Best Homilies Poems
I deem it important to attend church for my spiritual maturation.
I really savor the fellowship of a loving and caring congregation.
I especially relish the potluck suppers and other social interactions,
But even in this worshipful scenario, there are bound to be distractions!
Now, I don't mind the preacher pounding his pulpit to gain attention,
Or the occasional "amen" from a dear sister for her comprehension,
But that feller across the aisle who always sings off-key and out of tune,
Sounds like a murder of cranky crows or an out of sync bassoon!
I thrill at a great rendition of "How Great Thou Art" by the choir,
And the crescendo of the organ as it grows higher and higher.
Even the woman belting out her mezzo-contralto doesn't bother me so,
But that feller across the aisle who murders "Amazing Grace" has got to go!
I can tolerate little children who holler and scream now and then,
Or the occasional raucous ringing of a cellphone now and again,
But I approach congregational singing with little or no anticipation,
When that feller across the aisle brays, "The Churches One Foundation!"
I don't mind the snoring of the guy who occupies the pew behind me,
And I can abide the pastor's profound homilies to a certain degree.
But how I dread to hear that feller's odious and tuneless strain!
(I suppose I could move to another pew to ease my Sabbath bane!)
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(© All Rights Reserved)
Is what I do really important in the grand scheme of things?
13 billion years, we get 80, what a sweet little fling...
knowledge is relative,
let me put it into perspective,
geocentrism used to be accepted fact,
man has to tell himself he understands, reality is simply a pact
christians, jews, and muslims, divided over variations of the same "god"
read about pantheism, monotheism just seems a little odd
I mean, to me, religion just seems backwards,
you accept what you're raised on and then learn the factors,
now, I could be wrong,
but would you buy a house or car and learn about it as you go along?
dont get me wrong, the scriptures have some good advice and genuine homilies,
but when you teach people what to think, not how to think, there's no autonomy,
some people think without religion there's no standard for morality,
do you really need a 3,000 year old book to know geniality?
man created religion to instill order, mitigate death, and give us "meaning",
so what if life is meaningless, it's liberating, quit your weaning,
we're all in search of structure and substance,
self educate and be your own compass,
look, i just think this generation could change the world like never before,
they say you'll fall for anything if you don't know what you stand for,
so, throw out what you know, i've got a new petition,
it's not going to be easy, it 'll take some cognition,
but really, are you not tired of submission?
forget right and wrong, this is a remission,
let's have some ambition and create new traditions
The foresight
When I look back on my life, which I seldom do
I think in my writing, I should be deeper; alas, my self-mockery gets in the way.
Why should I think I`m intellectual to have any worth to say?
It appears to me that many on Facebook feel important enough to enlightening us with their homilies?
If you live like this or that, you will find peace and happiness.
Balderdash!
Reading what philosophers said, is interesting but it does not change your mind.
Nor does reading the bible makes you a Christian.
Gladness is a gift and the place for village idiots who lack the ability
to reflect upon life.
speculated on what life is for is useless; the only cure is acceptance
that life is cruel, and if you live long enough, friends may drive you around
asking you about the old days, a time you rather forget.
No religion or philosophy will rescue you; you are on your own until death.
The times twist and rise like rare tornadoes
Timelines elsewhere just turn into homilies
And the stars-turned-hearts are bleeding blues
The happenstance-moon for once is not made
of light to light up our home CFL’s
The rain gods do not drop water bottles
to the marooned; or the air, mantras, to reverse
Rigor mortis. The sky, hawker of visuals,
implores blind pathways to unchoke themselves.
I bide time in my twelfth floor Himalayas.
Kedar’s water demons come calling,
metamorphosed into meteorology,
dunking Chennai’s life in tears where float bloated
the arid wits of the metro’s whirlpool gods.
Note: Based on a Van Gogh painting 'Starry night', which struck a chord in me during the Chennai floods of 2015.
Beyond speech
Before the words
Even leave your lips
Thinking about thinking
Looking at your thoughts
I see the building blocks
Of your breaking down
It's noisy sound image
An abstract tree growing concepts
In a forest needing life
* Simeon wages its demise
Beyond the tip of your tongue
After supper, when the words
Have left your mouth
All your childhood questions
Still unanswered
It's branches are torn apart
Your tree positioned
Without arches pays a fee
To this living organism
For it's inorganic accretions
*Simeon wages it's demise
Beyond the after thought
Your prose has brought about
There's no going back
Past the Temple's entrance
No chugalugging in reverse
Like dead dogs guarding
White noise on a mountain
Jubilations and alleluias are
Revelations so gloriously bright
They hurt the eyes
*Simeon wages its demise
Beyond the pandemonium
Of your chitchat usage
On the far right of a good way off
Your thirty tongues
Those serpentine monsters
Are tangled in green homilies
No more conversations needed
Not listening but watching
Your gold watch a-tick tock ticking
It's running against time all-embracing
*Simeon wages its demise
Unsanctioned quiet
Never looks back
Too much said
Is always too late.
There are many words for frost
This is the house your words built
You might have lost your tongue altogether
Like blind passion without a mission
Not even your homing pigeon can
Any longer hear you out.
*Simeon wages its demise
He gave me a strong impact,
with his gift for immemorial gestures;
he embraced the sick and handicapped
he kissed the soil of the nation on his first vist.
As an occupant of the Chair of St Peter,
he brought the world, a message to everyone
his defense for the poor, a substance to carry on
as a church in her journey across cultures.
The awesome volume of his writings,
reveal the kind of pope he was
as a theologian suffused with faith;
as a philosopher endowed with reason.
In his very person, he was charismatic
as a teacher and defender of faith,
he set new directions, left a legacy
and continued the Roman Curia, multicultural.
On themes expounded in his documents,
speeches, homilies and reflections,
he brought the Gospel vis-a-vis the Magisterium
in all spheres that concern contemporary life.
As the first non-Italian pope in 455 years,
since the Netherlander Hadrian VI in 1552
and ever since his election to papacy,
by any measure, he’s a man for all seasons.
Albeit, he’d his disappointments,
his own share of sorrows over clergy in misbehavior –
the scandal of sexual abuse, particularly in this nation,
he remained firm and prayerful as a leader.
In spite of his frailty, Parkinson’s disease and other ailments
he continued his journey with deep faith and sacrifice.
his interreligious relations made a difference,
he visited mosques, synagogues and convened those other leaders.
He canonized saints more than 470 of them,
he beatified more than a thousand men and women.
such a milestone in the life of our Catholicism,
the call to holiness woven in discipleship.
He impressed believers of every faith
with his greatness in many ways;
like one of his favorite phrases,
quoting what St Augustine once said,
“Vobis sum episcopus, vobiscum christianus,”
he celebrated life, helped shape Christendom
with analyses of countless human lives.
This epidemic re: murderous love affair perfervid
with gruesome morbid
fixation allowing, enabling and providing terrifying
trappings, whence Pandora out the lid
anger loosed by gun toting recorded by hid
dee us aide de camp per grim reaper
milling crowd, each bewildered person stunned viz satanic grid
loosed bullets ensnare coterie upping ante bid
daring pernicious fare thee well odiously off loaded
per incendiary fiery maelstrom to mega death count added.
Suicide bombardier slakes thirst aims at billeted soiree
with deadly precision, and spray painting human innards
congregated engaged groupon people), with egregious pay
ment for exaggerated slight mowing down, a slew - nay
soon to be lifeless victims unaware - delivering may
hem to anonymous hunter a cannibal as well
family and survivors, who lay
down their sorrows, which bring revulsion and gray
obsolescence of faith in mankind to fray.
Death be not proud, nor ought airtime be allocated to these
heinous cavalier avengers foe tee eight-hour special (proffers
twitchy finger itching to squeeze
especial easy access to sophisticated high caliber compact
offspring family affair sport doth please
manifesting prize pride killing machine owners
posed as stonewall Jackson frieze
rapaciously with so much ease
lethal gimcrackery cutlasses incite epidemic violence as disease.
Sorrow soulful songs sung by the likes of death cab for cutie or goo
goo dolls in tandem with foo
fighting beastie boys pay homilies whence homage grew
to grateful dead nobody knew
fetishistic martyrs wannabe set sights of sister and mew
sic cull doobie brothers of their simian species with no sorrow to rue.
Revisionist lies sold as materialistic truth
American tagged merchandise
voter bazaar discount barter
Stars and Stripes twenty-one gun salute
Intellectual dishonesty ... shifting core values
Leave compassion at the border,
separate the parents
from their sons and daughters
Patriotic homilies be the verbal proof
of wavy cloth loyalty
Stock-in-trade inventory
historic laden with broken promises
Scarlet splatters on the red clay
turned to native blues on a snowy day
Left a weeping trail
trodden down by immigration wagons
Surrendering fiery wails
doused by the conquering wine flagons
Assimilation arrows
pierce separated hearts
Grieving tears levee
swept away
by a bow flood
of drunken pride and conceit
Stone face archers standing at the top of the towers,
got their lip quivers full of
pointed poison gargoyle eviction power
Assimilation arrows
don’t wanna change the color of manifest destiny
Let the hawks chase away the sparrows,
give the hate crows the bald eagle iron claw victory
A pale pastime tale ...
American rote homogenized
Graven hope tossed down a wishing well,
Roman Republic truth bought as jingoist self-evident lies
E Pluribus unum ...
Assimilation arrows on a frigid, melting pot Mephisto fly
Immigration rejection
pierce the divided hearts,
whose pledge of undying love has been icily denied
Wrapping him in a blue blanket he hands him over to me
outside the snow is falling, as I gaze at him my hearts about to burst
all the pushing is over, now its time to receive his glee
bluest eyes I'd ever seen suckling at my breast with a quenching thirst
Yesterday was Debussy and Bach
lullabies of sweet by morning dawn
Today a baby cradle with gentle rock
"Oh my God, did you see that Ron !"
We named him Joseph, after his grandfather who was a great artist
homilies of love spoken truthfully, I cannot contain the joy
just given birth to a special boy and it feels like I've been kissed
my love leans in and whispers " we'll give him every toy!"
With a sacral dimple you can't miss
he looks like a hand carved ivory Angel
as I draw him close and feather him a kiss
he gurgles with laughter, "I'm your Angel"
October 8, 2020
Your First Breath
David J Walker
Should I try
To name and number
The nameless days and
Numberless nights
I am
Another beginning
A being
The alpha and omega of
Another day spent
Remembering each morning
Each new day forming
Less of sight
and more of scent
I am
Another descending
evening
Riding the tide
of another tonight
guarding the dwindling
visions of vestige
The mellifluous homilies
Ascribed to the bright
Colored lights
Of the moon
I am the nameless
you will never know
living and dying
believing and loving
fearing and toiling
long before you
have come to take
your first breath
Lungs that exhale lofty tones,
higher learning ... Mt. Olympus invocation
Elevated flung lightning bolts of linguistic illusion,
fancy worded dreams
floating ...
between
open cranial empty spaces
Diaphragm skywalkers
verbally illuminating prosthetic landscapes
of skin-deep lip topography
Giving interval beeps
of sonar, irregular equality
Maimed assumptions broken
and bent at the knees
Another Po’ Boy sandwich
pressed between two white bread homilies
Lifted up from the boot straps of society,
raising scrap expectations
not patron saint funded adequately
Pardon this underbelly pale naïveté —
Delusions of pauper eloquence
is negative sum ghetto certified positively
Battered rent conditions
feeling the po’ economic handicap pocket tease
Another Black Forest ham sandwich
pressed between
an upper and lower enamel sound byte squeeze
Green pasture illusion of freedom
does make for an idyllic graze docile situation
Delusions of fluent eloquence
be the rose cheeky flow of a grandiose nation
We all retain, at heart, a love of squares –
the ones who wear pyjamas, say their prayers:
staid Ministers of Minuscule Affairs,
so sound at spouting homilies, splitting hairs,
the Fred Astaires who wound up Red Adairs –
you think the planet yours? It’s wholly theirs!
Those unabashed enthusiasts for flares
who spew soliloquies on stocks and shares,
and somehow swell and prosper, unawares!
Compliance officers, commissionaires –
not Taras Bulbas, more like Tony Blairs,
the sort who cook with Kerrygold, just for dares,
and read about invisible repairs.
Another thing about them – … oh, who cares?
Me, home and loneliness, no more no less,
Ah, oh, utter darkness, no more nor less.
In birth, life, death, equity rules the same,
Suffering there’s endless, no more nor less.
A few saline tears flow caused by sore heart,
What heart held, eyes express, no more nor less.
In desert were buried my memories,
Whence my mind did retrace, no more nor less.
Our parting when sun departed that day,
Hurt was on hurt I guess, no more no less.
Homilies that the world hail as Ghazal,
Some pens tend to caress, no more nor less.
Fine, if readers relate, draw parallel,
If not, it’d them depress, no more nor less.
____________________________
Inspired by a piece in Gujarati by Dikshhita Shah, no translation
Ghazal |21.12.2024|life, birth, death, tears
Poet’s note: The tears flown from eyes or dried down therein are like documents describing painful memories. If they were to be expressed in words, there’s nothing else like poetry. And in all poetic feelings expressed, there’s nothing to compare like ghazals, or to some extent sonnets. In ghazals a reader reads his own painful memories. The poet then disappears and what remains are pure experience of feelings. It means, in poetic words there’s not just fragrance of philosophy, but there’s that perfume, the painful scent of personal suffering as well. And yet, world often sees the light lit by the lamp in front of the photograph of the person lost, but not the darkness in the life of one who has lost the person.
Senior citizens
Crated in old people’s homes
Discarded denizens
Wrinkled forms
Pivotal during heyday
Generating national growth
Beyond payday
Bestowing cloth
On backs of offspring
Pouring sweat day and night
Zip in their gait and spring
Delight and sunlight
In hearts of extended families
Fountains of love and generosity
Inspiration for hallowed homilies
Wellspring of wisdom in the city
Senior citizens houses built
From scratch
Committed to the hilt
From a rural hut with thatch
Where senior citizens originated
Trekking hundreds of kilometres
Sunshine baked and incinerated
Through bush path nanometers and metres
Feet aching
Parched tongues
Future taking
Mustangs
Searing heartache
When senior citizens forsaken
Monumental mistake
Faith shaken
Time
To reconsider
Importance of the dime
To consider
Values and beliefs
That pride of place accord to the aged
In kerchiefs and handkerchiefs
Rummaged and foraged
To honour the old
Held in high esteem
To withhold
Neglect in family fabric, team and stream.
They answer questions seldom asked
tend to the mundane, "lesser" tasks
their halos tilted scally caps
homilies of wilted raps
soulless homeless shooting craps
rattling unnumbered dice
you may win once, never twice.
These voices of the lesser god
bedeviled by a life unshod
still reach to touch the garments hem
of gods that turned away from them.
3/30/2020