Outstretched, their spears are meteors.

 

If only in the sky, its lines, its paradise, somehow we all may still ride as if to home.

 

 

Knight of the Solstice

 

Winter burns it thick as an eyelid

as life lingers asleep. The night sky

wears dense glass, armour, yet opens

with snow. Those in the firehouse

feel the warmth next to boots in a line.

Every knight sleeps tight with dreams

to save the world, sleeps ever ready

to slide down pole and uncover peace.

Barrier is thin between what is inside

and outside.

 

But it is now the ferocity of winter.

Glass blades its shards. Maybe every

night is longest. Maybe Truth never runs.

And we should run to it.

 

Pure the white snow of morning

when they find the dead baby

inside a duffel bag left outside this cold

fire station. The firehouse crew, ever ready

for the heat of flame, now here

in the innocence of shovelling away a path,

in the innocence of all that a child would want,

in snow angel’s depth and sleigh, find heartache

never to melt despite all the rock hard salt.

 

This is a safe place, “no questions asked,”

no risk of being identified. If only a knock

on the door. If only a contact made. If only

the final steps of the lifesaving law. If only

a knight knowing to see through the wall,

through cold, through life’s fight. If only

all the warmth of womb would be enough.

 

If only a divided world that numbs

would hold within a heart enough to save

the widening world that now grieves. If only,

where there is sadness, joy. If only,

even as so much goes unknown, if only

it could be known, heaven’s name of the angel

in the snow.

 

 

Good Morning

 

Alleluia is more than any spoken word.

Listen to the grace of the rising sun.

It lifts from within and amidst the pines.

Even if every voice is hidden, each is heard.

 

Spires the morning birdsong, the sparrows,

the creation in columns shared one by one.

Not just a joy of what is to come, but more,

a welcoming for all that always is and persists.

 

For this presence itself to be as this, is blessed.

Not just to be taken in, but to be given, again,

as this one opus, ongoing, the stuff of us.

Here is all that we are, despite depth of night.

 

All that we are, our oft forgetfulness now aside.

So goes our thankfulness, this song of praise.

So goes the song of the universe tall and wide,

wondrously simple, no matter here how small.

 

And gracious we can be for this new chance

as we rise and open our thankful hearts to sing.

And the world turns. And, yes, we arise

despite all imperfection, all the recurring hate.

 

Gone the darkness, nest to nest, to the light.

By the loving Lord of mercy, we are made.

And there is this, more than any spoken word—

grateful joy as our beings are singing alleluia.

Joe Bisicchia writes of our shared dynamic. An Honorable Mention recipient for the Fernando Rielo XXXII World Prize for Mystical Poetry, he has written three published collections of poetry as well as over two hundred individual works that have been published in over one hundred publications. His fourth collection is forthcoming from Cyberwit. To see more of his work, visit www.widewide.world.