An Exhausting Day

in step with peasant
monarch, revolutionary
exploring history, adorning wall
floor and ceiling, embodied
in marble, paint, plaster
a bastion to the ego
of the profound
a cache of, often
brutal, human memory

photo and poem © 2016

Heaven’s Empyrean

of straining one’s neck to view
of gilt and persistence
of detail and industry
of commitment upon high
of seeing heavenly reward
of religiosity
of failing to influence
of superficial construct

Photo and poem (c) by DC Lessoway

Pontifical Academy of Fine Arts and Letters of the Virtuosi al Pantheon

encapsulated rotund construction
built upon pagan consecrated rock
swapped to the cross millennia ago
artisans crafting stone, edifice, thought
they anointed, appointed dal papa

Photo and poem (c) DC Lessoway