Poetry — Dustin R. Cummings

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A languid eye peers through a fractured lens

Toward a galaxy whose void portends

Time suspended in primal quiescence

Uncharted worlds approach evanescence

A spirit transcends the dark solitude

Lone heartbeat against the vast magnitude

Hope drifting beneath the cosmic aegis

Home revealed in a starry interstice

Dustin R. Cummings

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Cryptic words inked in a scholar’s letters

Unshackle irons of earthy fetters

Fiery breath shakes the dusts of an eon

Piercing eyes glimpse an ancient halcyon

Clouds break beneath wings of a chimera

Unchained flight into the ephemera

Dustin R. Cummings

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Night descends upon a once anointed nation

Its founding covenant blind to rank and station

Native heirs exiled to the edge of omission

Rugged continent tamed to brutal submission

Untold black lives stolen in an empire’s scramble

Yolked in servitude beneath a false preamble

Men wage war to sustain liberty’s creation

Rooted injustice rots a fragile foundation

Serf and scion journey from the kingdoms of yore

Finding sanctuary upon a teeming shore

Civilization of every race and people

Equal prayers whispered underneath dome and steeple

Where temples of new wealth and gleaming spires abound

The unanswered history seeps through faulted ground

Time’s passage buries whip, chain and iron collar

Replaced by bonds of coin and almighty dollar

An unending race toward fleeting prosperity

Such unequal fates clothed in blind temerity

People of color struggle in these lands claimed free

Our bodies crushed under cudgel and bended knee

A colossus finds its bravery contested

Souls of the disenfranchised remain unrested

A mythos steeped in abundance and creation

Lacking the will to face its creeping stagnation

Standing at a precipice of its own making

Lofty ideals threatened, its unity breaking

They who found life anew, an old world in their wake

Will build a new future unbound by past mistake

The mold recast, a bold republic forged as kin

Heals the endeavor, imperfect in origin

Dustin R. Cummings

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Beneath a veiled sky, its doomed specter cast

Remnants of worlds, from noble eras past

Conquest of empires beyond heaven’s shroud

Legacy of ages, all heirs bear proud

Glittering cities rise on gilded dunes

Faulted foundations shatter hallowed runes

Ordained scepters rule a starry expanse

Unto sovereign voids, stained shields advance

A new dominion, its reign established

Eons quake, as old kingdoms fall vanquished

Innocents perish on a bloodied shore

An enlightened land fades to ancient lore

Sage tribes exiled to history’s refrain

Fire transcends ice, true virtues sustain

Dustin R. Cummings

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Within the edges of a baroque frame

Observes the visage of a once grand dame

Through a clouded pane of glass, keen eyes stare

Engaging her passersby unaware

Swathed in silk, sapphire and cloaked in ermine

She sits enthroned under the shaded vine

Amid artifacts of earthly glory

Her last portrait guards an untold story

Dustin R. Cummings

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Beneath the broad arc of a starry sky

Spectral trails descend to horizons nigh

An ancient elegy in astral light

Distant echoes awake the solemn night

Darkened voids yield a lonely entity

Brilliant flames consume the rare oddity

Dustin R. Cummings

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Whispers of an intemperate zephyr

Shake the snowy boughs of an ancient fir

Steely skies shed cold flakes most crystalline

Dusk falls upon hushed fields of porcelain

Forests transformed to frigid cathedrals

Spires coated in divine polyhedrals

Awed sojourners behold winter’s candor

A frozen hymn unto fleeting splendor

Dustin R. Cummings

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Beneath the starlit sky, gloved hands unfurl

Revealing a gem from an unknown world

Facets gleam with foreign constellations

Primeval fire of untold creations

Spectral rays tame fierce wind and cresting wave

Forces reunite in hidden conclave

Mysteries of heaven and earth held rapt

Enchanted by the brilliant periapt

Dustin R. Cummings

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Upon faith unshaken stands a fortress

Hills cradle stones of its flying buttress

Muted rays filter through fractured stained glass

Granite walls echo in a final mass

Gnarled roots climb stairways of exaltation

Ascending a path to true salvation

Shattered transepts mourn, groaning as they fall

Dust settles upon works, both great and small

Sacred hosts its reliquaries enshrine

Majesty in tellurian decline

Dustin R. Cummings

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Mountains crushed under eons’ collision

Lands recede in continents’ division

Abundance sheltered by a deep harbor

Tales of fabled wealth stoke distant ardor

A hilly isle cast between two rivers

Guns prevail against arrows and quivers

Waters ebb from fertile field, marsh and reed

Nature parceled into contract and deed

Terrain transformed in wielded mastery

Bridges threaded in stirring tapestry

Trains vault through tunnels carved by calloused hands

Progress amid the geologic bands

Broad ways refashioned in steel and concrete

Towers soar skyward in a daring feat

A vertical grid bursting at its seam

Lofty pinnacle of a new world’s dream

Rising tides of a human mosaic

Imbued with energies most voltaic

Chase earthly desires in their frenzied march

Beneath the keystone of a gothic arch

Prospering in liberty rarely found

Gazes lifted to horizons unbound

Dustin R. Cummings

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Clouded skies brighten in unfurled daybreak

Ripples tease the shores of a hidden lake

Sunbeams guide a gossamer winged squadron

Beneath boughs of a sequoiadendron

Avian voices chant an opera

As they chase agile anisoptera

Tradewinds whisper hints of a new season

Young hooves stir a fragile cotyledon

The air crackles with a thunderous bolt

Smoke rises as the chrysalides molt

Scattered embers conjure smoldering fires

Towering flames consume leafy empires

Troides flutter amid the burning sash

Delicate colors seared by glowing ash

A heartbeat stayed in an anguished moment

Paradise destroyed in solemn foment

Silent valleys bear a scorching stigma

Martyrs in a climate’s changed enigma

Nature’s altered balance, charred soils reclaim

Life sempiternal, in time’s fleeting frame

Dustin R. Cummings