Film Photography > Poetry

Placing a feather in the hand of Joan of arc
(Part one)

Kiss the effigy of St Joan
upon the cheek
Before the priest ushers you to the streets.

Place a found feather into the immovable hand of a female saint
To leave the gift of freedom, fragility and birth
to build modern

miracles.

Obstacles can be overcome if you leap with a personal faith.
Believe in something beyond the opulence of gathering the object
Of empty desire.

Pick up the fallen pine cones.

Before all the seeds are all gone
And the earth is tired of breaking
In two or one thousand brittle
Pieces for oil.

Build the home of the heart!

Before the obscurity
Makes you regret
Each step not taken
Before you forget

The music that gave you
Hope in nothingness.

There are many ways of seeing,
The romantic season of stillness
In glass artifacts.

Beyond the subliminal
Screens
Swiped away imaginary
Tears cannot be revered,
Or cherished or polished.

The flesh bent against the bone,
And you reached with every dramatic
Action
To make the world less painful
For those around you.

Sympathy is a role for all
And compassion is the maker
Of magnificence.

When the immovable heart
Discarded everything
Because it was broken
Beyond repair
And the fragile angels
Took the needle
Or the crystal
And rolled into a ball.

(Part two)

We must care of the obliterated
the obsolete
The lame and those,
That blame themselves
Because they were never
Loved
Properly.

A piece of a broken sunbeam
Traces saint Joan's
Cement cheek
No one is there to see the
Tear roll upon her chipped feet

The homeless woman
Lays half off the curb with her backpack and blanket
giving up
And completely
In the rapture of
Despair

They walk around her restless
Body and don't wish to observe
A strangers pain

They only dream of sex or making it is
Big on the roulette wheel
Of chances
You must drop your chips into the sunken
Ships of addiction.

The man drums on plastic bins
Another sings for his supper
While they sell the walking dead
To tourists

Someone screams on a zip line.

It all eventually dries up
The bones lay on
sand bleached
And it swells and aches

They breach the mall doors and buy Vuitton Identity
or Guerlain perfume
No material will count
When you are gone

And the fake lawns have artificial
Intelligence singing ballads
Of drunkards and the broken
Pop songs are finely auto tuned
While a autonomous sleeps

And Alexa directs the funeral
Procession
Into a dark cloud of fire and fear

and the sisterhood of St. Joan rises!

Please hold those dear
An try to discuss what
Bird just trilled over the cars
Racing beyond all money

You might think it's funny
When the comedian spins
The joke to help you cope

When you are reminded how finite
And precious everything is
When the OLED screens took
Over your dreams.

Francis A Willey
Jan 10
2019

Placing a feather in the hand of Joan of arc
poetry
2019