A CRYPT (from Ancient Greek κρύπτη (kryptē) crypta ‘vault’) is a stone chamber beneath the floor
of a church, above ground within a cemetery’s mausoleum or a free-standing outdoor memorial tomb.
It typically contains coffins, sarcophagi, or religious relics and sometimes cremation urns.

CRYPTOGRAPHY prior to the modern age was effectively synonymous with encryption,
converting readable information to unintelligible nonsense which can only be read by reversing the process (decryption).
The sender of an encrypted (coded) message shares the decryption (decoding) technique only with the intended recipients
to preclude access from adversaries.

Seeking for life beneath an arch,
Trying to crack the poetic curse,
A withered rose surprised my search:
Intentionally cryptic verse.
Her bone-dry petals, colorless
Upon my touch, dissolved to dust.
The dead stalk’s thorns, nevertheless
Pricked me, eliciting mistrust.
Where that rose lay I stumbled on a crypt
Filled with the bones of verses nondescript.
I had chanced upon a burial cave.
Whose sad remains reposed within that grave?

The rose was left to seal the codes:
Intentional obscurity.
Vapid means dull. Such verse forebodes
Lack of lyric security.
What I learned from my sepulchral gleaning:
That dead flower marked the death of meaning.

Refuse the rare and esoteric word
And verbiage that borders on absurd!

Poetic Decryption  Key:

The Rose is the arch of a vaulted crypt
A mark on the map, directions in code…
The lyric sepulcher, on which I tripped,
Contained no golden motherload.

When poetry dies, then decomposes,
We’re left with poetic cryptography.
Symbolic signs such as crypts and roses
Challenge your dull cartography.

PROMPT # 25

write a poem using at least three metaphors (CRYPT/CODE/ROSE) for a single thing (POETRY).
Include an exclamation, ruminate on the definition of a word, and come back in the closing line
to the image or idea with which you opened the poem.