"nave" poems
Gaunt in gloom,
The pale stars their torches,
Enshrouded, wave.
Ghostfires from heaven's far verges faint illume,
Arches on soaring arches,
Night's sindark nave.
Seraphim,
The lost hosts awaken
To service till
In moonless gloom each lapses muted, dim,
Raised when she has and shaken
Her thurible.
And long and loud,
To night's nave upsoaring,
A starknell tolls
As the bleak incense surges, cloud on cloud,
Voidward from the adoring
Waste of souls.
7.2k
Young Liam loved Orange
and liked to wear ties.
To his firehouse friends
He was one of the guys.
He had his own locker
a slicker and hat.
He also had cancer,
and a bad one at that.
From early on in his life
he fought neuroblastoma ;
An invasive tumor
a metastatic carcinoma.
His family who loved him
labored to save
their dear little child
Prince Liam the Brave.
He faced surgery bravely,
engaged in his fight..
He endured radiation
Chemo and knife.
When many a New Yorker
complains about stress,
Prince Liam was stoic
When put to the test.
Then just before Christmas
he suffered a relapse
He became neutrapenic-
His immune system collapsed.
With blood in his *****
And a spot on his lung
Liam grew weak.
his defenses undone.
An Amethyst stone
he received from a friend
was his talisman of hope
that he held to the end.
The worst part of the journey
was when hope was gone.
Then Liam lay, still and silent
in his mother's arms.
There are brave fire fighters
Who’ll be fighting back tears
Brave Prince Liam has died,
He lived only six years
There are many old people
still avoiding the grave
Who know less about love
Than did Liam the brave
We will gather together
In St Francis’ nave
To remember the life of
Prince Liam the brave
i
Dec 29, 2011
Dec 29, 2011 at 8:18 AM UTC
Out on the marsh on a lonely night
The wind soughs through his rags,
The hat that’s pinned to his painted face,
Flutters and soars, then sags,
His eyes are wide and his mouth is grim
As an owl is put to flight,
And nothing but shadows will venture there
For the Scarecrow rules the night.
And back in the manse in a window seat
The Parson’s daughter sits,
She stares at the fluttering coat-tails, but
In truth, is scared to bits,
She watches the sails of the windmill turn
And creak and groan in the gloom,
As clouds come stuttering over the marsh
In the rays of a Harvest Moon.
The father is out in the donkey cart
To tend to his aging flock,
He’s left Elizabeth waiting there
By the tick of the hallway clock,
But out on the moors and beyond the marsh
There rides one Highway Jack,
A frock coat topped with a bunch of lace
And a gold trimmed tricorne hat.
He’s whipped the horse to a lather
In a retreat from a new affray,
For the magistrates have gathered
Vowing to ride him down that day,
The redcoats wait in the village Inn
For the sound that they know too well,
When the curate sees the approaching horse
He’s to toll the old church bell.
But the curate lies in a drunken fit
On the floor of the old church nave,
And soon, by matins his soul will flit
From life to an early grave,
Elizabeth sits in the window seat
And thinks of the coin and plate,
As the highwayman dismounts, and ties
His horse to the manse’s gate.
He beats on the door, ‘Please let me in,
I’m weary and faint, that’s all.
I wouldn’t abuse your person, but
I fear my back’s to the wall.’
She leaves the seat and she slides the bar
For bracing the oaken door,
‘I dare not, sir, I fear for my life,
You’re safer out on the moor!’
Their voices echo across the marsh
Like fear, distilled in the night,
And something shudders out in the gloom
And lurches to left and right,
It seems forever, but now a sound
Tolls out, like a final knell,
For something, out in the church tonight,
Is tolling the steeple bell.
He barely makes it back to his horse
When the redcoats stand in line,
Their muskets fire a volley of shot
And his coat turns red, like wine.
They go to the church when the deed is done
To say, ‘You have done well!’
But the curate lies on the cold stone floor,
The Scarecrow tolled the bell!
David Lewis Paget
Jul 30, 2013
Jul 30, 2013 at 10:30 PM UTC
for Ashley and Trent
Joyous tears lie just ahead,
for Trent and Ashley
will seal their love today.
Pipes, strings, brass and voices
will soar beneath
Saint Peters towering nave
and we'll rise as one to affirm
their pledge of love and faith.
They met in band at Belleville East
and always seemed to know
that on some spring morn in June
they would stand at the altar
to vow their lives to constancy.
We all knew it too and today
we would be no other place
for hope unbounded rules the day
and echoes in our grateful hearts.
May 21, 2016
May 21, 2016 at 11:30 PM UTC
I went to Winchester again,
It's been forty years since then,
When we were awed in the nave,
Stood over Jane Austin's grave,
And loved the irony of golden St. Joan.
The chest coffins hold bleached bones,
The stained glass mosaic filters the sun,
And everything appears the same.
I had perfect recall,
I remembered it all,
Before returning my self-guided tour.
I lowered my head
Through the Refugee door;
To return no more.
Your memorial has faded;
My memories got jaded.
Nov 4, 2018
Nov 4, 2018 at 8:43 PM UTC
My home sits atop a lonely wave
Basking in the sun
My home of flora and sturdy nave
Of which I am a nun
Lilies grow in white quartets
Jasmine from every crevice
Spiders sew their thoughtful nets
Dust on every surface
Here my pilgrimage ends
At the waistline of the coast
The lemons that became my friends
Will now observe my ghost
Sep 5, 2023
Sep 5, 2023 at 5:14 AM UTC
Carrickfergus (1937) - poem by Louis Macneice.
I was born in Belfast between the mountain and the gantries
To the hooting of lost sirens and the clang of trams;
Thence to Smoky Carrick in County Antrim
Where the bottle-neck harbour collects the mud which jams
The little boats beneath the Norman castle,
The pier shining with lumps of crystal salt;
The Scotch quarter was a line of residential houses
But the Irish quarter was a slum for the blind and halt.
The brook ran yellow from the factory stinking of chlorine,
The yarn mill called it's funeral cry at noon;
Our lights looked over the lough to the lights of Bangor
Under the peacock aura of a drowning moon.
The Norman walled this town against the country
To stop his ears to the yelping of his slave
And built a church in the form of a cross but denoting
The list of Christ on the cross in the angle of the nave.
I was the rectors son, born to the Anglican order,
Banned for ever from the candles of the Irish poor;
The Chichesters knelt in marble at the end of a transept
With ruffs about their necks, their portion sure.
The war came and a huge camp of soldiers
Grew from the ground in sight of our house with long
Dummies hanging from gibbets for bayonet practice
And the sentry's challenge echoing all day long;
A Yorkshire terrier ran in and out by the gate-lodge
Barred to civilians, yapping as if taking affront;
Marching at ease and singing 'Who Killed **** Robin?'
The troops went out by the lodge and off to the Front.
The steamer was camouflaged that took me to England-
Sweat and khaki in the Carlisle train;
I thought that the war would last for ever and sugar
be always rationed and that never again
Would the weekly papers not have photos of sandbags
And my governess not make bandages from moss
And people not have maps above the fireplace
With flags on pins moving across and across-
Across the hawthorn hedge the noise of bugles,
Flares across the night,
Somewhere on the lough was a prison ship for Germans,
A cage across their sight.
I went to school in Dorset, the world of parents
Contracted into a puppet world of sons
Far from the mill girls, the smell of porter, the salt-mines
And the soldiers with their guns.
Louis Macneice
Jun 17, 2016
Jun 17, 2016 at 8:54 AM UTC
¿Quieres que hablemos?... Está bien... empieza:
Habla a mi corazón como otros días...
¡Pero no!... ¿qué dirías?
¿Qué podrías decir a mi tristeza?
No intentes disculparte... ¡todo es vano!
Ya murieron las rosas en el huerto;
el campo verde lo secó el verano,
y mi fe en ti, como mi amor, ha muerto.Amor arrepentido,
ave que quieres regresar al nido
al través de la escarcha y las neblinas;
amor que vienes aterido y yerto,
¡donde fuiste feliz... ya todo ha muerto!
¡No vuelvas... Todo lo hallarás en ruinas!¿A qué has venido? ¿Para qué volviste?
¿Qué buscas?... ¡Nadie; habrá de responderte!
Está sola mi alma, y estoy triste,
inmensamente triste hasta la muerte.
Todas las ilusiones que te amaron,
las que quisieron compartir tu suerte,
mucho tiempo en la sombra te esperaron,
y se fueron... ¡cansadas de no verte!Cuando por vez primera
en mi camino te encontré, reía
en los campos la alegre primavera...
toda esa luz, aromas y armonía.Hoy... ¡todo; cuán distinto! Paso a paso
y solo voy por la desierta vía.
-Nave sin rumbo entre revueltas olas-
pensando en las tristezas del ocaso,
y en las tristezas de las almas solas.En torno la mirada no columbra
sino aspereza y páramos sombríos;
los nidos en la nieve están vacíos,
y la estrella que amamos ya no alumbra
el azul de tus sueños y los míos.Partiste para ignota lontananza
cuando empezaba a descender la sombra.
...¿Recuerdas? Te imploraba mi esperanza,
¡pero ya mi esperanza no te nombra!¡No ha de nombrarte!...¿para qué?... Vacía
está el ara, y la historia yace trunca.
¡Ya para que esperar que irradie el día!
¡Ya para que decirnos: Todavía!
Si una voz grita en nuestras almas: ¡Nunca!Dices que eres la misma; que en tu pecho
la dulce llama de otros tiempos arde;
que el nido del amor no esta desecho,
que para amarnos otra vez, no es tarde.¡Te engañas!... ¡No lo creas!... Ya la duda
echó en mi corazón fuertes raíces.
Ya la fe de otros años no me escuda...
Quedó de sueños mi ilusión desnuda,
¡y no puedo creer lo que me dices!¡No lo puedo creer!... Mi fe burlada,
mi fe en tu amor perdida,
es ansia de una nave destrozada,
¡ancla en el fondo de la mar caída!Anhelos de un amor, castos risueños,
ya nunca volveréis... Se van... ¡Se esconden!
¿Los llamas?... ¡Es inútil!... No responden...
¡Ya los cubre el sudario de mis sueños!Hace tiempo se fue la primavera...
¡Llegó el invierno, fúnebre y sombrío!
Ave fue nuestro amor, ave viajera,
¡y las aves se van cuando hace frío!
2.7k
A pregnant lass with eyes of glass has never learned to cope.
Once set adrift her fall was swift, she slid a slipp’ry slope -
She casts the Curse, the Holy Verse, and shoots a shot of dope,
And stalks discreet Asylum Street her daily horoscope -
The stray was struck by random truck which was her only hope.
Well, Banjo Boy, with little joy, he strums her life entire:
“The wayward waif was never safe; her stars were dark and dire.
Born midst the rues and avenues where lack and want aspire
Where no one heeds the childish needs that little ones require;
Where faith survives in tempest lives, a swirl within the briar,
Infinity grinds as time unwinds, until the winds expire.
Her last caprice? The final peace that no one could deny her -
Whipped by the flood, stray beads of blood are spattered on the spire;
Though beads of sweat are cool and wet, cold clotted blood is dryer.”
Though broken there, she’s fled the snare with dying thoughts serene.
And now she’s dead, the rumours spread: “her age? a sweet 16,
With child, ***** her soul dyed red, her body so unclean.”
A place is sought where she can rot, avoiding churchyard scenes,
In limey pits, as well befits, behind forbidding screens;
And all the while a dirge is styled on tattered tambourines
Which echo through the human zoo in valleys of the Queens.
Without rejoice, in hissing voice, near soil that’s seldom trod
“In pious role, God bless my soul”, was mouthed with mitred nod,
Neath scarlet trim with black, and grim, behind a robed facade -
“She’ll burn in hell and sulphur smell”, spat Priest and man of god.
Well, angels sweet with cloven feet, they sing in girl’s attire,
But Banjo Boy, he’s playing coy while chanting in the choir:
“The clueless search within the church to find what they desire -
Beyond the nave, a gravelled grave, the final Rectifier”
And when he’s through, without ado, he stacks some stones nearby her.
May 31, 2013
May 31, 2013 at 8:07 AM UTC
Los animales fueron
imperfectos,
largos de cola, tristes
de cabeza.
Poco a poco se fueron
componiendo,
haciéndose paisaje,
adquiriendo lunares, gracia, vuelo.
El gato,
sólo el gato
apareció completo
y orgulloso:
nació completamente terminado,
camina solo y sabe lo que quiere.
El hombre quiere ser pescado y pájaro,
la serpiente quisiera tener alas,
el perro es un *** desorientado,
el ingeniero quiere ser poeta,
la mosca estudia para golondrina,
el poeta trata de imitar la mosca,
pero el gato
quiere ser sólo gato
y todo gato es gato
desde bigote a cola,
desde presentimiento a rata viva,
desde la noche hasta sus ojos de oro.
No hay unidad
como él,
no tienen
la luna ni la flor
tal contextura:
es una sola cosa
como el sol o el topacio,
y la elástica línea en su contorno
firme y sutil es como
la línea de la proa de una nave.
Sus ojos amarillos
dejaron una sola
ranura
para echar las monedas de la noche.
Oh pequeño
emperador sin orbe,
conquistador sin patria,
mínimo tigre de salón, nupcial
sultán del cielo
de las tejas eróticas,
el viento del amor
en la intemperie
reclamas
cuando pasas
y posas
cuatro pies delicados
en el suelo,
oliendo,
desconfiando
de todo lo terrestre,
porque todo
es inmundo
para el inmaculado pie del gato.
Oh fiera independiente
de la casa, arrogante
vestigio de la noche,
perezoso, gimnástico
y ajeno,
profundísimo gato,
policía secreta
de las habitaciones,
insignia
de un
desaparecido terciopelo,
seguramente no hay
enigma
en tu manera,
tal vez no eres misterio,
todo el mundo te sabe y perteneces
al habitante menos misterioso,
tal vez todos lo creen,
todos se creen dueños,
propietarios, tíos
de gatos, compañeros,
colegas,
discípulos o amigos
de su gato.
Yo no.
Yo no suscribo.
Yo no conozco al gato.
Todo lo sé, la vida y su archipiélago
el mar y la ciudad incalculable,
la botánica,
el gineceo con sus extravíos,
el por y el menos de la matemática,
los embudos volcánicos del mundo,
la cáscara irreal del cocodrilo,
la bondad ignorada del bombero,
el atavismo azul del sacerdote,
pero no puedo descifrar un gato.
Mi razón resbaló en su indiferencia,
sus ojos tienen números de oro.
2.5k
When Dagobert adorned Franco caves,
Clovis iniquity built a realm portentous?
Ate fruit from olden, -licentious ways…
Portentous realm thus be-stow-ed,
No king in truth but a nave?
Nave only to a Catholic po-et.
Hearken crier old kingdom days,
Oh Franco brave!
Oh Franco brave!
Oh Franco brave!
Oh Franco brave!
In regret of Dagobert's disturb-ed grave.
Dec 24, 2016
Dec 24, 2016 at 3:17 PM UTC
Who's that leopard in ecstasy
(and Ampersand Cornelius Gray)
who learned to trot briskly under lamp poles
and rescue a ***** worn mug from the clay
that which bore them.
She signaled with a passing glance that the entrenchment should pass,
giggling eyes that sparkled from pearls and concrete teeth.
I pivoted on the unmoving coordinates, the universe revolved.
From within her a spirit rose up and clasped my face in its hands,
and I, red with terror, dove head first towards the sands.
He howls out, burdened.
He is unaware of my condition, beneath the waters;
here I lie in wait,
too, in weight.
Here I lie
beneath the crushing force of the universe.
On the bottom of the sea, the top of the Earth,
a smokestack, of golden flames, fills my heart,
rumbling, confident and unafraid.
The Leopard sits, its paws splayed out on a bed of ferns.
Upon its raised position, it lies, basked in ethereal warm light.
The fierce awe of strength and knives of metal,
racing above ground on knees of silent, yellowed corduroy.
Who waits with the Leopard, alone and cold?
Who knows the beast the captures my wonder?
Here I lie, in servitude, enslaved in my claw cave.
My paws are pale, in this oddly worn nave.
Apr 29, 2013
Apr 29, 2013 at 4:17 PM UTC
Take the moral law and make a nave of it
And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus,
The conscience is converted into palms,
Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.
We agree in principle. That's clear. But take
The opposing law and make a peristyle,
And from the peristyle project a masque
Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness,
Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last,
Is equally converted into palms,
Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm,
Madame, we are where we began. Allow,
Therefore, that in the planetary scene
Your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed,
Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade,
Proud of such novelties of the sublime,
Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk,
May, merely may, madame, whip from themselves
A jovial hullabaloo among the spheres.
This will make widows wince. But fictive things
Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince.
2.1k
for Nave
Busyness makes one idiotic and forgetful. And we nearly sunk the night
didn’t we darling, leaning on the wrong swing.
(It is always the peach tree.) Katrina doing her Harpy on Fullblast thing
with such deftness and professionalism she leaves us no room to respond
to legs and offers of spread cheese. And poets cave in like lonely black holes
if they cannot response as fully as they have peaches in their coffers to do so,
or at least they think so and so do we so I escaped to shower, and tried to make
the water hot enough to round me straight again, but my skin still gets in the way.
I wanted to peel off everything and douse my soul straight in the hot and the lavender, questing
for a readiness beyond the pale, some state rare, and infinitely usuable.
It was only when, and this is true, when I decided to make a list of
why I love you that the water went in
and the lavender grew instantly between my toes. And Rosemarey Clooney
danced you in to me and you were a happy Papa at last, and we knew enough. And there
was finally room enough to
mambo home.
Jan 14, 2012
Jan 14, 2012 at 7:07 AM UTC
I fellowed sleep who kissed me in the brain,
Let fall the tear of time; the sleeper's eye,
Shifting to light, turned on me like a moon.
So, planning-heeled, I flew along my man
And dropped on dreaming and the upward sky.
I fled the earth and, naked, climbed the weather,
Reaching a second ground far from the stars;
And there we wept I and a ghostly other,
My mothers-eyed, upon the tops of trees;
I fled that ground as lightly as a feather.
'My fathers' globe knocks on its nave and sings.'
'This that we tread was, too, your father's land.'
'But this we tread bears the angelic gangs
Sweet are their fathered faces in their wings.'
'These are but dreaming men. Breathe, and they fade.'
Faded my elbow ghost, the mothers-eyed,
As, blowing on the angels, I was lost
On that cloud coast to each grave-grabbing shade;
I blew the dreaming fellows to their bed
Where still they sleep unknowing of their ghost.
Then all the matter of the living air
Raised up a voice, and, climbing on the words,
I spelt my vision with a hand and hair,
How light the sleeping on this soily star,
How deep the waking in the worlded clouds.
There grows the hours' ladder to the sun,
Each rung a love or losing to the last,
The inches monkeyed by the blood of man.
And old, mad man still climbing in his ghost,
My fathers' ghost is climbing in the rain.
1.9k
Passa la nave mia colma d'oblio
per aspro mare, a mezza notte, il verno,
enfra Scilla e Cariddi; ed al governo
siede'l signore, anzi'l nimico mio;
a ciascun remo un penser pronto e rio
che la tempesta e'l fin par ch'abbi a scherno;
la vela rompe un vento umido, eterno
di sospir', di speranze e di desio;
pioggia di lagrimar, nebbia di sdegni
bagna e rallenta le già stanche sarte,
che son d'error con ignoranza attorto.
Celansi i duo mei dolci usati segni;
morta fra l'onde è la ragion e l'arte:
tal ch'incomincio a desperar del porto.
2k
I was wrong about the rain
Robins are calling for it
Fragrance of honeysuckle and pine
have joined the ozone--
Priest in swirling raiments
dangling sensor on a chain
waving it in air before the altar
clink clink clink
Releasing smoke that bends the mind
before the monstrance of the sun
with storm surrounding
Clouds sift through the rays and rain
Bowing thrice--
clink clink clink
He waves it in the air before the altar
releasing smoke
into the high and holy
Inchoate murmurs
follow
incense hands
down
into the nave
Jun 22, 2017
Jun 22, 2017 at 8:41 PM UTC
Alta sobre la tierra
te pusieron,
dura, hermosa araucaria
de los australes
montes,
torre de Chile, *****
del territorio verde,
pabellón del invierno,
nave
de la fragancia.
Ahora, sin embargo,
no por bella
te canto,
sino por el racimo de tu especie,
por tu fruta cerrada,
por tu piñón abierto.
Antaño,
antaño fue
cuando
sobre los indios
se abrió
como una rosa de madera
el colosal puñado
de tu puño,
y dejó
sobre
la mojada tierra
los piñones:
harina, pan silvestre
del indomable
Arauco.
Ved la guerra:
armados
los guerreros
de Castilla
y sus caballos
de galvánicas
crines
y frente
a ellos
el grito
de los
desnudos
héroes,
voz del fuego, cuchillo
de dura piedra parda,
lanzas enloquecidas
en el bosque,
tambor,
tambor
sagrado,
y adentro
de la selva
el silencio,
la muerte
replegándose,
la guerra.
Entonces, en el último
bastión verde,
dispersas
por la fuga,
las lanzas
de la selva
se reunieron
bajo las araucarias
espinosas.
La cruz,
la espada,
el hambre
iban diezmando
la familia salvaje.
Terror,
terror de un golpe
de herraduras,
latido de una hoja,
viento,
dolor
y lluvia.
De pronto
se estremeció allá arriba
la araucaria
araucana,
sus ilustres
raíces,
las espinas
hirsutas
del poderoso
pabellón
tuvieron
un movimiento
*****
de batalla:
rugió como una ola
de leones
todo el follaje
de la selva
dura
y entonces
cayó
una marejada
de piñones:
los anchos
estuches
se rompieron
contra la tierra, contra
la piedra defendida
y desgranaron
su fruta, el pan postrero
de la patria.
Así la Araucanía
recompuso
sus lanzas de agua y oro,
zozobraron los bosques
bajo el silbido
del valor
resurrecto
y avanzaron
las cinturas
violentas como rachas,
las
plumas
incendiarias del Cacique:
piedra quemada
y flecha voladora
atajaron
al invasor de hierro
en el camino.
Araucaria,
follaje
de bronce con espinas,
gracias
te dio
la ensangrentada estirpe,
gracias
te dio
la tierra defendida,
gracias,
pan de valientes,
alimento
escondido
en la mojada aurora
de la patria:
corona verde,
pura
madre de los espacios,
lámpara
del frío
territorio,
hoy
dame
tu
luz sombría,
la imponente
seguridad
enarbolada
sobre tus raíces
y abandona en mi canto
la herencia
y el silbido
del viento que te toca,
del antiguo
y huracanado viento
de mi patria.
Deja caer
en mi alma
tus granadas
para que las legiones
se alimenten
de tu especie en mi canto.
Árbol nutricio, entrégame
la terrenal argolla que te amarra
a la entraña lluviosa
de la tierra,
entrégame
tu resistencia, el rostro
y las raíces
firmes
contra la envidia,
la invasión, la codicia,
el desacato.
Tus armas deja y vela
sobre mi corazón,
sobre los míos,
sobre los hombros
de los valerosos,
porque a la misma luz de hojas y aurora,
arenas y follajes,
yo voy con las banderas
al llamado
profundo de mi pueblo!
Araucaria araucana,
aquí me tienes!
1.8k
‘The time has come,’ he heard them say
Outside his tiny cell,
‘Go in and get the beast to pray
To save his soul from Hell.’
The Priest then walked up to the bars
And stated his intent,
‘Will you confess at last, my son?
Will you, at last, repent?’
‘The only thing that I repent,’
The prisoner said at last,
While staring at the Priestly face
At length, through double glass,
‘Is how your justice operates,
Your Judge sits on his bench,
Determines guilt before the trial
And brooks no argument.’
‘You have been tried by twelve and true
Your jurors had their say,
Condemned you as a murderer
Before they walked away.’
‘They would have found me innocent
Had he not been precise,
And sent them back to change their view,
Not only once, but twice.’
‘The law’s the law,’ the Priest replied,
‘The verdict said it’s you,
You had your day in court, and now
You’ll have to pay your due.’
‘I’m innocent,’ the prisoner said,
‘I swear it before God!’
‘Take not his name in vain, my son,
It’s time to reck his rod.’
‘Your God is just an ornament
To keep us fools in check,
If he were real, he’d swoop on down
And break the Judge’s neck.
The only God is in my heart
And he knows everything,
He welcomes us, the innocent,
Hypocrisy is sin.’
‘You risk your soul,’ the priest replied,
‘So hold your tongue in check,
For soon it will be silenced as
The rope, it breaks your neck.’
‘How many Nuns have you despoiled,
How many children died,
How many now lie buried, spread
Across the countryside?’
‘You hide behind your surplice, and
Your cassock and your gown,
You say you represent him, but
In fact, you put him down.
You tie us up with ritual
And steal our Peter’s Pence,
Then hide your sins by making all
The laity repent.’
‘I’ve had enough,’ the Priest replied,
Then turned and stepped aside,
The gaolers tied his hands and feet
And shuffled him outside,
They dragged him to the gallows and
Put on the dreaded hood,
But still he called, ‘Repent yourself,
Oh Priest! You know you should!’
It barely took a minute for
The rope and then the drop,
And then just twenty seconds for
His beating heart to stop,
The Priest’s thin hands had trembled
As he walked out in the cold,
And prayed, not for the prisoner,
But for his own poor soul.
His sins lay heavy on him as
He walked up to the nave,
Then knelt before the altar asking
God, his soul to save,
But God was strangely silent
And the Priest had felt like dross,
The morning saw him hanging
From the altar’s Holy Cross.
David Lewis Paget
Oct 8, 2013
Oct 8, 2013 at 12:36 PM UTC
1.
There once was a couple of cats
Who engaged in continuous spats.
The result was a tie
When each scratched out an eye –
An old-Biblical *** for a tat!
The cats awoke bleeding and weak
And half-seeing the havoc they'd wreaked
They discarded their clothes,
Their backsides to expose –
A new-Biblical turning of cheek!
2.
There once was a man, oh so brave,
Who would sleep in a hole, called a grave ...
Well, he being the host
To so many a ghost,
He arranged a big bash, called a rave
3.
In days of Neanderthal knaves
When the men ruled like kings in their caves
And not being too keen
About keeping them clean ...
Often took on some wives, called them slaves
4.
There once was a man with a stave
Overseeing a holy enclave ...
Well, maintaining a grin
While absolving the sin,
He assessed wicked tales and forgave
5.
There once was a monk with a wave
Who desired a head with a shave ...
Well, the barber was such
That she cut back too much
Thereby leaving his globus concave
6.
There once was a man in the nave,
Although pious he could not behave ...
But they paid him no mind,
’Cause his name was maligned,
Being simply a sinner to save
7.
There once was a man quite depraved
A voluptuous life was thus craved ...
Well, continuous sin
Ended doing him in –
On his tombstone they carved ‘Misbehaved’
8.
Antoine is a Vampire Ghoul,
Quite barbaric, bloodthirsty and cruel,
With a fang in your throat
He’ll **** slowly and gloat
With a smile as you whimper and mewl.
9.
There once was a raven haired Shrink
Who had orange Juice Tequilas to drink.
Well her scarlet souled Beau
****** her tinted red Toe
And she paled when he tickled her Pink.
10.
There once was a travelling sage
Who yet lived to a very old age.
Well, becoming quite senile,
With problems (yes, ******
He packed his wee trunk in a rage.
11.
There once was a Nun and a Druid
Exchanging some ****** fluid,
When along strode the Father
Who heard all the bother,
Lost stickum while coming unglu..ed.
Mar 25, 2013
Mar 25, 2013 at 1:08 PM UTC
Poet to my eyes, you are the sight of whitecaps
On the sea water, or the sudden turn of a bird
In flight and as the wave I roll and break,
With drowning wings that lift toward you, my sky.
Mistress to my soul, I am the nave of your holy
Cathedral. My head is but an occluded riff,
De-noting songs you make in aisling airs of light
Polyphony, my star over-sings the windy globe,
She swallows heaven, like swallows blacken the dusk.
Shearwater bird, strip my surface with your cutting
Wings. My waves peak to reach you starling girl.
The sloughing chill of winter dies quick in sighs
Waft asunder my little Indian summer, wake me
From sleep and I shall dream but once for your kiss.
Jul 9, 2012
Jul 9, 2012 at 9:53 PM UTC
Old men in dresses wave hands across baskets
casting magic spells on sausage and oranges
then hocus pocus over horseradish root as
thick as a forearm, potato-peeled later
we'll garnish meats with mystical power.
They expect us to kiss the ****** feet of
a God immortalized in plaster while granite
saints stand watching a procession of misty-eyed
martyrs shuffling down the aisle like sheep,
and all the while the bells are ringing.
Always the ringing of bells.
Bells rung by boys standing still
ring like angels.
The old men hold crackers up to the light,
then more bells and drinking of blood
and finally its done. They waddle down
the nave casting incense in a metronome spray.
The boys follow behind the hypnotic smoke,
their bells have been put away,
pall bearers of the crucified Christ
they lead us not into temptation,
rather deliver us out the doors
and into the street,
redeemed and safe behind
the hedge of numbing ritual.
Oct 31, 2010
Oct 31, 2010 at 6:42 PM UTC
There was always an odour of sin around
The nave of that ancient church,
I knew of it as a choirboy,
I didn’t have far to search,
The smell welled up in the vestry,
A sulphur and brimstone tang,
It leached on into our cassocks
When the bell for the matins rang.
The priest, he was old and doddering
And didn’t look ripe for sin,
Old Father Coates may have sowed his oats
With nobody looking in,
But sin was there for a century,
It wasn’t of recent time,
The stories told of a Father Golde
I heard from a friend of mine.
Back in the days when the church was strong
And it ruled the lives of all,
A Father Golde was the priest of old
And preached of the devil’s fall,
When women came to confess their sins
And spoke of their evil deeds,
The priest took them at the altar there
In sin, and down on their knees.
The Nuns attached to the convent were
Obedient to his whim,
And many a cold and frosty night
He would call a sister in,
Her place, he said, was to warm his bed
To deter his chills, and ague,
And many a child was born in dread
To the parish, since the plague.
But one day after confessional
He had ***** a Colonel’s wife,
Who came to him with her petty sin
And described what it was like,
The priest, inflamed by her words and deeds
Had her pressed by the vestry door,
And who could know what she had to show
But the flagstones on the floor.
A troop of soldiers had marched on in
To assuage the Colonel’s rage,
The moment the wife had gone back home
And told of the priest’s outrage,
They seized the priest and they ran him through
With a sword right to the hilt,
Then tied him onto the cross outside
Where a sign outlined his guilt.
And every year on the first of June
You can hear the feet outside,
Marching up to the old church door,
The day that the father died.
A sense of sin that is coming in
As the church doors swing apart,
And blood appears on the altar in
The shape of an evil heart.
David Lewis Paget
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 5:28 PM UTC
For the big occasion
She's lost a pound or two
Last minute jitters playing out
Something borrowed, something blue
Posies for the bridesmaids
Flower in her hair
The thought of all those people
Gets her feeling scared
Roller waiting, protocol demands
Be ten minutes late
Line up for some memories
By the old lych gate
Holding back tears of joy
She glides the aisle in a daze
Nervous smiles exchanged
As the ***** plays
A moment's pause, new shoe shuffle
Children struggle to behave
Baby words da da da
Echo down the nave
No impediments are known
As far as we can see
No one shouts out from behind
Yeah, it should have been me!
In the nearby meadow
The big marquee awaits
Congregation filters back
Through the old lych gate
The groom pays sincerest thanks
To everyone he should
The best man airs embarrassments
As we knew he would
The band strikes up, as they dance
The car is 'modified'
Lipstick on the window
Cans and balloons are tied
It's not a worn out cliche
As the night winds down they realise
They really have just lived through
The best day of their lives
Aug 3, 2013
Aug 3, 2013 at 4:40 AM UTC