Best Preached Poems
The congregation eyed him skeptically
Long hair, a beard and sandals on his feet
Beyond his exterior they’d not see
This rambler had just come in from the street
He blessed himself with the sign of the cross
And joined fully in each hymn that was sung
It was soon apparent it was their loss
When he greeted God with a gentle tongue
“Lord, You sent Your Son to roam on this earth
His hair was long and to some seemed unkempt
And when He preached, insults were often hurled
But He was not repelled by their contempt
“And so, Lord, I seek forgiveness for these
Who cannot see beyond the clothes I wear
I’ll not be put down by those I displease
I ask for forgiveness, make them aware
“That Your Son sported sandals and a beard
I ask You judge them not as they judge me”
When the mass ended, the man disappeared
At heaven’s gate his name’s on the marquis
Some of the congregation dwell below
But the homeless man now sits by God’s side
For he had chosen love’s path to follow
Appearances he did never deride
*For Jared's "At First Glance" Contest
Categories:
preached, faith, son, spiritual,
Form:
Quatrain
Christmas carols are being sung,
As bells are joyfully being rung,
Heralding the Christ Child’s birth,
As Christmas Day, we celebrate with mirth.
But lets think of Joseph and Mary now,
As they must find an Inn, they vow.
All are full, where will they go,
As Mary is nigh, a holy child to bestow.
A stable they see before them,
With sheep and lambs, they hurry in,
The time is almost now,
When many holy men will bow.
A manger is turned into a crib,
A bird above sings cheep, cheep, cheep,
Straw, Joseph lays in the manger,
The baby cries,
This story I have often heard,
Tears always fill my eyes.
A star shines brightly in the sky,
Three wise men see it way up high.
They follow it to the holy babe,
Who with miracles one day,
Would pave the way,
For faith in ever lasting life.
The Wise Men from the East they came
With one ambition,
Gold, frankincense and myrrh they brought,
To honor the Christ child
Was their mission.
Shepherds saw the star and also came
To Bethlehem to bring the Christ child
Gifts of faith and love, gratitude
And devotion, all spiritual gifts,
The distance traveled by these lowly
Folk my soul did stir,
My spirit pounded, His birth heralded
With heavenly angelic flair.
As the Christ child grew into a man,
Jesus his name, He sent forth
Disciples of his faith,
Who spread the Christian faith,
As he so often preached and saith.
Categories:
preached, christmas,
Form:
Rhyme
The word
The idea
The wall that separates
Disguised in honorable robes
Preached to children
"Tolerance"
Am I to be tolerated?
Just because I am different
Black, white, brown or yellow
Straight or gay
Muslim
A Jew
Perhaps I am Christian
I am painted with many brushes
A part of humanity's inconsistancies
When you tolerate
You hold yourself in high esteem
Above
Not beside
You grace me with your temporary favor
You disguise me with your perceptions
You make me a little less distasteful
For a moment
Perhaps a day
You feel proud for not looking away
I do not seek tolerance
Like you I wish to be valued
Included
Understood
To be seen in loving ways
Maybe not today
Perhaps tomorrow
Labels Will disappear with all our sorrow
For me I am you
I am the many and the few
Waiting for my turn
Will this be my day
To be heard and have a say
For me
Tolerance
Is
Intolerable
Categories:
preached, discrimination, future,
Form:
Free verse
We loved the land
We tilled the earth, under sun we toiled
We pledged our souls, to nature’s whim
The King of France none to pleased
We took the sacraments
We held our faith, mournful to fates embrace
The British demanded a new oath we take
And scalped we were, both sides did partake
Our villages burned, our fields afire
Our woman and children, in hunger perished
We feared Monckton, a hunter of death
And from him, to ships hold, deported at best
We preyed to Canada, to lend us a hand
Evangeline an angel of our land
The darkened forests, to where we fled
Became bloody in battles, and turned to red
For Redcoats wandered in search of scalps
As Father Le Loutre preached unheavenly deeds
He was bloodthirsty and in skirmishes his evil flourished
His Mikmaq warriors helped rivers flow to blood
We lived along the rivers edge
We fought them all, to no one did we pledge
As serfs we served, to whom did rule
In the end, the forest sang our quiet eulogy
The vessels sailed from Halifax
With their human cargo of Partisans
Off to the West Indies, and a new land
Disease triumphed where Lord Laurence failed
And so the voyage, onward went
The traditions of Grand Pre, to Louisiana was lent
And there they settled, peace at last
As angels of their battles, in sacrifice did rest
Categories:
preached, history, philosophy,
Form:
Light Verse
"to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature" William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1601
towering redwoods
forest dwellers born before Christ’s time on Earth
spreading arms to lofty heights
dwellings provided in hollow, cave-like trunks
wrap your spirit in the redwood cocoon
feel the cool, dark air
refreshing body and spirit
refuge from summer’s heat
speak to me, redwood tree,
tell me of times past
when Native Americans cherished the land
and Jesus preached in Galilee
out of body, one with the redwood
journeying through history
living in a time tunnel
where past meets present
trees that know what man has forgotten
ancient tribes with sacred values
surviving earth-changing cataclysms
surrounding us with secrets to share
if we dare
dwell within
this broad, mystical expanse
redwoods’ memories
by Carolyn Devonshire
for Constance’s “The Tree” Contest
April 21, 2011
Categories:
preached, inspirational, naturetime,
Form:
Free verse
The soul is but a vast ocean of vigilance
Streaming with incresent colours towards life
Infinite within its parhelion possibilities
Relentlessly searching, betwixt the everflowing tides
Whereupon all things approach these providential probabilities
Of endlessly prolific visions thus beheld
Within the grasp of pristine pictures brushed and painted
Afore the overtures tubular bells; now sounding
Strewn, beneath the curatives silverish moon
Sirventes tunes, born, within fascinations bloom
These meant to be rhymes, amid Dorothy Gales times
Over somewheres prized amphoric rainbow
Arched imaginations, of fantasias floriferous creations
Breathing their pollinating light, within every breath that they breathe
Escaping the carcinogen caverns through torchbeared passages
Beyond the flesh rent falls and encumbering shawls
Carved crude, these animus meshed jackets
Encased within the chamber once laced
Unto broken bricks of concretes chained
Like Percivals plight....
Unmentioned between the lores, this wondering upon metaphoric shores
While barricaded by the calibrated stone engraved
Until antinomy could devise no more; yet
"If all we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream?"
Scream, and shatter these williwaws window panes
Awakening, beyond their oblique orbs of obscurities, void
To find 'The Holy Grail,' amid incarnadines blinding night
This veil removed, as clarity becomes now focused
Stepping from the shadows of the corners once webbed
Crossing, these sunsoaked sands of sunrises preached
With reaching hands, to touch the braille upon windings trails
Which only led back to the same gruesome pangs
Of a souls once upon a times, bound in maimed
Reading the writings on the wall, as cascading waters broke
The pinnacle of lost, tumbling and crashing to the reef
Belief, of a life breaking free from the dampened day
When faith became submerged beneath the assailant currents of
Hopes castaway possibilities....
Branded into their eyes, by the father of disguise
But no more as the clock struck three, and inversion, began to flee
Awakening from a dream, where nothing, was what it seemed
Dorothy Gales amphoric rainbow, draped upon a cross ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Percivals Promise!?
Categories:
preached, faith, life, love, time,
Form:
The dear old pastor had occupied the same pulpit for years and years;
He preached fire, damnation and The Hereafter scorching his congregants ears!
He had baptized hordes of kids and officiated when they married,
And comforted many mourning souls when their loved-ones were buried!
He suffered through stormy sessions at the monthly meetings of The Board,
And withstood the bickering of sisters of The Women's Guild, utterly bored!
Some of his flock were as stubborn as army mules and were quite contrary!
He faced challenging situations that they didn't teach about in seminary!
He confided with his long-suffering wife proclaiming, "This is the pits!"
And after serving the Lord nigh on thirty years he decided to call it quits.
He advised The Board that he was retiring due to health issues, you see.
(Truth was, he quipped, "I was sick of them and they were sick of me!")
Categories:
preached, humorous, religious,
Form:
Rhyme
Wonderful wonders woven within wild.
Titillates theatrical tender thoughts
Consistently creation, contrives conservation concerns.
Ecology evolves equations, entitling entities essence.
Empowering equality, enlarges existence.
Life lovingly leases Longevity.
Biodiversity braces, blatant brutal balding.
Deforestation, destruction devoid due definition.
People physically, plundering planet.
Prevalently procuring, products proscribed
Pilfering practices producing poisonous pollutants.
Greenhouse gases generated, generously grievous.
Temperate temperature’s tempers tumultuous.
Creating Climate changes, causing catastrophes.
Planet purges peril predominately.
Preached, placid platitudes, politicians podiums paced.
loved lives logged listed lost.
Lacuna languished, lessons least learnt.
Losing Life lingers, listing leeward lazily.
Categories:
preached, environment, nature,
Form:
Alliteration
I
I woke up this morning with tears in my eyes,
your face was in the morning paper;
they shot you dead like a dog,
hunted you out all day and night.
II
They said you'd always been a bad seed
and youths were dying because of you;
they said you're a criminal on the run
with a dirty face and shaggy head.
(Refrain)
But I know you better than they do,
you preached love to all the people;
you fought for them, young and old,
you lit up their nights with your heart.
III
And now as I see you lying dead,
it seems my dreams have vanished as well;
they can call you names, any names they want,
but I know there's only one like you,
there's only one like you,
there's only one Che Guevara.
(Repeat Refrain)
You lit up their nights with your heart,
you lit up their nights with your heart,
you lit up their nights with your heart.
Categories:
preached, death, history, introspection, life,
Form:
Ode
No amount of political education
could quell his mingling organ they call ‘simple brain,’
while mutations from grammar association
to unravel civilization's complex pain.
His shield prepared against another man’s logic
a mind opened only to serve his needy soul,
he knows the whole wide world lost in pedagogic
actors all on strings portray their orthodox role.
Many years he stood in testament of this place
a visual creation of his ancestors,
deluge of emotion the wind of change did brace
where cultures collide to appease his molesters,
forced to greet one’s neighbour face to face in shackles
before moral bait preached from veiled tabernacles.
© Harry J Horsman 2019
Categories:
preached, angst, culture,
Form:
Sonnet
The Unknown one
(Face 2)
Time steals a beating heart
The heart struggles to steal time
We grasp at emotional tinsel
We cry when our tears tumble
to hell
Seeking solace we find no solitude
Nor comfort in the breast of life
Seeking love we find only the heartless
Battered down to the dirt from whence we came
Seeking the past
We weep in graveyards
Emotional baggage
Sitting on the shelf
Love letters
Feeding the flames
Hell fires
Warming the coffin doors
How did it come to this?
That I lie here of weary bones
Stand strong and face life they preached
I have no face
I am the unfinished one
The reflection of nothing
Walking in-between icons
Garden of dead dreams
Cemetery kisses
On unfinished faces
clouds linger
Categories:
preached, absence, death, horror, identity,
Form:
Light Verse
Into the kingdom.
From the kingdom was I bourne ancestral sailed into the fall of the hemispheres equator. Other earth side I became alive. The table on the fringe.
From the kingdom all my culture my speech unadultured, my faith absolute.
Into the kingdom was I taken lifted airborne did I rise and fall and gently sail above the Thames in cloud.
oh mighty I land, thence a war that had began.
two children to become lovers we played distanced by nowt but the days. And a haze of hedges, fences, walls. Lonely hence thus I alone until.
I pray together I held hands with the love of her and my our kingdom Albion.
kissed we kissed. Love we love. Listen we listened.
fettered by oath to because of the poverty.
Amongst knights and their princes did I train, against the kaffir whom we blamed. Attack now they preached I said laugh instead, this fool feels meek, love, they should not war in the name of the all and that that is above. Wise words from her.
war.
return to
peace.
oh into the kingdom did I go, into the kingdom there I roamed. Into the kingdom with all that was kind and brute and love and speech.
This child did roam through into the love of her kingdom, there I did go, into the kingdom I am. In time I am. Oh that I am. Man I am In the kingdom. Hear me times men of man, electricity I speak. Until I go. Now im away and waiting. Holding silenced im praying for her.
split speech wreaking for heavens sakes, im in the kingdom.
I fell for her, she fell for me. In the anarchy.
that was life and of death I say when that arrives,
until then spring, new loves and life for more we both memory our time we hope we dream we think we speak we remember our promises in youth.
friends forever more, no matter how we fall, if we fall. Uplift us again in love my friends.
She knows when the word, I there within, filled love with her our word as words and words the maker makes and doth we wrote, between the love life.
when the holy finds her, there I am stoic im her man, in virgin, Shield, for I am, im hers. From the shelter of her kingdom I return to the dark of the deep, the continent of the beasts. A lion roars.
Categories:
preached, best friend, change, england,
Form:
Free verse
Seven days and lonely at night
Was a Princess called Snow White
On her doorstep there was
Little guy dwarves
All different to view from sight
So on Monday night she did walk
To Dopey's bedroom for a talk
The conversation was slow
Up sticks did she go
At her topless body he did gawk
When Tuesday evening came around
She tiptoed without a sound
Beside Bashful she sat
Blimey, not again, no chat
His eyes on me will never abound
Oh my! it's Wednesday again
Am I beautiful or just plain Jane
I better go to the Doc
Do I look good in this frock
Am I letting my shapely shapes wane
It's Thursday and I better nurse Sneezy
Whose chest has become rather wheezy
To him I won't kiss
No matter his wish
I have no desire to become queasy
Thankfully Friday has been reached
It's the weekend long lies are now preached
For Sleepy I'll never wake
No booty will he shake
My cheeks he'll never see peached
Saturday has finally come along
Even Grumpy now sings the same song
With a song and a cheer
Shared over a few beers
No chance you'll get into my thong
Have I saved Sunday to be the best
Is Happy better than the rest
His smile tells me so
For more than his cheeks glow
At last a loving grin at my breasts
Oh I need to be loved ever since
Like the weeks I had with my Prince
For many many nights
He knew to love me right
When I walked, you could see my legs wince
.
.
Categories:
preached, humor,
Form:
Limerick
My past was violent.
My world was quaint.
They made me a demon,
instead of a saint.
My past was full of cruelty.
They called it love.
I only felt the darkness,
as they preached from above.
They said I was a sinner,
that I should change my ways.
Whilst I cried with fury,
I hoped, an end to my days.
They shackled my wrists,
and tried to warp my mind.
Telling me, in Gods love,
freedom I would find.
With pride and arrogance,
they did this to a child.
They tried to birth a sheep.
Born rather, an animal that is wild.
-Angel Fatale-
Categories:
preached, abuse, bullying, child abuse,
Form:
Rhyme
Born into this world as a humble, helpless Babe
Christ increased in wisdom and stature
Grew up in favour with both God and man
Baptised publicly by John the Baptist
Tempted by the devil, but overcame him
Preached the gospel of the kingdom of God
Befriended the publicans and the sinners
Turned the water into wine, did miracles
Cast out demons, healed all kinds of diseases
Backed up twelve fishermen as His disciples
Taught them, led them, and washed their feet
Spent three and a half years moulding them
Broken, He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane
His sweat as blood, such spiritual agony
Ready to do the will of God and drink the cup
Beaten and scourged on the way to Calvary
A crown of thorns placed upon His head
Spat upon, mocked, and smote by the soldiers
Bruised, He was crucified on the cruel Cross
He hung there with no form nor comeliness
Reviled by passers-by wagging their heads
Bereft and forsaken by His own Father
Carrying the sins of the entire world
He suffered and bled, but forgave and loved
Beseeching His Heavenly Father to receive His Spirit
Lord Jesus Christ gave up his ghost on the Cross
And the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom
Buried in a new rock sepulchre, the stone was rolled
The tomb was sealed and the watch was set
But on the third day, as prophesied, our Lord rose up
Behold, there was a great earthquake
The angel of the Lord descended from heaven
And rolled back the stone and sat upon it
Bewildered, the women heard him saying,
“Fear not, ye seek Jesus who was crucified,
He is not here, for He is risen, come see where they laid Him”
Brutal death could not chain our Lord,
He overcame it and appeared to His disciples
And was carried up into heaven
Believe on the Lord Jesus, He was crucified for our sins,
But He resurrected from the dead, never to die again
Now He sits on the right hand of God, interceding for our sins
Beloved, He will come back one day
Not as the Lamb, but as the Lion
To take His loved ones unto Himself
Before it is too late, accept Him into your heart
You will enjoy peace, love and joy, which this world can’t offer
Repent, believe and rejoice for the Lord Jesus Christ is alive.
9th April, 2022
For Regina McIntosh's "Easter" contest
Categories:
preached, easter, gospel, jesus,
Form:
Free verse