Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Richard Riddle Jan 2014
Perhaps, the most profound poem I have ever read



There are too many saviors on my cross,
lending their blood to flood out my ballot box with needs of their own.
Who put you there?
Who told you that that was your place?

You carry me secretly naked in your heart
and clothe me publicly in armor
crying “God is on our side,” yet I openly cry
Who is on mine?
Who?
Tell me, who?
You who bury your sons and ******* your fathers
whilst you bury my father in crippling his son.

The antiquated Saxon sword,
rusty in its scabbard of time now rises—
you gave it cause in my name,
bringing shame to the thorned head
that once bled for your salvation.

I hear your daily cries
in the far-off byways in your mouth
pointing north and south
and my Calvary looms again,
desperate in rebirth.
Your earth is partitioned,
but in contrition
it is the partition
in your hearts that you must abolish.

You nightly watchers of Gethsemene
who sat through my nightly trial delivering me from evil—
now deserted, I watch you share your silver.
Your purse, rich in hate,
bleeds my veins of love,
shattering my bone in the dust of the bogside and the Shankhill road.

There is no issue stronger than the tissue of love,
no need as holy as the palm outstretched in the run of generosity,
no monstrosity greater than the acre you inflict.
Who gave you the right to increase your fold
and decrease the pastures of my flock?
Who gave you the right?
Who gave it to you?
Who?
And in whose name do you fight?

I am not in heaven,
I am here,
hear me.
I am in you,
feel me.
I am of you,
be me.
I am with you,
see me.
I am for you,
need me.
I am all mankind;
only through kindness will you reach me.

What masked and bannered men can rock the ark
and navigate a course to their annointed kingdom come?
Who sailed their captain to waters that they troubled in my font,
sinking in the ignorant seas of prejudice?

There is no ****** willing to conceive in the heat of any ****** Sunday.
You crippled children lying in cries on Derry’s streets,
pushing your innocence to the full flush face of Christian guns,
battling the blame on each other,
do not grow tongues in your dying dumb wounds speaking my name.
I am not your prize in your death.
You have exorcized me in your game of politics.

Go home to your knees and worship me in any cloth,
for I was never tailor-made.
Who told you I was?
Who gave you the right to think it?
Take your beads in your crippled hands,
can you count my decades?
Take my love in your crippled hearts,
can you count the loss?

I am not orange.
I am not green.
I am a half-ripe fruit needing both colors to grow into ripeness,
and shame on you to have withered my orchard.
I in my poverty,
alone without trust,
cry shame on you
and shame on you again and again
for converting me into a bullet and shooting me into men’s hearts.

The ageless legend of my trial grows old
in the youth of your pulse staggering shamelessly from barricade to grave,
filing in the book of history my needless death one April.
Let me, in my betrayal, lie low in my grave,
and you, in your bitterness, lie low in yours,
for our measurements grow strangely dissimilar.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
sullied be thy name.
Richard Harris, actor, Irishman, wrote this, pertaining to the protestant-catholic conflict in the sixties and early seventies,
Brother Jimmy Jul 2015
It’s really not funny, you know

I can’t …keep …my head up

My eyelids are heavy and low

My blood is all …bled up…

Or maybe it’s drained down below

To my stomach, where dinner churns

Maybe just a quick lie-down, though

But the Rabbi implores us to stay alert

Gah!  I can’t help it. My lids are like lead

Peripheral vision's closing in

‘Can’t escape grogginess in my head

He’ll understand...flesh is sin.

I don’t have power

The power of will

In this late hour

With the moon and the chill

The spirit is willing

But the flesh is weak

His anguish is chilling

The outlook is bleak

But even so, I’m just so drained.

Each time my head bobs I make Him weep!

I was made this way, I’ve always maintained,

I just can’t function without sleep
Richard Riddle Mar 2015
Perhaps, the most profound poem I have ever read

There are too many saviors on my cross,
lending their blood to flood out my ballot box with needs of their own.
Who put you there?
Who told you that that was your place?

You carry me secretly naked in your heart
and clothe me publicly in armor
crying “God is on our side,” yet I openly cry
Who is on mine?
Who?
Tell me, who?
You who bury your sons and ******* your fathers
whilst you bury my father in crippling his son.

The antiquated Saxon sword,
rusty in its scabbard of time now rises—
you gave it cause in my name,
bringing shame to the thorned head
that once bled for your salvation.

I hear your daily cries
in the far-off byways in your mouth
pointing north and south
and my Calvary looms again,
desperate in rebirth.
Your earth is partitioned,
but in contrition
it is the partition
in your hearts that you must abolish.

You nightly watchers of Gethsemene
who sat through my nightly trial delivering me from evil—
now deserted, I watch you share your silver.
Your purse, rich in hate,
bleeds my veins of love,
shattering my bone in the dust of the bogside and the Shankhill road.

There is no issue stronger than the tissue of love,
no need as holy as the palm outstretched in the run of generosity,
no monstrosity greater than the acre you inflict.
Who gave you the right to increase your fold
and decrease the pastures of my flock?
Who gave you the right?
Who gave it to you?
Who?
And in whose name do you fight?

I am not in heaven,
I am here,
hear me.
I am in you,
feel me.
I am of you,
be me.
I am with you,
see me.
I am for you,
need me.
I am all mankind;
only through kindness will you reach me.

What masked and bannered men can rock the ark
and navigate a course to their annointed kingdom come?
Who sailed their captain to waters that they troubled in my font,
sinking in the ignorant seas of prejudice?

There is no ****** willing to conceive in the heat of any ****** Sunday.
You crippled children lying in cries on Derry’s streets,
pushing your innocence to the full flush face of Christian guns,
battling the blame on each other,
do not grow tongues in your dying dumb wounds speaking my name.
I am not your prize in your death.
You have exorcized me in your game of politics.

Go home to your knees and worship me in any cloth,
for I was never tailor-made.
Who told you I was?
Who gave you the right to think it?
Take your beads in your crippled hands,
can you count my decades?
Take my love in your crippled hearts,
can you count the loss?

I am not orange.
I am not green.
I am a half-ripe fruit needing both colors to grow into ripeness,
and shame on you to have withered my orchard.
I in my poverty,
alone without trust,
cry shame on you
and shame on you again and again
for converting me into a bullet and shooting me into men’s hearts.

The ageless legend of my trial grows old
in the youth of your pulse staggering shamelessly from barricade to grave,
filing in the book of history my needless death one April.
Let me, in my betrayal, lie low in my grave,
and you, in your bitterness, lie low in yours,
for our measurements grow strangely dissimilar.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
sullied be thy name.

Richard Harris, actor, Irishman, wrote this, pertaining to the protestant-catholic conflict in the sixties and early seventies,
Brother Jimmy  Jan 2015
Green
Brother Jimmy Jan 2015
Jungle, bent to my purpose
     Adventure? Delight?
The Garden of Eden
     No pass time or plight

No wants or inclinations?
     All hungers fulfilled...?
No lingering longings,
     Save those that I've killed.

Such sweet satiation,
     No more for my plate,
Had more than my fill,
     And the hour grows late

Deep darkest leaf shades
     Letting little light through
Make a mood of Gethsemene
     Moving pictures of you
Soaking in the calvery hills,
I am pressed againts..

bearing the gethsemene of my heart

.... he surrounds me

that dévil..
I know where it leads me
Drowned in chest below
and head

[useless]

and weary above water

...I feel nothing

Piering my eyes across the surface of the water
dark walls play an abstract to my empty dreams
left me optionless but I am not dying

...Not just yet

...But I am already gone

I have seeped my veins
I have wept the countless moons
But it wont end my fears

...it's cold in here

But I am still numb
Reaching deep on the inside not
to find anything emotional
I just want... life

...to never end
in the ones I love so much
more than I am supposed
to have loved myself.

(CRITICAL INK- TEAM JAGUAR HAWAII)
© Copyright 2014 S.T. PARISH Rebel of Eden
When he leaves, he leaves to be better. When he stays, his world becomes concrete, when I fall upon his crown, everyday.

— The End —