OF CLANGING LIVING WORDS
Let me trumpet
living words
breathing
to the heartbeat
of awakening
awareness…
Living
healing words,
strengthening
inspiration and
determination…
Living words,
pumping hope
bleeding from
the cistern of
resurrection’s
fulfilling faith:-
Let me trumpet
living words
with
alarm clock
reverberations;
waking up
sleeping courage…
Living words—
exhaling oppression,
inhaling liberation;
both with each
rhythmic respiratory
breath…
Living words—
shouting freedom
at last—as we
sojourn alive
and well—
railroading
peace and love:-
Let me die
apostolic—
a trumpeter
of living words—
leaving behind
miles of clanging
echoes—nourishing
youthful and thirsting
hearts, minds, and souls.
wind chimes are clanging
hair is blown to kingdom come
living in dustbowl
They have slept with their fathers
Shall we seek for revenge?
Even the emotions could no longer contain our sisters
All we sing now is dirge.
I could hear the wailing of infants and cry of women
the sound of swords clanging and shouting of men
Everywhere... I see darkness
Death! like we had no fortress
Shall we seek for revenge?
... All we sing now is dirge!
They have slept with their fathers
Left their children and wives
Shall we seek for revenge?
who will console our mothers?
When will grateful tears well up in our eyes ?
All we sing now is dirge.
How long shall we fold our arms or fight for peace?
When will the deafening and raging battle cease ?
Shall we seek for revenge?
... All we sing now is dirge!
When I’ve gone
to the place
where my fathers’
have gone before me
and the last tribute
has been paid to my memory,
may my singing words
crack the silence with clanging echoes.
May the clanging echoes
excite starving eyes
and taut wrinkled eardrums—
both to awareness—
guiding them
to actions of liberation
yet to come.
May clanging echoes
wake-up sleeping souls suffering
uncertainties of tyrannical rule,
slobbering from political absurdities,
drooling from mouths of misguided evil
diagnostic odysseys—peddling false hope
to precariously lost wanderers.
May my clanging echoes echo ringing
bells of freedom that can’t be unrung:
“Oh death where is thy sting?”
“Oh grave, where is thy victory?”
Poets will die;
but the ringing chords
of their words will live long lives:
Echoing clanging echoes…
The distant toll of the temple bells
As clock strikes, thou tread upon the sacred temple
Lifting up hands with the Holy Assembly
“Father I thank you am not a sinner like her
I fast and pray like the Apostle Paul
And I pray in tongues more than all”
“ba ba la ba ta la la la
ba ba ka ba la ta ya
mana talla ta ta ya”
Empty babblings! Meaningless verbosities!
Why all these pretensions and ostentatious prayers friend?
Why can’t all these noise and hypocrisy end?
One who drinks iniquity like water
A noisy gong scooped of all her fruits
Never able to shod thy feet with the ‘Golden boots’
You seem to please the demons, hear their unceasing echoes
You clanging cymbal! You noisy gong!!
You clanging cymbal! You noisy gong!!
I rather you plea for mercy
And pray thy demons away
Before they prey thee away
These spiritual gymnastics can be deceiving
You clanging cymbal! You noisy gong!
For thou knoweth not the Masters ‘Love Song’
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. [1Corinthians 13:1-ESV]
Disarray of clanging bells
Ring loud like under a spell
Beneath can be mighty hell
Clanging of the bells
Russell Sivey
Entrant into Brian Strand's "ONE FROM YOUR LAST FIFTY POSTED ON PS" contest
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