MM's IBPC Selections for April Competition, No Poll required Options

[Cleo_Serapis]

Hi all,

We have 3 nominations that have been approved to go to the IBPC this month, therefore no poll is required.

Best of luck everyone!



Ciaron's Dream by Larry D. Jennings

Cluain Mhic Nois

Three saints stand watch o’er northern gate
to meadows of the sons of Nor
where chiefs and warriors laid in state
‘neath green and gorse of Shannon’s shore.

Thrice buttressed path from Ciaron’s hand
led all who trod this hallowed place
to masters, teaching in that land
a higher learning, pious grace

within a stark monastic clime.
The centuries are on display
from crypts and castles built through time
to broken cross in disarray.

A place of temples, church and walls
with blessings sprinkled on the ground,
the last High King rests in these halls
until the horns of Heaven sound.

Fair Erin, ravaged from afar
by Viking’s axe and Norman's blade,
returns to beauty from each scar
more lovely, strong and unafraid.




Crypt-Keepers’ Irony by Lorraine M. Kanter

He wanders tombs through dark of night
in search of treasures to alight
a path to riches, sweet perfumes.
Through dark of night, he wanders tombs.

This thirst he seldom seems to quench
consuming dust’s archaic stench
whilst raiding chambers, sneers death’s curse...
he seldom seems to quench this thirst.

Inscriptions warn of punishment
in frail hereafter: life’s lament
defiled - lest one Pharaoh’s scorn
of punishment, inscriptions warn.

Adorned facade discreetly hid
Necropolis’ broken lid
that once beheld doubt’s living god --
discreetly hid, adorned facade.

In Thebes amid disunity,
Stonemasons’ opportunity
is shared in Nile’s mild reeds
amid disunity -- in Thebes.

Crypt-keepers feign incompetence
whitewashed in deben bribe's defense
while Ma’at is droned through priestly reign;
incompetence -- crypt-keepers feign.

This irony remains today,
the ones in power do betray
a nourishing of Ka campaigns.
Today, this irony remains.


Footnotes:
Necropolis: An extensive and elaborate burial place serving an ancient city.

Deben: A measurement of cost used as the unit of value for exchange.

Ma’at: The concept of order, truth and justice. After death, a person's soul is weighed against the feather of Ma'at to determine their fate in the afterworld.

ka (in Ancient Egyptian Religion): A spiritual ‘double’ of the deceased, living within the body during life, and surviving the body after death. It was believed to be one of two spirits inhabiting the body, the main component of the soul. The ka is closely tied with the ba, the personality or psychic force of the deceased.




GAIA by Sylvia Maclagan


To unwind, to dream,
beneath the canopy of a willow-tree!
I wander your prairies, Gaia,
picture sunflowers smile
at summer skies,
charting the sun’s orbit till nightfall.

Vast terrains pretend to slumber,
guarded by languid owl-eyes
stalking slinky felines
and other unseen creatures of night.

I sleep beneath my leafy umbrella
as frogs croak the onset of dawn,
heralding showers flirting with rainbows.
In dreams I circumnavigate
mountain lakes, sight naissance of rivers.

I recite poems that nobody wrote,
wondrous words dormant in memories of the dead.
I gaze at Gothic cathedrals, the Taj Mahal,
Roman aqueducts dominating Italic olive groves,
Alexandria’s library perished beneath the sea.

Libelious lies and carnage disrupt my trance.

Where has love gone,
where the chubby toes of children?
Why does blossom wither by waysides?
Nuclear submarines inflame sapphire seas…

I've shared hope with shipwrecked migrants,
blending homage and heartache.
I am a refugee seeking a fresh life,
or just life...
I dream the dreams of all men.

I conjure up dust-bowls on Austral steppes,
Amazonia gutted by russet roads,
thawing glaciers thunder Andean slopes.

Ice cubes tremble in my crystal tumbler,
as I offer a toast to Gaia,
to mystery, unreason, riddles,
the paradox of her existence in space-time,
to reality.

Reality is the destruction I have caused her.
It is mourning a death foretold,
though Death is not her death
but mine.