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Chapel Perilous

An experiment in the "Hyperion" verse form.

By J.B. TonerPublished 3 years ago 1 min read
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Two deep slow bongs, the steeple’s song

That keeps a long night vigil here

O’er slain conclaves in rainswept graves

And saints’ stone glaives and granite spears.

The nave’s dark stained-glass cave, domain

Of ravens, faintly throbs with tears

Downflung from weeping-wrung cloud-heaps

Among the sleeping stars and spheres.

The unpent groans from thunder’s throne

In sunless zones away up there—

White fire and wrack from spires of black,

The ire of crackling hosts of air.

Rain smacks the mire, attacks the tired

Old stacks of briars that catch and tear;

Wind moans through sundered stone undone

By lonely running years, stripped bare.

A catacomb, the bats’ dark home,

Where scattered bones lie everywhere,

Reverberates with turgid spates

That murmur latent formless prayers;

And gates where earthen fate, interred,

Awaits a word to break despair

Grow loam-fed grass in foaming baths

From gloam-lit paths where storm crows fare.

nature poetry
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About the Creator

J.B. Toner

J.B. Toner studied Literature at Thomas More College, holds a black belt in Kenpo-Jujitsu, and struggles with level one autism. He has published two novels, Whisper Music and The Shoreless Sea. Toner lives and works in Massachusetts.

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