Act 1: Hear My Voice Flying

Susan Purr:
Here
The line between silence and sound
An altar bound in gold for genuflection
Hear my voice -
Flying

(Let us kneel. Let us stand.)

(Hear my voice flying…)

Jacquie Roberts:
Bones broken to heal
Bearing wounds
Bearing scars
Sinew stretched
Letting me sink low
A supplicant.

(Hear my voice flying…)

Blood bleeds from old offerings
Surfacing guttural moans
Crying out
Please
This is my body
Dissect its parts
It’s everything I have to give

(Let us kneel. Let us stand.)

(Hear my voice flying…)

Todd Rokholm:
Out of my own freedom
I am coerced
To tender my last currency.

I did not bend, but I broke
Never forget that

(I did not bend)

I did not bend, but I broke
Never forget that

N.T. Valentin:
Discordant rhythm
Has driven me to my knees

I offer no devotions
Hurried along,
Riding an empty vessel,
Evading the fringe

How does one
Begin to be saved?



Act 2: As Changeable As Our Stars/Iambic Bundles

Nina Loard:
I stand

Come
Swift deliverance
Decades spent
Bent bone to brick

What shatterings lay,
A touch unexpected
Hands pressed,
Urging rise and be counted

Though these knees falter
The will, grown weary
He, a hair’s breath
Oceanic
A re-written catechism
As changeable as our stars

I stand


Trish Hennessy:
Neither deity, nor despot
Lay claim to our veneration.

Jacquie Roberts:
(This is my body. Dissect its parts. It’s everything I have to give)

Trish Hennessy:
Benediction bestowed
By coffee on a cold morning.
Rhapsodic melodies,
A sacred invocation to the soul.

Jacquie Roberts:
(Blood bleeds from old offerings. Surfacing guttural moans, crying out…Please.)

Trish Hennessy:
Two devoted equals
Lying prostrate together
Transcend divinity.

Nina Loard:
(A re-written catechism as changeable as our stars. I stand.)


Jim C. Mackintosh:
I wait in the calm of rustled space
On solid ground, a vagrants place
A wooden bolt where words mature
In peace from rumbling clouds, sure

Of foot, iambic bundles in nurtured books
Stacked to the rafters, jammed in nooks
To ride the storm brewing beyond
The crook of Ben, and mill yard pond.

A fiddle bow stroked soft and pure
Scores the air, warm and sure
In the light of dead heroes might
Standing on battled rocks bright

Filled with pride, of songs and stories
Of frothing seas and dreadful glories
The deep belly roar of distant waves
Shuddering the paths to heroes graves

Bathed in the hypnotic icy glare
The sentry lighthouse guards with care
Like spears of warriors gone, pines tilt
To rattle the frames with barrelled lilt.

I raise a glass, a respectful toast
A bend of knee, a genuflect at most.
To them, the company of the brave
In storms cathedral, I pray they be safe.


Pleasant Street:
I watch us from atop this wall
it took me years to scale

Did wishing bring my toes
to the edge of the precipice?
Will reverent prayer make it small
beneath my feet?



Act 3: Master’s House/How Does One Begin to Be Saved?


Roger Litherland:
A new civilization rising above the labels of nations.

Get up off your knees and rise,
There won’t be any compromise.
And when the demons run amok
And try to darken our skies,
Our music, art and poetry will neutralize
Their attempts to terrorize,
Further accelerating their demise.

(Get up off your knees and rise…)

N.T. Valentin:
Discordant rhythm
Has driven me to my knees

I offer no devotions
Hurried along,
Riding an empty vessel,
Evading the fringe

How does one
Begin to be saved?


Tara Fleur:
She, tournequed,
with red silk to a rubber chair;
A soft beauty, pale skin,
appetising arms.
Washed in preparation
with women’s bows
and a purring, dirty love.
She is now ready for him,
Him,
He enters the feast.
Cannulas, needle sharp,
invasive,
enter her unscarred hands.

Roger Litherland: (Get up off your knees and rise…)

Tara Fleur:
Tubes, wait patiently
in perfectly trembling veins
Infused, pumped up pantings
beckons her heart
to a pressured, groaning rhyme.
Breathless salivations,
Sub-servient salvations in black bondage.
Her blood is spilled for us.

Roger Litherland: (Get up off your knees and rise…)

Tara Fleur:
Bow down, now, new flesh
We, your sisters, are hungry.
Shall we menu you soon.
“Pretty one”
In the darkest corner of the room
Master’s house of kinky doom.


N.T. Valentin:
How does one
Begin to be saved?



Act 4: The Edge of the Precipice/Let Us Kneel, Let Us Stand

Pleasant Street:
Did wishing bring my toes
to the edge of the precipice?
Will reverent prayer make it small
beneath my feet?


(Hear my voice flying…)

Let us kneel.
Let us stand.