Basilica of The Sacred Heart (The Workout Suite)

The original version of Basilica of The Sacred Heart has been published in All of Me Vol. IV, courtesy of Shadow Spark Publishing. Featured photography is by Jenny Hayut. You can listen to her spoken poetry here.

Listen to Basilica of The Sacred Heart by Richard Charles Stevens (The Workout Suite)

Listen to The Workout by Nightrun87

Their widened eyes first met
Upon the hallowed steps of chance
Beneath the venerated spire
Admired through fleeting glance
No retreat to beat advance
Faith unseated
Weaving yarn
Darning dream from darling scene
To bid proceed with mystic charm
Upon the hallowed steps of chance
Two bleeding hearts made sacred vow
To nevermore resign of inner calm
To find forevermore in wingèd arms

Time appeared to fall away
Before the gushing waterway
Across the way in plume of spray
To left and right their comrades laid
Lion hearts on mounts displayed
To further tout the boundless frame
Farther out than wildest dream
This scene they set of winding streams
Its theme bedecked in evergreen devout
To which extreme
The king and queen in each proceeded freely breathing out

The greatest love of all loves known
Was known then
In an instant
Learned souls omniscient
Entirely coexistent
In enrichment of the mortal coils of which they had outgrown
This was single vision
This was infinite provision
These were breaths in woven ribbon
And the death of woes forbidden
As they rose from throes imprisoned with precision of a Griffon
This was nevermore unwritten
This was home
The only home their souls had ever known

Soaring the abiding skies
Exploring ways to greater rise
Reprise safe flight with faith divine to decimate dividing line
Had they harboured grave designs
The candelabra would have died
Instead its flame gained altitude
With scope to broadest latitude
Each hopeful dream then realized
Through widened eyes of gratitude
No reason for a parachute
No cause for bourgeois attitude
Just solitary treasured bloom
Measureless in magnitude

Insecure to no degree
For they were both seen and believed
Sacred hearts of two reprieved from deep internal bleeds obscene
Had neither been so keen to dream
Then neither would have woken
This woven ribbon
Would have been forbidden
In the moment
Instead they rose akin to Griffon
Learned souls omniscient
Entirely coexistent
Undeniably enriching
No retreat to beat advance
Faith unseated
Weaving yarn
Darning dream from darling scene
To bid proceed with mystic charm
Theirs was single vision
Theirs was infinite provision
Theirs was nevermore unwritten
The Basilica
And very simply home
The only home their souls had ever known