Sample Poetry
Song for the Unsung
- Lark Beltran
Always, they have buttressed
the worthy and unworthy—
those taken-for-granted Thelmas,
Wilmas and Joans, the sweetness
in their eyes clouded with crushed
dreams as their faces aged.
Imagining their lot
now and back when more
of
I sing to them, my sisters ...
Rising at rooster's reveille
(scant
time to be pretty!)
dealing with hams and jams and
pies; whipping up the biscuits
and gravy to fill the growling
bellies of whatever brutes and gentlefolk
were their lot, and if
ideals survived drudgery, one may
have wafted from an orchard
in bloom, softening features
momentarily before poetry was drained
at the washboard, amid routine
hushing of the fractious, with yet
another pregnancy weighting the body down.
For every sunset savored
and each flower gifted,
there was a chicken-mess to clean,
a mucked-up kitchen floor,
a drunken rage to soothe,
wrinkled hills of ironing—
a heavy-lidded round—
while for one oasis of appreciation
stretched the ample, thankless plains
of indifference that parched the heart.
Early graves caught many
serving these life-sentences in
emotional deserts. I'd like to acknowledge
them all, saying: You came,
you toiled, you mattered, and if
at home you were unsung, somewhere
that will be, or is being balanced,
and I rejoice to envision you received
as heroines, with prolonged clapping
and that overdue gold star.
there’s a light (about you)
- Joe Quinn
even the pessimist
would say the moon is full
and fall in love with the way
the light falls on you
and you could have them believe
whatever you wanted
if you knew what you wanted
there are many things
of which I wish I could speak
but everything seems
to fall apart on me
I told myself I'd turn a new
leaf
but on the back I kept on writing
about you
Psalm
- Brice Nordquist
I once walked in the crisp,
cool dawn of day
before the fields shed their blankets of dew.
I once led the procession to Your presence
dancing in front of singers and cymbals,
in front of maidens beating their tambourines
spinning and swirling, dancing with arms outstretched
mouths filled with laughter, our tongues with joyful song.
My heart was undivided as Your face shone on me.
But then she, the beautiful
rooftop raven,
bathed in the cool desert air
as the fingers of a silver moon ran through
her shimmering black hair.
In a moment my heart was
split,
my vision lost in the shadows of her moonlit cheeks,
blurred by the glory of her soft shivering skin.
In this radiant eclipse of Your light,
my eyes failed to see.
In the crisp, cool night the
wind whispered her name
as I lifted over our heads blankets of sorrow and shame.
The Martha Within
- Philip C. Kolin
She kept a very
Stubbornly vocal
Martha deep inside her
Always cleaning, polishing,
Never tarrying for
Trust.
In her house
Nothing was permitted
Out of
order. She insisted
On schedules for sleep,
Toothaches, heartaches,
And
penances, lots of them.
She joined the choir
To starch everyone's
Voice into conformity
With hers,
of course.
Practice made her
Only more
imperfect.
Her Martha rolled
Off just enough
Tin foil
To wrap a prayer
Without wasting
A single hallelujah
She vacuumed
Every stray amen.
Having to stand in
A line too long for Holy
Communion
Last Sunday
a.m.
She was prepared
To meet her maker upset.
But used the time
To straighten her pleated
soul.
Back in her pew
God told her
He loved all those
Wrinkled and sin-stained
Banquets of self
Others gave Him,
And told her
To get cooking
On hers.
Help
- Cindy L. Beebe
The camera trails an impotent,
earnest hand, collects the wail,
the red-lettered plea.
We see it with television
eyes,
how finely it blends
with our uncertainties,
layering the ancient cry
that bruised Your infant ears,
that pounded all Your time-and-space days,
that clung to You on
As You
know Your own scars,
You know the sound.
It holds, like fire and water,
holds its ground,
its tissue-paper captives.
Jesus, we are all unraveling.
We are all so easily overcome.
There You Were
—for
“Icy”
- Deanna Shapiro
I requested, silently implored
the agency to send a nurse
of quiet temperament
whom my mother could tolerate
in her perturbed state
as my father lay dying.
And there you were,
in starched uniform with lace edges,
solid Jamaican body
taking up residence in the den,
gentle with my father,
resourceful for my mother.
There you were,
moving slowly through the shadows
of the day, carrying a handkerchief
with your Bible, sitting in a chair,
reading the Scriptures, a holy woman
in the desert of our family.
There you were,
modeling tranquility and strength,
reminding me of God’s presence,
taking me to a higher plane.
I cried in your arms
when I left.
Confession
- Pam McAllister
I like the word
"wilderness"
much more than the actual experience of it.
In our comfortable pews, we
sing songs
about the lonely courage in the wilderness,
imagine ourselves tested by heartache and hardship.
We imagine survival and
triumph.
Ah, wilderness.
The word itself is dramatic,
conjuring a landscape both stark and appealing —
ten shades of gray and ash,
a winter sky,
a circling hawk.
There is the hint of something
wild in the word,
a suggestion of danger and despair,
briars and thorns,
the torment of
facing one's temptation,
and the
relief of resisting it.
But the actual experience of
wilderness is bleak and cold.
It stretches forever, like
days in a nursing home
or on death row or in a dream-crushing small town.
It is the misery of being
misunderstood by a friend,
the despondency of an unwanted child,
the despair of an abandoned parent.
It is suffocating in its
sameness.
It is empty, bland, and
colorless.
And who, I ask, wants to
wander
through a changeless landscape
without the comfort of a full palate of colors
and their sumptuous, sensuous names—
crimson, indigo, sage, cinnamon,
lavender,
periwinkle, amber spice,
and
robin's egg blue?
Not I. Not I.
How to Survive Answered Prayer
- Fredrick Zydek
Sometimes praying is like walking
in the wind
or swimming: You are touched at all points
and conscious everywhere. It is a place where
God is all at once and
everywhere delicious.
The great melody of the
universe will envelope
you; sweet reason will wash over you like waves
from a silver sea; blossoms will feel as if
they're blooming from the center of your bones.
Expect there to be joy leaking
at the seams,
a kind of praise that will not easily find words.
Expect noises and glossolalia.
A gratitude solid
as a rock, a drawing of one's self toward the light.
Not everyone will believe you.
Go among them
like a dove among alley-cats. Don't forget you've
got wings and can fly above them. And don't
count on the answer arriving wrapped as the gift
you expected. The One who answers prayers
is more concerned with what we need than what
we want. Once in a while the two things merge.
When they do, expect something
sacred your way.
Passing Through
- Janet McCann
I'm passing through a rundown
neighborhood
in
when a heart-stoppingly beautiful girl
maybe nine or ten, with wild amber hair
glides across the street in front of me
on a battered scooter, boys around her age
chasing after her. She is laughing and doesn't see
the tossed beer cans, the jacked-up cars
and car parts, sagging porches, boarded windows
as she shoots on down the street, her hair
a great trumpet behind her. I get only
this one glimpse: bare feet, glorious hair, perfect
face, torn jeans, oversize
t-shirt flopping. That small foot—what about nails? Glass?—
rhythmically pounding the street. She's leaving, she has left
the boys behind, she whips around
a corner and is gone. A honk behind me
and I start up, but sending her a blessing:
May you never see it, may they
never catch you,
may you rocket on
out of there.
What More?
- L. B. Green
.
..and my greatest joys have been solitary
and laden with
care.
Andre
Gide, March, 1893,
What more can I know of
promise,
save this: grass, river, stars,
children, animals: every thing borne
of silence? My own breath,
just so: a simple repetition, as is lifting
this cup of tea to my mouth, sitting here, crossing
one leg over the other. More often
than not feeling inept, and doubtful,
still God-like, and grateful to utter, however
softly: woman, mother, apple, pear.
Icon: Christ of Sinai
—a found poem
- Ed Higgins
Directly in front of me
He is here.
Him on this quiet morning
in a room of the
in the hundred-degree heat and dust
of a city not yet fully awake.
Here, and I am suddenly confronted—
the oldest icon in existence—with
His image.
The rest of the room evaporates
and all I see is Him.
Pure mystery, great and wondrous
dizzying and terrible.
How can wood and pigment
egg yoke and animal skin convey
such ethereal truth
intensify the power
captivate Christian eye and heart?
Christ of Sinai looks at me
with steady gaze.
His eyes—the famed twins
Justice and Mercy—
see straight through me
piercing the whitewashed tomb
of my exterior till it hurts.
One eye is dark, foreboding
shadows between the brow and lid
deepening and on the verge of righteous anger
the other eye embraces all
even my unworthy soul.
I stand and pray. My eyes swell with tears.
I cannot look anymore.
It is the eyes, dark and arresting
sometimes frightening
that call out to the viewer.
Eyes painted in encaustic technique
using beeswax mixed with pigment
applied in pure form while hot.
The iconographer fasts and prays while painting
saturating every brushstroke with intercessions.
Even robbers could not bear to look
into the power of this presence.
It was the eyes of icons Turkish warriors
scratched out when pillaging
the monasteries of
Newborn
- Paula Weld-Cary
Let me walk along the curves
of creeks
on paths of yellow sorrel,
let me walk through mottled shade on stones
worn smooth, not knowing of tomorrow,
through new spring air in wordless speech,
through bluegrass overgrown,
where tiny flowers tucked beneath
brush softly, softly, at my feet.
Surround me like a gentle
rain,
sing softly once again,
and do not call me back too soon
from milky sky, from rising wind,
from tiny tendrils near my skin,
this place so faint yet warm and near
is dreaming in my ear.
Parallel
- John Grey
Long walk in summer field...
forget the weariness...
honeysuckle, clover, lilac,
I have a soul for just such a
purpose.
And for quiet reading
in dark brown study,
words assemble, appeal to sense
and emotion and then something else...
they bear me to some place
where I am waiting for me.
And people, even those doing
simple things,
peeling an orange with a knife,
looking out a window,
knitting, commenting on the weather...
they're met by ordinary response
that resonates something deeper,
pragmatism as a shield
for radiant joy.
And then there's news of
death...
it plunders the surfaces,
coerces the every day feelings,
the movements, the expressions,
but the spiritual core remains unconvinced
by all this ragged sorrow.
I'm living a double life,
the quixotic and the patient,
the body and belief.
Long walk in summer field...
muscles tired, earth hard,
but isn't that a bluebird soaring,
burnished orange, cobalt wing.
I'm more grounded by the
moment,
more flying by the day.
Jan Vermeer’s Woman Weighing Pearls
- Herbert Woodward Martin
Something more than the weight
or perfection
of pearls is on her mind. She is concerned
with the weight and perfection of the child
she carries and how the light she works in
will greet this special coming and how
attentive it will be towards her after
birth. Will everything be as pure as the
ermine which gives forms and luxury to her
body? What is the wealth of light which
descends on her face then body and hands?
How careful was Vermeer with
the weight
of things these two years ?
At the Frame Shop
for St. Lucy of
- Elizabeth R. Curry
Gadroon borders, fillets, UV
glass, racks of samples
at 90-degree angles—wood, aluminum, steel, slate,
a mysterious composition like the universe, paper
matting
to distance the immediacy of framing:
So many ways to limit life,
image and imagine it.
I have come here with a
photograph of St. Lucy,
thirteenth-century woman with long, long body whose eyes,
pupils faded, stare in stone as they have done through
histories
of lifetimes powdered into stardust. She steps forth
hesitantly,
blind, mute, deaf—fist raised with fingers wrapped as though
ready for signage of the words Love of Light, she who is all
grey
in the cathedral dusk, her ironic task as Saint of Vision
palpable,
left hand grasping the stern folds of medieval dress, its
cincture
marked off in measured sections for the sightless to count:
Sculpture touches glory for the blind.
Her image will be with me for
a time. The Framer
and I choose a grey frame, grey and white matting,
non-glare (light-restricting) glass, black border for the Lady
with the plain and disproportionate face of a real person:
flat blades of cheeks, long upper lip, pursed mouth,
dimpled,
middle-aged chin. But very finger-beautiful.
I shall look and look at her,
and though too far away to feel the stone,
join all who have ever seen her for what she is:
Sculpture shows art’s touching glory.
Upon the Indispensability of Doctrine
- Edwin J. McAllister
Think of every day beginning
again,
Needing all your old truths
reconfirmed
Of every night's reflections
ending in
The kind of thoughts that got Servetus burned.
Imagine stepping daily out of
bed
And into running water or a
heap
Of tracts composed by heretics
long dead
That piled up there while you
were asleep.
At times I fear a creed is
just a nail
To hang our souls upon before
we sleep,
A spike to pierce the tract
where we've detailed
The promises
that someone else must keep.
I grip the spike and sleep and
dreaming see
The nail
pierce through the hand that's gripping me.
Summer’s Benediction
-
On a brilliant September
afternoon,
I watch squirrels stock their
pantries
Like shoppers in a frenzied
scurry
In grocery
aisles before a storm.
Summer birds are winterizing
nests
And saying goodbye to
neighbors
Who don't
fly south before the snow.
In a sky as indigo
As a painting by Van Gogh,
The sun hovers close to earth,
A benign escort hugging me
As I walk in bracing air.
In the burnished light, the
grass
Is a glossy technicolor green,
And leaves shimmer like
metallic jade
Fringed in
pale gold and tangerine.
A bittersweet September
afternoon
Is summer's exquisite
benediction
Before the
requiem of fall.
In the Soft Blossom of Silence
—for
Jeanne Ranek
- Jason Ranek
Motherhood is a kind of
darkness, a reaching
past the limits of the self to touch
life pulsing on the surface of a dream.
There are death-echoes in this.
What happens next
will cloud the very light her body drinks:
the child awakens to himself without
memory or shame, with nothing but a need
that chews relentless at the root of the heart.
Time blinks. The child is a
man sounding
a darkness of his own, stammering for meanings,
reaching for a flaming stone with which he will light
a dark and hidden place, an alcove in the grotto
of breath, deep in the soft blossom of silence.
And if he returns with nothing
but a heap
of words, experience corrupted by the ambiguities
of language, she will forgive him. He was lost in a
dream.
She will take a letter from
his tangle of alphabets
and hang it as a prism above the threshold of her sleep.
Awakening at dawn, she will
rise to see the white
light breaking in myriad colors of being.
Soeur Loupec
- Sally Taylor
Soeur Loupec makes fine costumes
for Carnival, swift fingers
sewing sequins on slinky gowns, taffetas and silks rustling,
ruffles on traditional costumes with bright floral cottons,
starched and folded plaid hats, and triangular fringed shawls.
The little machine hums and
blinks into the night, defying
the hot darkness at the back of her tiny one-room
apartment.
Soeur Loupec was waiting when two
missionaries knocked,
her precious scriptures worn, cover spotted, page corners
bent back to mark a passage, pages wrinkled and smudged
from her dark finger running eagerly under the words.
Why had no one been back to
see her? Yet those who
gave her the book had left for cooler climates long ago.
Soeur Loupec's small dark body
went easily under water
at baptism, her handmade white dress billowing around
her,
grey hair pulled back into braids, gnarled hands tightly
holding the elder's arm as he led her from the font. She
wiped the water from eyes caught in sunlight. Another
black sister hugged her in a towel to cushion the shining.
Soeur Loupec sings traditional
Guyanese songs a capella
at the church social, her wavering voice making some
notes
strong, but others lost to forgetfulness, her eyes calm
and peaceful, her hands moving, though her fingers
are splinted and bound, hands which warded off a chair
when a drug-desperate son demanded money she didn't have.
Song for a Newborn Daughter
- R. J. Hejna
Soft in her father's arms,
rocked
the measured steps to bed,
rising through mystic tones
she is, in the dark, swaying dark,
a song, dear light-spun one
I knew among unknown realms,
where metaphor has never reached,
nor gravity tugged the heart.
Sung unlike a hymn she is,
more cleansing voice of a stream;
where birds join to usher flow
arriving and departing, telling:
“Life is now! Life is always
now!”
Toward what she bends her
dream
matters not so much as a slight
grasp of sleeping hands; and
under her tiny lids flowers play.
Their friends, the bees,
announce:
“Honey's for keeping promises
time's effort can only delay.”
Now sweet love within a love,
new moon the old moon keeps,
my breath is breathed by other lungs.
Is it you or I who sleeps?
An Overreaching Splash
- Peter Andrew Nelson
The sea’s salty air had long
absorbed
Light foggy mist from your
splash,
When two towers cast long
shadows
Across the waters of a new
empire,
Like a pair of exalting arms
Stretched in worship of that
same
Golden sun whose siren song
Sang seductive incantations,
Drowning out
father’s level advice.
Yours was the purest of
flights, Icarus;
Transcending the movement of
arms
Attached to home made waxy
wings,
Soaring, with each flap
greater distance
From Minos’
maddening maze,
Ever closer
to freedom’s shining sphere.
Love and lift kept you
aloft…for a time;
Spiraling from your lusty
reaches,
The sea thirstily watched your
descent
Like a puddle eyeing a rain
drop,
The Oracle, stirred from
slumber,
Blinked its auguring eyes,
Harbinger’s
plummet fore its orbs.
Man’s first kiss of sky choked
In the
hoarse throat of tragedy.
Prophecy cast as fable it
appears.
But dormant truth finds the
light,
Crossing many seas and
centuries
To awaken the world with
Shattering
force and terror.
Erasing long twin shadows,
Like feet disappearing under
the water.
The Night Shakes Out Her Wild Black Raven Hair
- CarrieAnn Thunell
The night shakes out her wild
black raven hair,
And spills like pearls, her
stars in filaments.
Like Christmas lights, they
light the firmaments.
In scattered sparkles dense as
dust in air,
Swirl bright spiral galaxies
everywhere.
Black
night’s glow, this light show of elements.
Of such star stuff we are
embodiments,
From finite building blocks
that we all share—
Unseen Benevolence behind it all,
Scoops up bits of matter and energy
Forms snowballs of potential hurled in
space.
In our genetic make-up hums the call
A whispered, “I’m in you, and you’re in me,”
In my body swims star bits and sky
lace,
God of Einstein, without,
within to trace.