Tag: Royal Rhodes

“3 of Hearts” by Royal Rhodes

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

Foolish heart, the tell-tale signs that show
discordant tempo: what was cordial, pumping
back and forth, constricting, then a slow
relaxing, fail in flushing blood. The thumping,
twitching quickly, like contrition late,
stops, a flat line, not a rhythmic wave.
Structured in a diamond pattern, plate
by plate of muscle died. It could not save
itself. For years, like cannibals who eat
their victim’s heart, I gorged upon my own.
Sad, resigned, abandoned to defeat,
the hardened heart had closed to be alone.
And then that rigor mortis ended. Life
began, as love became the surgeon’s knife.

Riven heart, the driver killed today,
crushed by steel, required “jaws of life”
to fight the jaws of death. They found a way
to extricate a heart, and someone’s wife
became a widow, as they scissored clothes
with shears, honed to cut through skin and bone,
to find that heart, and — cutting — then dispose
of mine, the broken one, the vessel grown
deficient in its task, a vital symbol
linked to all that life had come to lack,
badly patched by needle, thread, and thimble.
While naked, I was stretched upon my back.
 From cavity to cavity the soul
filled me with the fractured life I stole.

A rococo box, built of glass and gilt,
exposes on dusty velvet a dried-out heart,
with linen strips on which its blood was spilt
and sopped. Police let a fervent crowd depart,
that had joined when executioners dismembered
the rebel whose death was later termed a miracle,
but whose metric lines were burned, and none remembered.
 From the gallows the dying eye, wide and spherical,
imprinted the faces of men and angels upon
the blood that sealed the heart, and later found
inside its sheltered chambers, like the fawn
who bore a lost child’s name when run to ground.
And when I kiss your sleeping heart, that kiss
raises blood, a relic from our bliss.




Royal Rhodes is a retired educator who lives in a village in the midst of farmland in Ohio. His poems have appeared in: Sparks of Calliope, Last Stanza, Ekstasis, Ekphrastic Review, Club Plum, and others.

Two Poems by Royal Rhodes

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

Afternoon Prayer

“We alone, a little flock,
   The few who still remain…”
                        –Amish Hymn

The county road that carried us north
    bordered a nearby field of mown hay,
       the second-cut stacked in peculiar bundles —

the mark of this plain folk, and the tedding
    shortly after the cutting that speeded drying,
       and the binding, like their own binding.

Our driver thought it was a herd of cows
    kneeling in the meadow, an incomplete Eden,
       distant from the other work of silo filling.

On the way back to our village homes
    we saw a great hay wagon slowly move
       in a pageant of toil, making the field a church.

Twin draft horses on strict six-hour shifts
    sweated in harness, as their hot manure
       dropped on the famished soil and stubble.

This was a broad bowl of earthy smells:
    honeysuckle, mown hay, some cast-off strawberries,
       while bearded men in wide-brimmed hats kept watch.

Edging this scene were tangled hedges and trees,
    a plant catalog of coltsfoot, wild geranium,
       Quaker ladies, Queen Anne’s lace, and ironweed.

The world deftly constructed here was a vast nest
    of goldfinch, cardinals, blue-jays, warblers,
       bluebirds, purple martins, dragonflies, and bees.

“O God Father we praise you,” their hymn of humility,
    was acted out in front of us as we passed,
       in the sadness and uncertainty of our seasons.

They came to this place, bonding with the land,
    and were taught by the phases of the luminous moon
       and wind currents to judge seed-time and harvest.

We slowed down, for just a moment, but could not hear
    the old German they spoke, stunned by God,
       as I trembled, knowing I heard nothing.


Voice from the Whirlwind

The storm never knew to stop
worrying the sagging roof,
the wind indifferent
that this is where I live —
but kept on battering
the silver metal sheets
set by Amish carpenters.

Death, distracted, passed me
overhead — for now —
where poems have acted
as a temporary guard,
as the vortex whipped,
lashed, and slammed
in whirlpool motion.

I left the shredded poems
where they fell with lumber
that could have made
a crucifix with broken nails.
Quiet came, as if a gift
of some departed spirit
that made the heartwood beat.

My heart will break — and has —
all vows that made me see
the temporary life I had
and would not always be
that showed as if I could
rest my head beside your head
and feel your wordless breath.




Royal Rhodes is a retired professor who taught classes in global religions, the Classics, religion & the arts, and death & dying. His poetry has appeared online and in a series of art/poetry collaborations for The Catbird [on the Yadkin] Press in North Carolina. His current project is a poetry/photography collaboration on sacred sites in Italy.

Two Poems by Royal Rhodes

~ Randal A. Burd, Jr. ~ Leave a comment

Dying Languages Archived

Collecting dying languages at risk
from Mongol tribes, Nigeria, Nepal,
linguists try to digitize in brisk,
efficient ways before we lose them all,
to capture mythic chants like butterflies,
dead and instantly available.
The “nuts and bolts” of cultures lost will rise,
with vocal repertoires made saleable.
Their videos show shamans with their tools
living on the margins, while disasters,
famine, shaky governments of fools
allow the loss, a vacuum newer masters
fill. But words have motion, color, scent,
not categories that we just invent.


Coroner’s Report: 1569

The county coroner’s report
described the victim’s drowning

in the nearby river Salwarpe,
not far from Stratford-upon-Avon.

“By reason of collecting and holding out
certain flowers…’yellow boddles’

growing on the bank of a certain
small channel…called Upton myll pond

…about the eighth hour after noon
suddenly and by misfortune fell

and then and there she instantly died.”

Perhaps, perhaps such domestic details
often with their roots in village gossip

gave the resident playwright gist
to fell his own forlorn, mad heroine

in a brook, while she clutched tight
garlands of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies,

and sang in the still waters “snatches
of old tunes,” until her waterlogged dress

dragged her under to a silent death.

No one bothered to write a play about
those killed by performing bears, or those

dead wrestling, tossing a ball, bell ringing,
or lobbing a sledgehammer for sport.

Only this child, a girl holding certain flowers.




Royal Rhodes is a retired professor who taught classes in global religions, the Classics, religion & the arts, and death & dying. His poetry has appeared online and in a series of art/poetry collaborations for The Catbird [on the Yadkin] Press in North Carolina. His current project is a poetry/photography collaboration on sacred sites in Italy.