Best Puritans Poems
We the People
Will disagree
On taxation and prosperity
On liberty and duty
We the People
Are every color of Christianity
Every Jewish prayer, every song of Islam
The puritans, the atheists and the Amish
Are neighbors here
We the People
Are Jamaican and Japanese
Swedish and Samoan
Cuban and Cherokee
Moroccan and Mexican
The Irish and the Inuit
And all shades of Africa
We are country hills and cityscapes
Suburban parks and downtown fire escapes
We are singers and stutterers
Daredevils and diplomats
Renegades and redeemers
The leaders and the lone wolves
The suits and the sarongs
We are the gun owners for gun control
The justice for unjust loopholes
We are the hands that struck the iron
And the backs that laid the tracks
Of trails of rails connecting
Sea to shining Sea
We are protesters and poets
The soldiers without peace
The nurses without sleep
We are the straight arrows and the skeptics
The gay and the god-fearing
We are Black Lives Matter
And we are the badges in blue
We the People
Are complicit and complicated
No freedom gave
To chains of slaves
We have conquered and colonized
Sacrificed and stolen
Pillaged and planted
To naturalize a nation
We are teachers of tenacity
Prophicies of pioneers
And the children of second chances
We the People
Speak for our land’s legacy
In every tongue, from every rung
On each stumbled stair, each crumbled chair
We demand democracy.
8/21/20
Poem of the Day
August 23, 2020
Categories:
puritans, discrimination, freedom, history, society,
Form:
Political Verse
Salem Village, Massachusetts
May 11, 1692
Of evil works in league with the devil, I am accused.
Spit upon, bolts tethered in chains, I have been abused.
People mardle I cast spells of palsie to make them twitch.
Blinded by fear, they labeled me a sorceress, a witch.
Superstition is to blame for blinding their eyes.
I claim innocence when affronted by boisterous cries.
"Burn the witch!" they shout in frenzied outrage.
Until tomorrow's trial, I am to be kept inside a cage.
These Puritans are wrong to think they do God's will.
Christians should not have such an urgency to kill.
There is no talk of banishment. That would be a blessing,
but the crimes they say I committed, I am not confessing.
Other women in the village are facing this tragic fate.
Pity that our lives will be in the hands of the magistrate.
Sorrow fills me knowing I will meet death on the gallows
and tossed in a grave, not worthy of ground that is hallow.
I am already convicted in the minds of those who leer.
My pleas of having done nothing wrong, they do not hear.
All of a dudder, I hear them say, "She is a witch possessed!"
"Forsooth," I will cry in court, "to witchery I have not confessed!"
Somewhere from outside, I faintly hear a church bell clanging.
Then, a hoard of voices screaming, "It is time for hanging!"
I write these words before the mob comes to take me away.
God, please keep me in your heart. I will not live another day.
Bridget Bishop,
Falsely accused of being a witch
Categories:
puritans, feelings, history,
Form:
Rhyme
Puritans gather in Congress' hallowed halls, faces glum
Trampling truth, blowing horns, banging drums
Of blazing envy, wrath, and sloe-eyed sleaze
Pelosi-Schumer's moralizing minions on their knees
Digging up dirt on disapproved-of nominees
Judgment fled to Pandora-box divorce decrees
Careful, all you righteous pols, so sure the public will be pleased
Most voters care about the economy, not investigative sleaze
-- And whenever decent folks flee, the door opens for the military
Categories:
puritans, america, judgement, leadership, leaving,
Form:
Rhyme
The Quakers, being religiously persecuted, set sail from expatriated England;
they were the first settlers to reach the shore of New England: a free land!
Later the Puritans came and settled in other eastern, bustling colonies
seeking the same religious freedom, but their urge was stronger than dreams.
Many moved westward on foot, on horseback and on overloaded wagons...
exploring the American wilderness plundered by indigenous Indians;
they searched for grassland everywhere, to let their cattle roam and graze;
first they built wooden shacks on vast, lush prairies full of Queen Ann's Lace.
And out of this American westward expansion, came the fearless pioneers,
who sought gold mines...despite the wild cowboys causing troubles
with heavy drinking and desire for unscrupulous women, seeking money and pleasure,
who served them more whisky and lured them to a room with a demeaning measure.
Beyond the Rocky Mountains' and the Appalachians Mountains' skies,
these diligent pioneers obtained wealth with sweat and sacrifices...
changing and shaping the wild landscapes of arable land,
avoiding the drudgery of getting stuck in mud and sand.
Categories:
puritans, cowboy-western, family, food, history,
Form:
Quatrain
She heard her feet fall on the dirt.
The echo caused her heart to hurt;
and though she held her head up high,
she chose her fate for love to lie.
No shame could steal her pride away.
Stern puritans would have her pay.
Her sin she wore upon her chest.
The scarlet A defined her best.
This brave woman named Hester Prynne
forgave herself of her past sin.
Paraded ‘round town openly
with babe in arms for all to see.
Daughter named Pearl, a gift from God.
She felt forgiven, strong yet flawed.
The town became her own prison;
the woods, her walls, absorbed love’s sin.
Her choice to stay and not to run,
she made that day in light of sun.
She'd never give the elders power
beyond penance of bridled hour.
She wore her "A" dutifully,
then laid with love eternally.
By Rhonda Johnson-Saunders
For Giorgio's Iambic Verse - Recite and Analyze A Fictional Event, 2/15/15
*written in iambic tetrameter, couplet rhyme scheme.
Event analyzed- When Hester Prynne is publically shamed and given her Scarlet Letter.
Categories:
puritans, community, religion, sin, strength,
Form:
Couplet
Deep as defeat as conspicuous
As the influx of presentiment
Passion is aimless humility
Panic is native to injury
Reasoning divulging odium
Sparkles unchosen but chemical
Puritans' speechless delivery
Idles in syllables neutral to
Carpet biology tapestries
Woven in Persian but personal
Surfaced in diamonds and sodium
Burnishing flavorful scaffolding
Sauntering over the savagery
Blanketing social impurity
Witnesses! Silence the speechlessness!
Caution the ignorant eagerly!
Woe as the end of the suffering
Millions of eyes as the visual.
Categories:
puritans, inspiration,
Form:
Epic
Some serious religious sophomores claim Christ ('Witness' Bluff)
Almost like Columbus: to hit the Other, take their STUFF
Nothing Doing here; I am a Minister of Jesus' Gospel
For the same Reason they fled HERE to Native Indian lands
Catholics to Lord Baltimore's Maryland, Puritans to Massachusetts;
Persecuted Quakers to Penn's America - for debts Kings owed the Admiral
(Indentured white servants came in thousands, here and in the Islands
There's no shame; we are all sinners, or erstwhile peasants, made Kings)
Don't dare preach to me to abandon my dress, language, culture
While you want nothing of Jesus, and His Gospel that saves sinners like us
THE SECOND COMING WILL NOT BE TELEVISED, OR ON FACEBOOK
NOR WILL IT BE APPROVED BY THE MILITARY, UN, OR the WHITE HOUSE
This world has enough of such CHRIST claimants
Even Jehovah's Witnesses tell me to forget my ancestors
So she can rest assured, make the world safer for Imperialism
No, Sir. No Ma'am. Jesus never asked me to lose my language, wisdom ...
To become akin to POPES, priests, Luther, Calvin, Puritans of Boston
Who killed four Quakers before 1660; just 40 years post-Mayflower arrival!
THE SECOND COMING WILL NOT BE TELEVISED, OR ON FACEBOOK
NOR WILL IT BE APPROVED BY THE MILITARY, UN, OR the WHITE HOUSE
That was not all; Roger Williams fled Boston, for fear of forced deportation
Was fair to Natives, now America's first Baptist. Not so for Anne Hutchinson
She was expelled from MBC (Massachusetts) when pregnant with child #8
She never survived the flight, but did open up Portsmouth (Rhode Island)
So when we think those South Africans of Indian descent must change ...
I ask, As Columbus wanted change? As the Puritans? Those slaveowners?
Thank God the Slaves kept their African culture in America
And made Christianity BETTER than ever, gifting us such SAINTS as Dr. King!
So there!
THE SECOND COMING WILL NOT BE TELEVISED, OR ON FACEBOOK
NOR WILL IT BE APPROVED BY THE MILITARY, UN, OR the WHITE HOUSE
Categories:
puritans, africa, bible, black african
Form:
Verse
When pilgrims first arrived upon Plymouth’s shores,
They were wary of Indian customs and things they didn’t know-
Suspect of the Indians having powers from the devil, and more,
The belief of witches inside their own colonies did grow-
Witchcraft suspicions weren't confined to one colony alone,
Many believed Satan himself could possess both body and soul-
Behavior was questioned - whether outside or inside a home,
And accusations towards those disliked - sometimes a personal goal-
In 1642, Connecticut made witchcraft punishable by death,
And for 108 years it remained as a capital crime-
Twelve executed before 1692 crying “innocent” until their last breath,
Witch-hunts became more prolific, right after this time-
Witch trials are a period of dark history for us,
Mass hysteria flourished in Massachusetts, Salem town-
When eight girls ate rye fungus then acted odd and made a fuss,
“BEWITCHED” the doctor said, for no cause of illness could be found-
Initially only three accused, but the list grew as time went on,
Until thirty were identified as witches by the end-
Both men and women were named and it didn’t take long,
For the infamous Salem Witch Trials to begin-
Nineteen women were hanged on Gallows Hill in 1692,
And a man not answering charges, was pressed to death by stones-
Fifty more died in prison awaiting trial for witchcraft review,
The court would convict on verbal testimony alone-
Only one of the eight trial judges had a conscientious reaction,
Presiding Judge Samuel Sewall, publicly apologized five years later-
For his condemnations, he felt a tremendous dissatisfaction,
Begging for forgiveness, his remorse couldn’t have been greater-
In 1750, witchcraft was removed as a crime in our colonial society,
The Puritans who had fled the grasps of England’s persecuting hand-
And tasted freedom had gained some bad notoriety,
When they persecuted those different, on their new American land-
Categories:
puritans, character, education, fear, history,
Form:
Quatrain
Saturnalia, the pagan worship of winter solstice,
the darkest tidings of the year.
The birth of our Nazarene most likely
September 29th.
Like a used car dealer rolling back the odometer,
Pope Julius I moved Christ’s birth to
December 25th
to sign up more pagans
at the darkest tidings of the year.
For this, the Puritans never celebrated Yuletide,
a pagan holiday of sin.
Still, rituals of the festive season endure.
Sitting in solemn silence on the eve of every Christmas,
the Swedes turn their TVs to Donald Duck.
So too do the Japanese eat a bucket of KFC
while the Ukrainians decorate Christmas trees with fake spider webs.
In Greenland, men serve women whale blubber
and the Catalonian’s nativity scenes always
include a bare-bottomed pooping man.
These are the darkest tidings of the year,
Christmas is incomplete without them.
These are the devotions of Noel.
Categories:
puritans, christmas, culture, funny, humor,
Form:
Free verse
The Truth About Thanksgiving
By Elton Camp
The Thanksgiving story taught in the school
Those ignorant of history is intended to fool
A splinter group of Puritans the Pilgrims were
To call them “fanatics” is truth, not some slur
They came intending to take Indian lands away
Wanted to establish Kingdom of God they say
Their own religious beliefs intended to impose
With woe and death to any resisters of those
Deceptions, treachery, torture, war, & genocide
All of these, to reach their goals, they tried
The Wampanoag Indians helped them survive
But to totally wipe them out, later they did strive
Their reason for inviting Indians to eat was cruel
They were buying time until they could come to rule
It was a treaty they wanted with Indians to work out
So they could take over their lands without any doubt
To shift the balance of power they needed more time
To be able to kill the Indians and complete their crime
And that is exactly what finally came to take place
The way the Indians were treated was such a disgrace
Because its true history is as grim and unsavory as this,
Thanksgiving’s a day some Native Americans will miss
Though not that they’re trying to be vindictive or mean
Rather, due to its start, it reminds them of things unclean
Categories:
puritans, holiday, thanksgiving, history,
Form:
Rhyme
I was playing near a college town,
people pay money to hear my jokes,
when back-clad fools charged upon stage,
at first I thought it was a hoax.
Then they said my jokes about dating
were ‘Patriarchal Misogyny,’
everyone’s good time was ruined
by those god damned NPCs.
A few days later, when online,
I posted about a new book
written by my favorite author,
figured that it was worth a look.
But outrage mobs went barking mad
over his fun in younger days,
what that had to do with his ideas
they did not bother to say.
The next week an actor friend of mine
told me he’d gone out with this girl,
she’d taken him home and the sex
had rocked his entire world.
But my friend had just broken big,
and feminists convinced his date
that she could ‘win one for the team,’
so she accused him of rape!
When he showed the texts she sent before,
some claim that he ‘hated women,’
as if being good means sitting back
and just watching your career end.
None care about his innocence,
the media still pimped her tale,
even if he were no rapist
he was guilty of being male.
Tired of all this crazed nonsense
I searched for my favorite pod-cast,
didn’t always agree with the host,
but his interviews were a blast.
Yet the website had booted him,
they weren’t fond of non-leftist thought,
to be popular with ‘outside’ views
broke their Truth Council's latest laws.
Then came my dear cousin’s wedding,
which my activist sister deplored,
she growled,”Marriage is such a lie,
they will know nothing but divorce.
It’s always rape when with a woman
a sex-hungry man does lay,
some day she’ll realize her mistake,
hopefully it will not be too late.”
Realizing why we didn’t talk,
I gratefully caught a jet home,
and saw they were building something
in the big lot next to my own.
It was a hideous, iron blob,
and when I pointed this fact out,
the architect screamed,”Philistine!”
then proceeded to holler and pout...
CONCLUDES IN PART II.
Categories:
puritans, culture, how i feel,
Form:
Narrative
If movies are reflections of our world,
Then why does violence play a leading role?
Consenting sex, whose scenes are wrapped and furled,
Is cut in line so gore can score its goal.
The act that violence plays in life is minor
Compared to sex and love, who reign supreme,
And by degrees are viewed as widely finer
Than wrath and hate’s unnatural extremes.
But we inherited from Puritans
Our backwards views on sexual liberation.
While gung-ho guns parade like charlatans,
I’ll forwards choose to duel and match my nation.
When sex and love get demonized, assaulted,
Then fear and hate are glorified, exalted.
Categories:
puritans, love, violence,
Form:
Sonnet
Strange is this land that I’ve entered,
Yet maybe I’ve been here before,
Magical artist of nightfall
Paints fingers that tap on my door.
Somehow I feel strangely centered
Both ready for fight or for flight,
Drawn still to vision, sweet landfall,
No claim I have special insight.
Music of night that I’m hearing
Warns softly of dangers ahead,
Knowing that my heart is waiting
Love sweetly just slips into bed.
Ramifications I’m fearing,
All vanish like dew in this land,
Love’s rose has cousins worth courting
Emotions here are never bland.
Dream’s length can never be certain,
Don’t worry there’s never a plan,
Timetable that one must stick to,
And no one to please in your clan.
Catholic guilt’s final curtain,
And Baptist restraint a mere joke,
Mormon pretense a new milieu,
God’s heaven served up to plain folk.
Let’s lift our glass to flight’s fancy
To dreams that will never touch ground,
Dance now and howl like a dervish
And spin like a merry-go-round.
One need not serve necromancy
To value the magic in dreams,
Puritans, no longer slavish,
Rejoice in the breadth of love’s themes.
Brian Johnston
Sept. 10, 2014
Categories:
puritans, love,
Form:
Rhyme
It was said of old, 'Truth lies open to all', but today
perception is all; no one is perfect but perception
can cure all blemishes, avoiding the fate of being hero
to zero that brittle celebrity promises in life, in posterity.
What a vicar would be shocked to hear, to see, as though
these shock jocks of life and death are maiden aunts who
have never lived: after their demise what a media shock,
what a surprise that these puritans had a love life being
charitable on the sly, belying their dark clothed strictures.
Prim and proper Betjeman's Fifties pose metamorphosed
into a lamentation that he wished that he had more sex
unlike Greeneland's adventurist aunt who had no need to
fabled in the Sixties: our time for ever and always for everyone.
Making our moral dilemmas not confusing morality
with law, hating injustice but being unjust by being
self-righteous becoming our own judge-pentinents
before the fear of ourselves more than this wicked wide world
of wonders defying cynicism by imbedding in us scepticism;
not just of the hypocrtical red- tops that only rarely have a
kernel of truth besmirched by lawyers some of whom not
not having their chopped heads off are a sure defence
of the powerless and true. Even when perception is as
broadminded as the times while being full of righteous
outrage if time fast forwards the past obeying a new
morality old, dressed in new garb.
Who riots? Who occupies? Who wins? Who loses?
We see darkly as we shadow the mote in our
own eye until we can see we are all in this together whether
we are together or not; when hidden charity characterises
us in not in righteous mode in nor complacent commode,
so that one day, for all living on this oblique spheroid,
we can all truly say that, 'Truth lies open to all', on the good Earth.
Categories:
puritans, philosophy, life, time, together,
Form:
Free verse
...It was only two days later
when the local catholic high school
was told their team name, the ‘Crusaders,’
was insensitive and uncool.
Protestors showed up to bellow slurs,
and get all up in the kids’ face,
the media scoffed and insulted
the children and their competing faith.
It was about this time that I
began to notice a trend,
these people all seemed to be leftist,
and were miserable to no end.
Their reactions weren’t disagreements,
they were rabid cries of “Heresy!”
no longer could they understand
deviations from their beliefs.
And like every True Believer
they thought they were doing God’s work,
their God was the state, above all else,
and all must now obey his words!
This all seemed very odd to me,
didn’t they once preach tolerance?
And now they destroy the different,
how the hell does that make any sense?
How does a person go from free speech
to banning any words they don’t like?
How do you scream “appropriation,”
when you once said,”Learn from that tribe?”
What comes next, a scarlet ‘R,’
to represent their favorite slur,
an ‘S’ if you don’t bow to women,
an ‘F’ if you refuse their words?
Or maybe they’ll give yellow stars
to all who refuse to comply,
making it easier to find us
when they decide that we should die.
I guess you can’t be a democrat
ff you believe in freedom or fun,
don’t you know they know what’s best for you?
America’s new Puritans.
...you know what, screw 'em! A feminist, a Muslim, and a bisexual midget walk into a bar...
Categories:
puritans, culture, how i feel,
Form:
Narrative