Inspired by Syon House and the research of Vinzenz Brinkmann

Don the new self, created by God, 

in truth’s righteousness and holiness 

Ephesians 4:24 

True Colors

The Great Hall relished these moments to itself 

No more guides roting through Neoclassical exemplars 

No more tourists freezing the perfect memories in frames 

Nothing apparent but the Duke’s beloved blacks and whites

From the Dying Gaul hunched in Southern shadow 

To Apollo pedestaled in Northern bright

An empty checkerboard stretching between them

Until the sun rays slanting through the clerestory

Set fireworks exploding 

Green malachite 

Blue azurite

Red cinnabar 

Yellow and ocher from arsenic

Black of burned bone and vine

Reminders of the Greek aesthetic exposed 

To those willing to witness the gaudy truth

Little

"Oranges" by Gabbie Herzberg

My poem "Little" was published in the 2020 edition of Cedar Valley Divide.  The painting above is my favorite image from the journal, and it's hyperlinked to the journal's online version.

Learned about the Moonlight Towers on Power Trip, a PBS series

Ben Sklar for The New York Times

This is the judgment-

that the light has come into the cosmos

and the people loved the darkness 

more than the light

because their works were evil

     John 3: 19

The Moonlight Tower Accuses

Some Austinites 

say it was the buzzing

like hundreds of murder hornets in assembly

each mandible moving at once

reporting on the success of that day’s slaughter

Other Austonians 

say it was the burning

carbon ash floating beyond a circle 

with a radius of fifteen hundred feet

never sure where on what or who it would catch

Bu I know the truth was

the blinding

light of a thousand candles arcing over the streets

revealing every definite detail

they wished to obfuscate