Father forgive us for being forlorn and falling
Father forbid us for continuing in our fractured and failing faith
Father forgive us for being on a Pharisaical frequency, our felonistic fealty
Father be firm in fermenting the old form and forming the new form
Father help us from faith to sight, to stand still and from fumbling and flight
Father thaw the frozen chosen, free the former and ford with the free
Forgive us all for forgetting to forgive family, friends and frisky foes
Father fence in the fiendish of all foes, frown at our flash and Flemish giant holes we fancy
Father forgive the frantic and fatalistic fray, pray tell Father don't falter
Freed from our sins by Jesus our Friend, Founder and Forever Fiddly
Father under Your feathers we can fly freely over the frame of Your fields
Father freeze our fleeting feet, flesh out the futility of fake fossil flack
Father fix our philosophies and our philandering, our fantastic fudging of facts
Father finally [and again] forgive us our frequent fallacies of faltering finitude
O my life! What a beautiful disaster it has become!
For the doses of my sunny days and starry nights grew numb,
And the sweet caress of my existence has partly succumbed.
It paralyzed me—as though my foresight had been overcome
By whispers creeping into my mind like an intruder's hum.
If I could depose the noisy image of my tomorrow,
Would it bring me silent war or peace amid the undertow?
How could I unfetter the finitude of my own window?
For my soul could barely perceive the playful tongue of a foe,
Or a friend's delightful persona behind an ugly show.
Yet I lament that the world has made its own foolish nickname
When filtered righteousness and glamorous deceit have enflamed.
On whom should I lean when moral transgressions take on their name?
Or should I wish to fly to the Heavens far from where I came?
For illusions seem true—and truth can be an elusive game.
We are made of moments.
Everything passes:
laughter, pain,
the tear that dried without being noticed,
the perfume of youth,
the winters that seemed eternal,
the night that dies at sunrise...
so let us live for life
is brief and passes...
'And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works." ~Revelation 20:12 KJV And then [Jesus said] will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. ~Matthew 7:23 KJV
The sound of solitude
Means I am now alone,
Yet reminds me of my finitude
And for sins I must atone.
Guilt racks me like a cyclone,
For the lies I have construed
Lay around me like a clingstone
And the shadows of hellbrewed.
A creed of cruelty I tattooed
Upon the armored heart I honed
With every virtue I eschewed,
Now I stand before my God, unknown.
I am overjoyed over our mortality. Because if we were immortal, I wouldn't feel the need to hold your hand. I wouldn't feel the need to love you every day in fear that tomorrow I won't be able to. If we were immortal, I would laugh in deaths' face instead of laughing with the ones in my heart. If I were immortal, I wouldn't know how to love because love would last forever. And therefore, it wouldn't last a day at all.
She made beauty a birthright, my Ilse.
Her rosy cheeks, rouge unneeded,
shadowed her dark eyes.
I was impressed by her,
depraved by her,
all at once humiliated for her.
A hunger lingered inside me,
craving her name.
Still my salvation was denied by time
and the fleeting hours turned me mad.
Her finitude, my hellfire.
My temptation.
The exit ramp looms large just up ahead,
though still an unknown distance ‘round the bend,
a terminus of sorts.
Perhaps a point from which to send
us out of time constraints, into the now,
the means by which remain unknown, just how
exactly, this all ends.
To fret, a waste, ’tis said, so I shall trust instead.
And yet, this ideation blooms within
my mind, a frequent fascination that
with other thoughts, comports.
If only now, is there no then,
and sequencing of time, thus obsolete,
as all arrive en mass, surprised to meet?
The world I know is flat;
my finitude stretched thin, constrained to trust again.
—————
Another fun one, a Mistress Bradstreet stanza: 10a-10b-6c-8b-10d-10d-6b-12a
This one comes from a notion from reading Matthew 25, in the Last Judgment. All would have died at different times, but on that day, all were surprised, hence the idea of different departures, all arriving at now.
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This will be the third time I've added sponsor info. I do not know what is happening here...
for the 2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 22 Poetry Contest
sponsored by Mark Toney
written on 10/13/22
I am concerned with the structures that sustain the universe,
with the mighty river of time,
the tablature and the compass of souls
dispersed in their endless penances,
the enigmatic smile of doubts
overlapping the fragility of certainties,
the detestable silences that precede painful decisions
and with the thick amalgam of pain
that poisons our days with the most varied enigmas.
What worries me is the shock
when I wake up from the nightmare of living,
the need for millimeter precision
in counting the steps until the freedom of not thinking,
the innumerable precipices
that surround any and all will of the mind
to keep away from the fainting, falls and stumbles.
What I am concerned about
is the indifference of entities or deities
that could undo the deception of atoms
in condemning us to finitude,
constantly and habitually
expressing unmistakable signs of contempt
for creatures who have given them a supposed superiority
over their own destinies.
my concern is about the extension of the shadow
that negatively illuminates the path
we should follow under the light.
the rest don't worry me.
'cause some of us have had enough of this hell
some search heaven for redemption
and she too
but more for being disgusted
and when she up there arrived
stabbed to death the deity
and on the way down she smiles
in the ecstasy of having avenged
the human race and all its offspring
condemning to finitude
who has not condemned us to eternity.
arrival of the penultimate season...
falling toward the end of the year
cool breezes purge the sultry sloth
amber/auburn/crimson leaves dance in the wind
fall foliage signals the end of a cycle
contracting days declare enveloping emptiness
expanding awareness of our infinite finitude
...a symphony of poignant silence
Infinity overspreads her ineffable bounds
as finitude struggles below on the ground
Disparate features burst forth exponential
worshipers gasp ~ essence's multi-dimensional
Some say you are lost
If you are not found
On their ground
Some think you are blind
If you do not find
What they find
I am an atheist who believes
The universe is a tapestry
Not a thread
The science to chart the stars
Is but a celestial church
That medicine and vaccines
Are answered prayers
That communities
Can save each other
That math and music
Language and learning
Rebuilding destruction
And regretting a wrong
Are inherent miracles
That to plant a tree
Water a garden
Kiss a scar
Soothe a bruise
Give a smile
Hug a sorrow
Cook a meal
Play a song
Clasp a hand
Bandage a cut
Wipe a tear
Hear a need -
Is divine
I believe the soul of nature
Is sacred
and a rainbow's refraction
Is all the more radiant
For the formula it contains
I believe the finitude of life
Makes a more precious day
And, to my friends of other faiths
I believe - we can meet halfway.
4/27/20
(this was inspired by a poem I read by Anil Deo called Any Athiests out there - thank you for your kind response to my novella-of-a-comment, Anil!)
Tolerância
Na década que termina
e na década que há de vir
exercite-se sempre
exercite a tolerância.
Tolerância não é passividade.
Ao contrário do amor ou da generosidade,
que não têm limites nem finitude
a tolerância é limitada.
Uma tolerância infinita
é o fim da tolerância!
Na vida e nos negócios,
na década que termina
e na década que há de vir
seu progresso é proporcional
a sua tolerância na medida certa.
A prayer is like seduction to your soul
Your church is the glamour the world bestowals
Your bible is the flashy neon lights and billboards
Your truth is the multiplicity of greedy
Your salvation is fruition of materialism
Your retribution is its finitude and lost satiety
Heaven becomes invisible through the eye of a needle
Tired sea
Frustrated moon
Fed up wind
Disenchanted sun
The hour of grace is fading
Beyond the eyes can see
Darkness glow in taciturn
Beneath the scars a beauty egress apace
I've search to no avail
The night for your smile
The rain for your happiness
And the day for your memory
I'm stuck hopelessly living in your world
Flipping coins with my life
Head for breakup
Tail for breakup
The choice is yours
With the finitude of time and choice
We'll part ways regardless
At last, I'm free from the claws of hopelessness
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