LatinosUSA

They are a forever altar
and visiting them, we are altered
as the voices of those grounds
speak louder than any rock band like The Who.

It is the stories of our existence
of those that preceded us, and mattered
ranging far beyond any one culture
a sanctified parcel strong enough to hold
all our feet together
with Those That Came Before.

The facets to our thousand thousand cultures
is the duty Poets have to speak to
for those few seekers live
in the places most do not.

A place reverently constructed
to become the stony reminders
of the great deeds mankind is able to do.
A place to remember the sky fliers
whose bones lay beneath the ground now
while their spirits live on within us.

We have had that combat
wether it be one of blood and outcome (or not)
all of us have raised mausoleums from the earth
to commemorate the building for the lost, the inspired

those that tower above the ground
and draw us nigh, buttressed, to feel.
In the taking into our conscious thoughts
our souls grow because of the many blue depths there
reaching back into the stories, a telling of
the holdings our red hearts have.

There are many of us that need to hear the colors,
to be in the place of no one speaking in the awe of it.

The Falcon and The Deer are of the earth
even as we are, and we always return to it.

Previously published in Live Encounters, Bali in November 2024

Copyright © 2025 Ray Whitaker

All Rights Reserved

All writers and poets are writing out of «the Self» however there are directions that the self speaks into, that change. Now Ray’s writing is to put foremost in his work, just who he is writing for. He intends on writing for the everyday man and woman. He firmly believes that poems need to reach into the everyday person’s pictures in their minds, and engage with those. This is where he aims to make a difference in his creative writing. He’s fulfilled when he sees that his work is provoking thought in his readers. Ray has four books published, and two chapbooks. His work has been published in eleven different countries. Ray was a Delegate to the 2024 Writer’s International Panorama Festival this past January. He participates regularly with several zoom poetic events worldwide. Among them, he has been spotlighted on a US National Poetry broadcast from Quintessential Listening Poetry Online Radio In April, ’24; and also an International Poetry Recital hosted by The Fertile Minds out of India this past April 19th.  In July he is the reading featured poet in David Leo Sirois’ Spoken World Online, associated with Spoken Word Paris.