THE CAPUCHINS by Rahman, brigitte arlette

from Anataalie's Dream Plantations

At dusk, the capuchins
walk through the walls of silence
tripping over a ground made weak
by the burden of a prayer no longer
sang away by the opium-fed masses.

the chalice wears the roughest hair shirt
a mad race to humiliation, a trance lying
on three hard boards
Where are the sheep? Where is the wolf?

The weight of human ego broke
the existentialist wheel into a flat ground
four columns of monks to keep the roof
of a pagan ritual, vertical and haughty.

Ecstasies of the soul are left to fend for themselves
in a confessional omission.
cells of stones drowned in nihilism.
A bell keeps ringing deep in human conscience
the smelling salt of the sublime is few

Copyrighted Rahman,brigitte arlette