"lenten" poems
As days jitter by gleamed with such sheer and merry,
Then comes the memoriam-filled allegory;
Called the times of meditation and redemption,
Purple-shrouded cloth with blood has brought salvation.
40 days to drop down and be poured on ashes,
40 nights to commemorate for such dashes;
A memoir to be sung, flinging an elegy,
Sacrifice of the Son tuned to a eulogy.
But have no disheartened faith heard on stricken grief,
For a promise of sacrifice is worth that brief;
It’s the moment to recall, repent, and renew,
Making a mark not turn to long the past askew.
Lenten season speaks of turning from the darkness,
Losing a part to share with Him pure happiness;
Just as Christ suffered for the shortcomings of men,
His Church must respect and join for the time given.
So do not grieve for his loss, or that of your own,
It will be worth such a gain and it shall be sown;
For that choice, a short-time loss is a long-time gain,
With God, He provides us courage to surpass pain.
Such as to come thwart on our midst His forthcoming,
Prepare not only now but till life deems rusting;
But until time hovers to an eternal halt,
Apprehend, amend on such light and grave faults.
Jul 6, 2014
Jul 6, 2014 at 9:14 PM UTC
'Tis spring; come out to ramble
The hilly brakes around,
For under thorn and bramble
About the hollow ground
The primroses are found.
And there's the windflower chilly
With all the winds at play,
And there's the Lenten lily
That has not long to stay
And dies on Easter day.
And since till girls go maying
You find the primrose still,
And find the windflower playing
With every wind at will,
But not the daffodil,
Bring baskets now, and sally
Upon the spring's array,
And bear from hill and valley
The daffodil away
That dies on Easter day.
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Crimson maple buds magically pucker
under brightening skies
Lenten rose reluctantly unfolds
absolving the shadowed snow,
stemming the wintertide
Spring's impending bloom
mystically stirs the delicate human heart
soothing from outside its sheltering shell
A converging pleasantness
of a sunshine sown awakening
cleanses each morning breath drawn
to sate an urgent restrained longing
The wilderness carpet comes alive
with a burgeoning salient sweetness
drawing out a glimmer of gladness
from stale suffocating darkness’
wallowing in the winter ennui
Another kind of poignant balm sinks
from the tall mountain willow tree
touching the sprouting blue sky
Furry fragrant catkins blossom sweetly
like the remnants of a love once known
softly brushing against a fading memory
of unerasable stains begrudgingly beget
Like fawning flowers falling fallow
in a passing season’s pollination breeze
Manipulating frayed heartstrings,
unhealed as the deer peeled scars
and rubbed bark of a mountain willow,
scarred from another season past
Some protective shell ― never grows back
when benign heartwood is brought to light
harlon rivers ... Spring 2018
Mar 18, 2018
Mar 18, 2018 at 11:59 AM UTC
Did you notice the painted trillium—
The way it freckled the dark sky
Or the hills below the Sassafras summit?
Scarcely scattered beneath the pines,
The blossoms live and die like love,
Or maybe not.
Perhaps the petals live like I’ve imagined after they die,
Boutonnieres pinned to the night’s blue blazer.
But even if they don’t, I envy the way they live
Their lives without wondering whether
Or not they might dream.
Our clothes fed the sweet pinesap,
Rotting with our minds on the forest floor
That night beneath the Lenten moon,
And the cold draped our bodies
In a film of sweat as thick as the sound
Of the falls flooding the valley.
Winter’s fear saturated our bivy’s fly
As Spring drew near, but still we slept.
Your pupils danced behind my eyelids
And God shook his head in disgust
While we sipped silver steins replenished from Lethe,
But only angels died that night in Elysium.
Oct 21, 2012
Oct 21, 2012 at 11:02 PM UTC
Let you not say of me when I am old,
In pretty worship of my withered hands
Forgetting who I am, and how the sands
Of such a life as mine run red and gold
Even to the ultimate sifting dust, “Behold,
Here walketh passionless age!”—for there expands
A curious superstition in these lands,
And by its leave some weightless tales are told.
In me no lenten wicks watch out the night;
I am the booth where Folly holds her fair;
Impious no less in ruin than in strength,
When I lie crumbled to the earth at length,
Let you not say, “Upon this reverend site
The righteous groaned and beat their ******* in prayer.”
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Oh, cure me sweet lenten rose
Cure the madness and the hole
in my heart, in my head, in my mind.
Set me free, cut the ropes, break the bind.
I left it in the house down by the shore.
Promised I wouldn't go down there no more.
Come with me, baby please, I wanna go.
I wanna leave with all this sadness in my soul.
And I told you I was honest
but you can't believe in me.
I told you I was guarded
I still gave you the key.
In this dream I'm walking
to the center of the sea,
and slowly I realize
the madness sets me free.
Looking back and turning right around
do I keep this new life I have found?
The reasons come, the reasons go, the reasons fly,
and summer's all I have left of old times.
I found my meaning in a daffodil.
Poisoned seeds of hope is what I spill
on your heart, in your soul, and in your mind.
It's in mine too, you're not alone, look inside.
And I told you I was honest
but you can't believe in me.
I told you I was guarded
I still gave you the key.
In this dream I'm walking
to the center of the sea,
and slowly I realize
the madness sets me free.
Nov 21, 2011
Nov 21, 2011 at 4:38 PM UTC
2/20/2015
"*Lust too is a jewel
a sweet flower and what
pure happiness to know
all our high-toned questions
breed in a lively animal.*"
Adrienne Rich
So these days i find myself
scouring the somewhat stolid sure shores of
of seeming lust, which Adrienne Rich says is a jewel.
I don't see it
this lenten weekend.
I didn't give anything up,
maybe i'd switched from walking out of dorms into
walking out of cars, right? I laugh as I say this, not really ready
to say I am empty since I was taught to never lie and I do not feel this
after all,
More like a solid breathing discomfort at the squelching snow
on my solid leather workman's boots
lighting a cigarillo with a spark lighter and wondering what
you're up to.
My love's not so easily gained, i'd written once in a diary entry
and I suppose maybe it isn't,
but maybe it is the weather because
things didn't go as fast as I had liked this past
baptismal season but they still seemed fine.
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 9:20 AM UTC
i am struggling
my sense-seeking mind, reasons
with my confused, but forgiving heart...
to go, or not to go,
to do...or not to do,
go with traditions...or start a change,
to abstain...to be absent,
.............and...be ******
this battle exhausts me...though,
i know...at any time, whatever i do,
especially, this lenten season
God is everywhere, i so feel Him,
He is near me.....as i think of Him...
it doesn't make me less of a Christian
i just have less things to do
this thursday, friday and saturday...
for, i opted for something else:
in my solitude, i would have---
M-ORE time...........to reflect.....to
E-NGAGE in contemplative thoughts...to be strong, to
A-VOID all kinds of meat i so hunger for....to not be
T-ROUBLED, when tremors of the soul, seek to destabilize...
I know myself...i've come this far,
traditions may change, things may falter,
but, never...my Faith in Him.....
Sally
Copyright April 14, 2017
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Apr 14, 2017
Apr 14, 2017 at 10:20 PM UTC
Outside the borders of this asylum’s garden not much is in bloom.
Seems fastidiousness of this establishment’s gardener is derangement of decadence:
... neat little rows of pansies,
followed by neat little rows of anemones, with alternate groupings of hostas and Lenten roses behind.
All against the backdrop of viburnums,
capped with hydrangea at each end.
The airy sprays of baby’s breath and coral bells give veils of blossoms not to obscure color behind, making it all sparkle, as if some fairytale world,
encapsulated by a wall of hemlock,
like an evergreen iron curtain.
And I am certain,
I am more insane in here
than beyond that gate where
dandelions push through cracks of pavement and my shaking cold body
is not riddled with
the rainbow colored pharmaceutical
salad of this insanity.
Nov 13, 2015
Nov 13, 2015 at 4:12 PM UTC
father,
it has been over a decade
since my last confession;
in fact,
that crisp lenten day,
you in your purple,
I refused to come in,
giggling,
because I had committed nothing
worth an intermediary.
under lock and key,
anxious not to make trouble,
a natural people pleaser,
what could I child do but
laugh at sin?
today my prayers are mingled -
mangled,
a clutter of languages and deities:
my god is one but also many.
I’m not even Catholic anymore,
But for old time’s sake,
will you listen?
Jun 9, 2020
Jun 9, 2020 at 8:40 AM UTC
After Epiphany 2
The stripping of the tree is almost Lenten
The ornaments gone, only “bare ruined choirs”
Remain, no comfort of carols or hymns
As it is dragged outside into the cold
It almost seems to shiver in the winter sun
Reduced to poverty and then to scraps
Which in the months to come enkindle then
An evening fire after the cows are milked
But not celebrated with festive lights
The stripping of the tree is almost Lenten
Jan 8, 2017
Jan 8, 2017 at 2:07 PM UTC
The first Lenten penance is being told:
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things…
But did anyone ever say it was?
Feb 13, 2018
Feb 13, 2018 at 10:40 PM UTC
My relationship with alcohol
has had its ups and downs.
The biggest problem being
I always want another round.
And there always seems a reason
to pour that one drink more:
Relax, escape, excitement
or “when life is such a bore.” *
Some Help to dull the edges
Some Thing to pick me up,
a Balm to sooth frayed nerves.
Flow forth, fermented cup.
We were pals for years and years,
my precious alcohol … my friend.
A Lenten fast, a pregnant break,
and we were back together again.
But for me, those days of drinking
began to take their toll.
And I began to make a plan
For a different way to roll.
Ye gads! Who knew
how hard it would be
to put that plan in motion?
Start. Stop. Succeed. Fail. One year turned into three.
But then that last drink did go down.
Truth be told, it was like any other.
A battlefield general at war for some time,
I knew one casualty could follow another.
But as one more day passed
and bottles stayed on the shelf,
I learned the hard part of stopping
is your relation with your Self.
No more good-time Kathy.
So hard, the letting go.
Good-bye, antidote for anything.
Hello, life felt blow by blow.
The last drink, the closing chapter
Where they a flower I didn’t savor?
Sometimes I wish I had,
but now I’m tasting many new flavors.
Jan 12, 2019
Jan 12, 2019 at 1:45 PM UTC
***2000 years of theology and science
double down on assumed separation..
The assumption lies in hiding
prescribing limits and locations..
Worshipful observing and measuring
lodges us in an imprisoning body..
A crisis arises when it is found
we cannot locate this body or prison..
Of a sudden a veil is removed and
separation melts as ice in warm water..
Yet now we can celebrate separation
with a body finally set free..
The cave is empty and we are not
the person we assumed we were
destined to be...***
Apr 9, 2017
Apr 9, 2017 at 10:37 PM UTC
You left without a word - no goodbyes nor hints when you’d allow me again to savor that restful slumber with a thousand snores. When was that last time I slept so well? You just left. Nothing said. Nothing.
As hardly as you set off the ticking clock and made me wait for you to sniff the consciousness out of my head, while I count stars so bright or dolly sheep after sheep so white, so was the speed of your departure. I haven’t even had the luxury of precious minutes to ask whether the sheep I was counting had any wool and was there anything wrong with being black for a sheep, and I was too shy to ask the twinkling stars what they really are.
Like a quick scene in this melancholic one-act play in this old stage in the silent theater of memory recalls or the soft fragrance of white lacunosa wax plants on moonlit nights, I hear a loving mother tell her young son to pause his game and take the afternoon siesta on the mat spread on the cool bamboo floor relaxing amidst the dry days of the Lenten season. He just feigned asleep, eyes closed and then open again. I must be dreaming. How I wish I could tell him to relish sleep. For now I want sleep, even without dreaming. Even without dreams. But sleep seems so hard to get.
Sleep has become an elusive dream.
Jan 26, 2022
Jan 26, 2022 at 8:00 AM UTC
You have used the same palette for years,
mixing watercolors until they are indistinguishable,
one from the other, then washing it clean to begin again,
The plastic washes white each time, perfect and new,
bright and ready to start again, a new mix
of colors and texture, so easy
to save yourself
from yourself.
Feb 28, 2020
Feb 28, 2020 at 7:55 AM UTC
***In this Lenten time
the Christian tradition
provides 7 signs in
the Gospel of John..
These point to the
Perennial truth of Identity
of each of us
regardless of religion or not..
The Perennial truth is
simply the recognition of
oneself not separated
as world culture insists..
That's it..!
Nothing more..!***
Mar 14, 2018
Mar 14, 2018 at 12:09 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Ice Wednesday 2021
Many crosses of ice but no ashes
Trees sagging from the icicles dragging
Little birds desperate for last summer’s seeds
The ice ground whitening, whitening, disappearing
The power flickers and flickers and fails
And the day is one of lanterns and firewood
Everyone wrapped up in blankets and thoughts
Reading books in glaring blue battery-light
The roads are closed, and we are exiled home
Our Lenten ashes are in having no ashes
“…last summer’s seeds” – I grow sunflowers and in the autumn save the seeds in that famous cool, dry place in paper or cloth, and in addition to commercial chicken scratch feed them to the birds and squirrels throughout the winter.
Feb 18, 2021
Feb 18, 2021 at 9:53 AM UTC