Onyx Rose: A Collection of Poetry and Prose

By Radomir Vojtech Luza

Onyx Rose

Onyx Rose bathes in imagery, passion, and beauty that changes lives.

The metaphors and similes are unique and rare.

Breathing rarefied air, this collection motivates you to think while acting and weep while laughing.

The philosophy and metaphysics are complicated yet simple, swaying reason and underscoring logic.

This verse is humanity squared.

It gazes into God's stained glass eyeballs while searching for the human heartbeat and soul hymn.

As the son of two Czech WWII heroes, Radomir Vojtech Luza understands patriotism, love of politics, labor, and art.

He lives to write poetry. There is nothing else he would rather be doing. He sings the body poetic.

His passion for the written and spoken word has turned him into the prolific, award-winning poet he is.

The thirty-one books (twenty-seven collections of poetry) this poet laureate and Pushcart Prize nominee has written, prove that he is prepared and equipped philosophically, intellectually, and metaphysically to pen a poetic tome of this depth, clarity, and resonance.

Onyx Rose is substantive and wild.

It touches on America today, crazy and curious.

The poetry is raw, naked, profound, and deeply specific, molesting myths and raping riverbeds of retreat.

This collection opens doors that were previously closed shut, putting it back in the high life again.

Onyx Rose lets love lead the way, for better or worse, displaying an original and uncommon style aimed at verse true, tender and timeless.

This is a lion looking for red meat, a shark crushing thigh and bone, oh, so sweet.

Radomir Vojtech Luza--April 25, 2020

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781639614738

Book preview

Happy People

There are almost no happy people

At the Palace Station Hotel and Casino

Tonight

Hidden beneath stairwells and alcoves

They breathe the air of wonder

The oxygen of cake

Here in Las Vegas

They understand that

Love cannot be found

On toss of dice or

Unforgiven vice

The joyous in Sin City

Are not about

Money

Fame

Anyone to blame

They are

They exist

In nooks, corners, and crannies

Of their own making

Large enough to

Sow a deeper seed

Reeking of no greed or

Unforsaken need

Big Mac Lack

Across from Palace Station Hotel and Casino

In Las Vegas

McDonald’s burns the yellow arches

All day and night

The fuzzy faced

Thin white man

Mutters to himself

With underwear exposed and

Soul transposed

As he sits at a table

On the back porch

Overseeing customers

As they walk in

He is young

But looks much older

Skin cracking

Tennis shoes falling apart

Nails long and sharp

Shirt dirty

Jeans too large

I wonder how much longer

Before arrest

Or institutionalization

A younger Caucasian man

In black T-shirt and shorts comes in later

Asking me a dumb question

Something about having ordered already

I turn around and

Hammer him verbally

He bites his nails

I walk away

Black man in white shorts and

Dark-blue shirt

Enters men’s bathroom at least

Five times and

Women’s bathroom twice

Before being escorted out

By female employee

Young woman with long hair and

Short alabaster shorts

Charges phone in front of store

At only outlet

Later, she charges phone again

In ladies bathroom

Getting what she needs

She animatedly talks into phone outside

Next to Drive Thru sign

Walking back and forth

Hair bouncing on back

Phone an inch from lips

She heads out into the night

Confronting demons only she can slay

At 10:16 in the evening

My fiancé, Patricia and I leave

Having seen but the beginning

The end seems incomprehensible

Having walked in the desert

The forest appears a mirage as well

Gray leading to green

Brown turning black

Las Vegas Lullaby

Cars SUV’s and eighteen wheelers

Slide down 1–15

On this Sunday morning

The city that never sleeps

Snores under Winter’s

Blankets and

Dawn’s pillows

It beats head

Against sunrays and

Scratches stomach of

Morning daze

Frank Sinatra Boulevard is empty

Caesar’s Palace asleep

Gamblers, girls, and gargoyles roam Las Vegas Boulevard

Looking for satisfaction

Or at least a plan of action

Buying T-shirts and hoodies from souvenir shops that are not

As significant or large in the daytime

This is Las Vegas

Sister of salience

Brother of imbalance

Hot and cold

Bought and sold

The center of centers

Pinnacle of peacocks

Get down on your knees and pray

Only time can carry you away

Lobby of Love

In the lobby of

The Palace Station Hotel and Casino

In Las Vegas

Even the garbage cans are clean

People walk past the

Huge Christmas tree

Which touches the ceiling

As if the holiday season hardly mattered

All in a hurry

They ignore the olive branches and

Handmade decorations

Caucasian women with cleavage hanging out of

Their unbuttoned shirts

Walk past me in my wheelchair

Young African American men

With their belts hanging below their underwear

Move past me while looking in my eyes

With an acknowledging nod

The sound of slot machines

Never far away

The lobby is a respite

From all evils red, yellow, orange, green, and blue

A guardian angel from the sharp thorns of

This one worship town

The uterus holding and

Caressing me before releasing me

Back to purgatory

Missing Me in Sin City

As the sun sets

Over the strip

In Las Vegas

Clouds dark red

Sky daiquiri green

I miss what I was

Who I was

Miss the past

The very position I once held

I should be grateful

But I am not

I should be happy

Everyone tells me

I should look to the future

While thriving in the present

But I fear getting older

Like the mountains

Are afraid of time

The animals

Their fate

They tell me to be content

With what I have

But I am miserable

And sad

Like a caged prisoner

Longing for what he was

Harking for the stubborn sun

Eclipsed like my soul

Once More

As midafternoon

Sets over Las Vegas

The demons depart

The confidence returns

Like the sun

Warm and comfortable

The hanging dogs

Find their light

The self-esteem is back

Nothing matters

It never did

Only love and anguish

The burden they lift

Mushrooms they grow

The meadow strawberry red

Moon blonde

My hands tremble no longer

The passion for poetry is once more

Like some great pyramid

Rising from the rubble

A New York City skyscraper

Tickling the cereal box sky

Sacred Skin

At 12:09 a.m.

On this Saturday morning

The Palace Station

Hotel and Casino

In Las Vegas

Is quiet and mournful

Like an abandoned rainbow

Still and old

Like a Stradivarius

Smoke wafting

Through the tranquil air

Like music from

Slot machines

The late November

Christmas tree

Stands in the lobby corner

It touches the ceiling

For children

To misunderstand

Starting in the stomach

This town has flavor

Rising from the dead

Kissing the dark

Living to dance

At the Palace Station

Even the broken

Are fixed

The taken returned

The molested repaired

The disfigured transformed

The different made same

Fried Chicken High

Grand Canyon sky

Over 1–15

In Las Vegas

Mountaintops

Touching clouds

Orange juice horizon

Topping Treasure Island Casino

Redwood shadow

Boulevard meadow

Stripes of sanity

Bleeding morning vanity

Lost in deepest beige rhapsody

Like insane jealousy

A meditation on tranquility

Leading to rusting reality

Above neon Nile

Below bulb dial

Opening soul vial

Rainbow file

Banality will not

Take your smile

Breathing in Las Vegas

I am walking here in Las Vegas

My Las Vegas

I am breathing here in Las Vegas

Dearest Las Vegas

I am surviving

Not dying

Laughing

Not crying

Giving

Not living

Feeling

Not trying

Moving

Not flying

Doing

Not talking

Loving

Not blocking

Please, bring me

To the harbor swiftly

Where bone and bath

Both know new math

On the way to