Sonnet on Good Friday 2015
- William Wiley
Parading through Jerus'lem's holy way Two criminals and one redeemer king Struggled through the horde, indignant fray To hill of Skulls, their judgment for to bring. The sand burned coarse as fire on bloodied skin, As holy muscles strained to lift the tree, But ev'n more weight added from our sin, Upon the shoulders of the precious He. But as they reached pained blessed Calvary's peak, And air eluded His life-giving lungs, He lost his life with one great final shriek, And perm'nent placed his name on watcher's tongues. He drank the cup of wrath, and tore the veil, So forever we'd delight in Good Friday's tale.
Loving Pain!
Raphael Uzor
For you, I'll shed a tear To you, I'll say, "my dear" But ONLY if you'll dare To show me that you care!
In words, for you I'll die In deeds, to you I'll lie 'Cos much as I may try My love will make you cry!
But there is One so pure Your tears, His love will cure He'll hang upon a cross, To gain your love and trust!
He'll bare unspoken pains To free you from your chains With a kiss, He was betrayed But still, for us He prayed!
Weakly Devotional
ConnectHook
It's Sunday again for you cloistered patricians aloof from the madness, the magic and myth; who trust in your wisdom, investments, physicians unready to answer forthwith:
"Why bother with worship—in church or the zoo— why weaken the links with a dull set of tools ?" you ask yourself over your high-end Tarrazu, bemused at the fables of fools.
You've bartered salvation for New York Times articles, sipping on bitterness (shade-grown organic). You settle for molecules, atoms and particles unfairly-traded, satanic—
while you celebrate emptiness, general futility musing on nothingness, sure of specifics ensconced in your kitchen of pampered gentility flirting with atheist physics.
Those simple plebeians: you'd love to enlighten them help them, like you, to become a free-thinker but you remain tasteful, for boldness might frighten them reeling in fairy tales: hook, line and sinker.
Yet somebody, somewhere has uttered your sentence (though you abhor judgement, let's read it again). Sheba and Nineveh, versed in repentance await you—not whether but when.
The darkness is brewing unholy filtration; the wine of the harlot approaches the rim; your guilt is augmenting in slow percolation; you shrug it all off on a whim.
The souls of Assyria rise from your paper they watch in amazement, prepare your abyss. Your coffee now brims a more sulfurous vapor; oh sinner—there's something amiss:
The crypts of Marib and the tombs of the Axumites shudder and groan while you're reading the Times... (immune to the words that some Christarded poet writes mixing psychosis with rhymes.)
Royal Sheba will chastise your erudite unbelief, smug self-importance and cynical squawk. Then she'll sigh with immense Ethiopian grief and her Highness Queen Bilqis will talk.
It is Sunday in Babylon. What if your sunlight ends... why are there mobs in the streets of the nation? Shall you have breakfast—or calculate dividends... what would you pay for salvation?
Darkness: A Good Friday Poem
Brady Friedkin
We entered the holy city with palm branches to welcome Parading in as they sang 'Hosanna!' They honored Him as if He were their king As if He had come to set them free Oh how right they were, the Promised King, come to set His people free
We shared in communion with the Lord and the betrayer On the eve of the darkest day in history Hate brewed at one end of that table While love stirred peacefully on the other And all of us living in blissful ignorance in between
We celebrated the passover with our master And we prayed that The Lord would not pass over us again That instead He would stoop down to us and save us But we denied Him in His hour of need We slept soundly as He was betrayed by us
Like a lamb led to the slaughter, He gave His life for another They beat Him within inches of His divine life They cast lots for his garments, and spit on His bloodied face No longer did they yell 'Hosanna!' to welcome their king, But they yelled 'crucify him!' to condemn their Divine Lord
They drove nails into his frail hands He cried out to heaven asking why The Lord had forsaken Him He declared in defiance ‘It is finished’ and He passed on to death They threw a sword into his swollen side His holy blood and holy water spilled to sanctify the earth onto which it fell
So silly they were, they thought that they could kill God That they really believed they could depose the Lord of all with mere nails But the sky darkened, and heaven turned away as to not see her Lord die The earth shook and the world changed Suddenly all knew 'surely this man was the Son of God'
The once bright and beautiful sky turned suddenly dark The earth shook violently in disapproval that her creator lay dead on her face The warm humid air turned suddenly bitterly cold and dry For the promised Messiah had been defeated Death itself had victory over the world, and the world knew it was so
There, on the cross, lay the Life of the World, dead The Light of the World had been snuffed out, and the world left in darkness The hope of all mankind suddenly vanished The steady hand holding the world wavered in mourning And darkness covered the seemingly God-forsaken earth
Who are we at the foot of the cross that stood silently? We stood by and watched the promised Messiah be taken away and killed We reap what we sew, and will now live out our days in darkness Without hope we shall suffer for all time, a punishment fit for our crime We crucified the Messiah, we gave the Lord to death, we killed God
For three days the sun did not rise For three days the world swayed unstable The demons danced in the darkness Hell was victorious Because for three days, God lay dead in a tomb.
Gethsemane's Garnets
Sarah Lane
Crystal beads of sweat It's the beginning of a flood Their translucence reveals an anguish That is growing underneath Causing them to swell A great heaviness pulls There is no resistance They start a lowly journey Moved in surrender to greater will As the purest heart crumbles One drop follows after another Forming glistening streaks Along a spotless brow The tender heart soon shatters Under the weight of woe Drops fall to the ground Like glistening shards of crystal Where the beads first surfaced A single crimson drop forms It slowly paints a stripe Down that stainless skin It rolled along the hairline Over the cheekbone to the jaw In a moment of uncertainty It clung there at the edge With no alternative to release The final hold was given up Like a rose petal it fluttered down Gently landing in dampened earth Where sweat and tears first fell At this silent touch of crimson Broken crystal drops transformed Color slowly deepening Dirt glittering with garnets Each hearts' filth was covered But their purity had this stain
(Collection Via hellopoetry)