Poetry for Lent - Poems 1-5

Lenten Poetry Challenge


As the poetry corner needs a little bit of tweaking (read it's broken waaa!!!) I thought it might be as well to have a more permanent record of the poems I've read over the Lenten period, broken into handy little bite sized pieces*.

Monday Lent Poem 5

Travelling North

Helen Mort

with a borrowed rucksack,

an empty hip flask stowed

on the table to spare me

conversation, I am carried

at speeds no longer thought

remarkable. The carriage

moves through flanks

of brick or lucent woods

where banks formed walls

before we even dreamt

of fences, through scrap yards

and outskirts, blanked

by windows where kids once

gathered to chuck apple cores,

through the backs of new estates,

where egg-box houses

press the tracks between them,

and the flowerbeds

are furled, red handkerchiefs

for bidding leave - I wish

I knew how many of us

have passed through home

this way; close-mouthed,

fast, crossing the street to dodge

old friends we’re in no mood for.

The town’s retreat, that glimpse

of shoulder blade through doorway,

the craned necks of the beech trees

and beside it all,

our colour supplements,

the studied backs of hands,

a woman cradling

her mobile phone,

struggling to catch

some parting word

who only says

I’m losing you,

I’m –

Sunday Lent Poem 4

The Shadow Doll

Eavan Boland 1990

(This was sent to the bride-to-be in Victorian times, by her dressmaker. It consisted of a porcelain doll, under a dome of glass, modelling the proposed wedding dress.)

They stitched blooms from ivory tulle

to hem the oyster gleam of the veil.

They made hoops for the crinoline.

Now, in summary and neatly sewn --

a porcelain bride in an airless glamour --

the shadow doll survives its occasion.

Under glass, under wraps, it stays

even now, after all, discreet about

visits, fevers, quickenings and lusts

and just how, when she looked at

the shell-tone spray of seed pearls,

the bisque features, she could see herself

inside it all, holding less than real

stephanotis, rose petals, never feeling

satin rise and fall with the vows

I kept repeating on the night before --

astray among the cards and wedding gifts --

the coffee pots and the clocks and

the battered tan case full of cotton

lace and tissue paper, pressing down, then

pressing down again. And then, locks.

Saturday Lent Poem 3

One I learned to love my final year of school.

A Prodigal

Elizabeth Bishop 1951

The brown enormous odor he lived by

was too close, with its breathing and thick hair,

for him to judge. The floor was rotten; the sty

was plastered halfway up with glass-smooth dung.

Light-lashed, self-righteous, above moving snouts,

the pigs' eyes followed him, a cheerful stare--

even to the sow that always ate her young--

till, sickening, he leaned to scratch her head.

But sometimes mornings after drinking bouts

(he hid the pints behind the two-by-fours),

the sunrise glazed the barnyard mud with red

the burning puddles seemed to reassure.

And then he thought he almost might endure

his exile yet another year or more.

But evenings the first star came to warn.

The farmer whom he worked for came at dark

to shut the cows and horses in the barn

beneath their overhanging clouds of hay,

with pitchforks, faint forked lightnings, catching light,

safe and companionable as in the Ark.

The pigs stuck out their little feet and snored.

The lantern--like the sun, going away--

laid on the mud a pacing aureole.

Carrying a bucket along a slimy board,

he felt the bats' uncertain staggering flight,

his shuddering insights, beyond his control,

touching him. But it took him a long time

finally to make up his mind to go home.

Friday Lent Poem 2

Twice Shy

Seamus Heaney 1965

Her scarf a la Bardot,

In suede flats for the walk,

She came with me one evening

For air and friendly talk.

We crossed the quiet river,

Took the embankment walk.

Traffic holding its breath,

Sky a tense diaphragm:

Dusk hung like a backcloth

That shook where a swan swam,

Tremulous as a hawk

Hanging deadly, calm.

A vacuum of need

Collapsed each hunting heart

But tremulously we held

As hawk and prey apart,

Preserved classic decorum,

Deployed our talk with art.

Our Juvenilia

Had taught us both to wait,

Not to publish feeling

And regret it all too late -

Mushroom loves already

Had puffed and burst in hate.

So, chary and excited,

As a thrush linked on a hawk,

We thrilled to the March twilight

With nervous childish talk:

Still waters running deep

Along the embankment walk.

Thursday Lent Poem 1

Ode

Arthur O’Saughnessy 1874

WE are the music-makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;

World-losers and world-forsakers,  5

On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties

We build up the world's great cities, 10

And out of a fabulous story

We fashion an empire's glory:

One man with a dream, at pleasure,

Shall go forth and conquer a crown;

And three with a new song's measure 15

Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying

In the buried past of the earth,

Built Nineveh with our sighing,

And Babel itself with our mirth;          20

And o'erthrew them with prophesying

To the old of the new world's worth;

For each age is a dream that is dying,

Or one that is coming to birth.

*PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO BITE YOUR COMPUTER. YOU WILL BE THE WORSE OFF!!

Lenten Poetry Challenge

Lenten Poetry - 12 - Desire - Alice Shapiro

Lenten Poetry - 11 - Well Done - Alice Shapiro

Lenten Poetry - 10 - Resurrection - Vladimir Holan

Lenten Poetry - 09 - Poems 41 - 44

Lenten Poetry - 08 - Poems 36 - 40

Lenten Poetry - 07 - Poems 31 - 35

Lenten Poetry - 06 - Poems 26 - 30

Lenten Poetry - 05 - Poems 21 - 25

Lenten Poetry - 04 - Poems 16 - 20

Lenten Poetry - 03 - Poems 11 - 15

Lenten Poetry - 02 - Poems 06 - 10

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