This is another work of art I created specifically for the included original poem. I began with a pencil sketch and, using Autodesk Pixlr, I layered effects and overlays and borders onto the drawing to get the desired look of the finished artwork.

Shackled Souls

**A darker turn, musing on human frailty… We humans get bogged down in this harsh and transitory human life. It’s easy to let it divert us from our search for that higher spiritual self, from the quest to ascend beyond this brutal mortality. **

A weak flesh for paltry failing hearts

        Too human in this here and now

                The soul stretching toward heaven

                        Clamoring for a return to the Divine

                                But unruly flesh, feeling too much

                                        Turning toward the shadows

                                In immediacy of mortal pain

                        Chaining the eternal… imprisoned

                Too worn by such earthly need

        So heavy with venal desires

Shackled souls weighted for Hell

Poem ©11 October 2017, by D. Denise Dianaty