Best Processional Poems
Satin shoes, for years,
I wore upon my feet;
Bound around my
Ankles with
Expectations
I could never meet,
On bloodied toes
That languished
In a pirouette
Of self-defeat;
Wearing slippers
That tried in vain
To polonaise
Your dreams.
~~~~~~
Written: Jan 24, 2011
Author’s note: In the story of Swan Lake, it is told
that the lake was formed from tears.
Definition of ballet terms:
Pirouette: whirl or spin - a complete turn of the body on one foot,
on point or demy Pointe.
Polonaise: Processional dance in 3/4 time with which the court ballets
of the seventeenth century were opened and can be seen
today in Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty
Sunday afternoons,
or Saturday afternoons,
look and feel richer,
dense relational liturgy of mundane ritual,
often more sabbath quiet.
Quiet neighborhood school playground
celebrates more solitary visits
seeking silent sensory selftalk,
muse swings back and forth,
happy slides up elational,
processional,
then downright ecstatic.
Sunday's GratitudeGoRound
of a warm winter's sun
pretexting Spring's redemptive dance,
prancing across wet jungle gyms
of mythic pirate romance,
swinging Tarzans and Janes
flying rope to rope
bar to bar
beating outdoor kettle drums
of Sunday's sacred playground joy.
This light we bring to sabbath
Sunday's sun absorbs
full resolved through echoing play,
a child again
in love's sequestered Solar System womb
giving happy birth to weeks
becoming strong,
EarthBound PlayGround
ecstatically beloved
Queen Shabbat's weekly baptism
in love child's regenerativity.
"The Pavane"
Autumn leaves
whistle nonchalantly
along the left-behind
paths of serendipity
hesitantly touch fingers
lightly for a while, tipping
lost in the wastelands
winter beckons
love unconditionally
magic listens
and arrives
in the laps go-lightly
of racing hares
tossed salad years
and marshmallow dreams
of servile tortoise
pleasantville sown seams
stitching singers sewing
covers over pea-soup ethereal
conquered territory unseen
the unconquered all-knowing, unknowing
misty consommé seas
the spinning reals
seasoning dreams
like sails
stitching the wind
of evergreen the forests
tightly held in
the in-between
dells, we dwell subservient
free becomes the
shield held over
motto lux vitae
foot to pedal
watching you
reading me
dancing the slow Pavane
fingers lightly touching
faces veiled behind screens
elaborate
clothing
autumn leaves
winter arrives
peacock moves aside
it parts the sees, in parts
lost in the wastelands
winter beckons
love unconditionally
(LadyLabyrinth / 2022)
lux vitae
Autumn Forest Ambience
[Music by Adrian von Ziegler -
Autumn Forest, Relaxing Celtic Music]
https://youtu.be/Ha0i6RUu_Hg
Autumn.
"The leaves are all falling,
and they're falling
like they're falling
in love with the ground."
"The first breath of autumn
was in the air, a prodigal feeling,
a feeling of wanting, taking,
and keeping, before it is too late."
Winter.
"Nothing burns like the cold."
"Winter is coming."
The Pavane/ Pavan.
A stately court processional dance where Elizabethan couples paraded around the hall lightly touching fingers. Pavane means peacock and the name of the dance derives from the sight of the trains of the women's gowns trailing across the floor like a peacock's tail.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavane
The Man from Darwen
Came there a man from Darwen,
In the heart of the Lancashire Hills,
A Town of industrial landscape,
Coal Mines and large Cotton Mills.
These times of hardship and struggle,
Left its scars upon the folk,
Working class agents of Victoria,
Amidst black chimney stack smoke.
Luke dear Luke, please tell me,
Of your life and how you’ve been.
Speak to me beyond the Gravestone,
Narrator paint the scene.
Born and raised impoverished,
Education for you not required.
Straight down the Pit at fourteen,
There till your lungs expired.
If it wasn’t the work that got you,
Beware of Smallpox epidemic,
Thirty-two years was no life at all,
Short lives, Victorian age systemic.
Luke dear Luke, please tell me,
Of your life and how you’ve been.
Speak to me beyond the Gravestone,
Narrator paint the scene.
Processional Cobbled Street terrace,
Mill Lords housing their forces.
Fourteen people in a two-bed house,
Sparse luxury, but Workhouse far worse.
Lancashire was built on Cotton
and its Heritage stands the test of time.
My ancestors were gritty and grafter,
Working through hardship and grime.
Luke dear Luke, please tell me,
Of your life and how you’ve been.
Speak to me beyond the Gravestone,
Narrator paint the scene.
Each Catholic Church may be unique
But you will find familiar elements in any Catholic church
That you also find in our own parish home.
Baptismal font—a pool or large bowl of water usually stands
Near the doors of the church and reminds us
That baptism is our “door”
To the Catholic faith.
Nave—the large open room usually filed with pews or seats is
The main assembly area.
Sanctuary—the part of the church reserved for liturgical
Action that contains an altar where the priest celebrates the sacrifice of
The Mass
A chair for the priest
The lectern for reading Scripture
Tabernacle—usually located in a place of honor in the
Sanctuary, this receptacle holds consecrated hosts. A candle nearby
Signifies when it is full
In our Parish Church of St. Andrew
It was built after Vatican II
The option to put the tabernacle
In the chapel was done since the main church is ‘multi-purpose.’
Crucifix—a prominent cross with an image of Father Christ crucified
is usually located near the altar. Here in St. Andrew we don’t have this
Though we have the processional cross.
Statues—Statues and other forms of art of Father Christ Jesus, Mother Mary, or the Saints remind us of those who inspire us by their holy lives
Here in St. Andrew we have the movable statues located at the vestibule of
the Church and in the chapel that are placed in the altar on feasts
Solemnities
Pavane for my dead daughter
So Innocent
So Chaste
So young
Unfulfilled
She died in my arms in the courtyard
The courtyard of my villa in Spain
What had she done to deserve this?
What had I done?
Is there nothing up THERE?
No Pity
No love
Above
How dare THEY preach of love?
My hatred knows no bounds
I’d crucify HIM once again
And again and again
I sit with her in my arms
In the courtyard
The courtyard of my villa in Spain
I’ll lead the sad Pavane
The sad processional dance
For my darling daughter
I am bereft
What had she done to deserve this?
A canticle I think I'll be,
A rimed thought, hoary and ancient,
Stinking as the dust heaped up empyreal on the hills of
The Judean sands;
And as dulled and dimmed as an archaic coin tarnish'd.
This is what I think I might be.
I'd as lief be this as any other you might care to name.
Valid is this, my remote and removed claim,
And it all began hereon.
O, that was an age ago, that remote and bygone time,
Rimed with hoar-frost and the whitishness of ancientness,
When as blood-soaked, cruciferous hills remote and circumvallatory or else
Perhaps circumferential to the great, walled city, itself circumvallatory;
When all this began.
When this particular beguine to which we've all been dancing lo this many score of years began.
It was as a woman bedecked in black on a Sunday morning newly kissed by the auriferous dawn,
(A goldener dawn than even that on which she met the man whose coffin she was now appointed to follow in a moribund processional, a macabre and solemn, ceremonial dance of death,)
Going down to the fixed graveyard.
That day was as the day on which I first deigned to join this,
And adopting unto myself the sobriquet, shibboleth "A canticle I think I be"
(For I was not permitted to use the full appellation I wished to apply to myself,
Owing to some stupid and recondite rule regarding and regulating the use and due conservation of characters: Yet not those as those of the mainstays of literature, no! I mean to say the characters that are synonymous with words and spaces and punctuation and the like,)
And here the tale ends, though 'twas not Moschean nor Noahide as
I perhaps meant it to be.
Oh, well: All's well that ends well.
(For was this not an idiotic tale, yet a harrowing one, whose lightest word would harrow up the young blood of any and all who saw it, read it, perused it?)
That empty presence hung upon the day
processional – unknowns who held him dear
bearing the debt of sadness in their way
more apt to crack a joke than shed a tear
the joy of him is what they wish to share.
Thus, those who knew the man would nod assent
commend them for the levity they lent
soft memories that none will e’er deny.
Let laughter be one tone of our lament
commingled with the tears of our good-byes.
5/14/2016
submitted to – Sad Poem – Dizain – Poetry Contest
sponsor – Laura Loo
TRANSIENT
made visible
in the eponymous
to
first appear
a
point a
in
linear perspective
relief
with expressive
intensity
a breath
a downcast gaze
with furrowed brow
a presence
of
the
otherwise
as
realism
as
is heightened
by the
remarkable
facilitated
articulated
so processional
readily available
talismanic
effigies
of imagination
realised
by
desire
They walk in single file beside the river.
Five young men heads newly shaved,
their saffron robes washed so frequently
that orange has turned a saffron yellow,
a yellow seen in temple lamps at dusk.
They gather under a broad Tamarind tree
for shade and rest.
There was a big match last night.
I overhear the names
of Thai football players lauded or lampooned.
The boys shuffle their feet,
dribbling imaginary soccer balls,
skillfully tackling less nimble opponents -
their excited talk
is birdsong beside the water.
Some playful rib digging --- then off they go
one behind the other along the Klong,
processional once more, reciting
a numinous Buddhist chant;
their beatific smiles
perhaps recalling a fumbled kick
or an easy goal.
Do, at night, flowers dream of their death?
The thought, admittedly is a poetic one,
but I find that absurdity,
is often a step ahead of knowledge.
I, being less self-absorbed than the frailest weed,
never dream of death, for death dreams of me,
it crawls into bed with me,
and enters my morning coffee
as a memory of what will come.
Every part of a flower is a construct
of one dream upon another,
it is a meditation by rote,
a chant on rails of light.
Only night can slow that processional unfoldment.
When the bloom wilts, look please with care.
See the beauty of dying flowers,
how they dream themselves out of this world
with their closeted death-songs
see how they impregnate water and soil.
with that last surrendering
of their looking-glass souls.
It is a time for congenial chants,
for keeping a reverent pace
with the hymnal steps of the heart.
The year lags behind us
setting slowly now
laden with all its bygone woes.
The days are become processional,
a folding of sacramental raiment’s
strained with the fabric
of isolation, hardship, and loss.
Rituals are more important
as the year declines,
as nights lengthen and settle
into rumor and whispered lore.
It is a time to honor
the sanctuary of flesh and faith,
to lift cupped hands as chalice’s
to sooth anxious eyes.
Hold you now high the votive lights of hope
cherish our child-like winter flowerings
warmed in the sanctum
of each quiet breath.
And all the people were gathering;
With palms and olive branches in their hands..
There He is
Here He comes..
Riding on a donkey..He comes
He comes
He's here, here He comes
Jesus was in the center of the procession;
And all the people all around him were shouting'
Holy, Glory
Glory, Holy
Hallelujah “Praise God for the Son of David comes, comes;
Glory, Holy
Hallelujah “Praise God for the Son of David comes, comes;
Blessings to the ones who comes in the name of the Lord! Praise God in highest heaven!”
And all the people all around him were shouting'
Holy, Glory
Glory, Holy
Hallelujah “Praise God for the Son of David comes, comes;
Glory, Holy
Through the crowds comes the Lord our God ;
He comes alone for everyone;
Teaches righteousness;
Preaches righteousness;
Come unto Him and confess;
Allow yourself to be blessed;
Come confess;
He's coming, He's in the processional
And all the people all around him were shouting'
Holy, Glory
Glory, Holy
Hallelujah “Praise God for the Son of David comes, comes;
Glory, Holy
Hallelujah “Praise God for the Son of David comes, comes;
Blessings to the ones who comes in the name of the Lord! Praise God in highest heaven!”
Here He comes He comes...
4/14/19
Matthew 21:9
It is a time to keep a reverent pace
with the hymnal steps of the heart.
The days are become processional,
a folding of past raiment’s
strained with the fabric
of isolation, hardship, and loss.
Rituals are more important
as the year declines,
as nights lengthen and settle
into rumor and whispered lore.
Hold high the votive lights of hope,
cherish each child-like winter flowering
warmed in the sanctum of a quiet breath.
Do flowers dream a life,
do they also dream of their death?
That whole process of flowering
seems to me ordained,
a processional progression
towards a culmination
one only a natural holiness could dream of.
The bloom becomes a meditation
upon an appointed anointing.
Then at night do they close to rest
in that dream of surrender
a prayer that lives forever
for all of us?