Category: Prayers & Liturgy

November – A Poem a Day Challenge (4, Day 9)

On By robertalanrifeIn Prayers & Liturgy, Theology / Spirituality, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

Day 9 –

Lament – A Psalm About Faces

O Lord, God of faces, where now is your face?

And why have you hidden from us your gaze?

Where once we walked together,

now we thrash and reel and hack.

Darkness has become our only ally;

and hopelessness our truest friend.

For those of insolence and hatred rule over us;

the ruthless and ragged become our destroyer.

Therefore, falsehood and lies bind us;

and the absence of truth shackles us.

We have become party with wolves and savages,

those without conscience or care for the poor.

They lash out from behind empty eyes

to oppress the widow and orphan,

the immigrant and the voiceless.

All that is good, pleasing, and right is set aside;

truth and love are traded for lies and hate,

victim to the victimizers.

And through their shame have we become a byword,

a cause for mockery among the nations.

We hear them cry out in the streets,

and moan among the people of injustice against them.

But it is they who are unjust,

with lies have they clothed themselves.

How long, O Lord? How long must we watch our children caged,

and our future torn apart?

How much more treachery must we endure at their hands?

Save us, O God, from their filth;

release us from their grotesque machinations.

Turn your eyes toward us for we are weary and broken;

tearful and confused.

Find a place again among us where all that was good

can again be good; where the darkness again is dark.

Rise up, once more, gracious Lord, and be our protector;

the light behind our eyes,

the light behind our faces;

the face behind all faces.

For we are your people,

and you are our God.

Prayer

On By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Prayers & Liturgy, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

We press the world between pointed palms,

where the weary stretch for heaven’s notice.

Our best vision, through closed eyes – steps

weightless

on scabbed knees, waiting.

Wine-soaked, bread-fed words squeeze

themselves through parched lips to

arrange with dancing in mind. But first,

they must learn the art of walking naked, blindfolded

through haunted alleys,

danger-gripped, clammy with doubt.

We stretch out long necks, seeking only glimpses, emancipation.

But, the lecherous bully of shame spends all his time

butchering the still,

small voices of light that sneak

in through backdoors where hope still keeps

windows open.

Tragic, is it not, how shades pull tight against wayward shards

of sun, the down-payment for our breath?

Like running in snow, our legs just get heavier –

too much weight tossed about over time.

A leering fatigue replaces what’s left of inadequate strength –

thickness filling muscles too weak to move past their own demise.

Still, hope is what came, long after our tight-

cinched belt of faith lost its grip

and hungry shame gave way to

garden surrender.

Only then does our Amen make sense.

As you tell me

On By robertalanrifeIn Prayers & Liturgy, Waxing Poetic, Words...always wordsLeave a comment

As you tell me

the woes of the world,

of all that is wrong and out of place,

the injustices, the unfair dues of your space

carved out of a world you help build;

as you tell me

how the air is now

too thin

to breathe,

the ground,

too heavy

to dig,

the people,

too deaf

to hear your valid cries,

too blind

to support

your team’s placards, your tribe’s war-paint,

those with the correct branding on your

well-vetted t-shirts;

as you tell me

of apocalypse and my need to

wake up, and see Jesus in your message

of #allthismatters and #allthatmatters and

#fuckyourmatters because #onlyImatter;

as you tell me

about all we’re losing

if that guys wins, or this guy wins,

or some guy wins, or we all win

if my guy wins; so, get on board

the happy train your bunch

is driving, with the right conductor

on the right track, going the right way,

for the right reasons, to make things right,

again, the way they were;

as you tell me

the world is going to hell-in-a-handbasket,

my neighbour hasn’t heard your news,

she cradles a dying child.

Viral Dailies, Day 13

On By robertalanrifeIn Guest Bloggers, National Poetry Month, Prayers & Liturgy, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

We’re already at day 13 in our daily postings for National Poetry Month! Time passes quickly when one’s mind isn’t just on its passing. 

Here are three more fridge magnet poems by good friend and fellow poet, extraordinaire, Lesley-Anne Evans. You can also follow her on Instagram.

This installment is titled, “Small Prayers.”

Enjoy!

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Viral Dailies, Easter…

On By robertalanrifeIn National Poetry Month, Prayers & Liturgy, Theology / Spirituality, Waxing Poetic1 Comment

Easter morning. A triptych of Easter poems I’ve composed over the years, “Morning, breath”, “After the tomb”, and “Death’s death.”

Most of us have heard the story. Now, we must learn again how to breath…

resurrection.jpg

_________________________________

Morning, breath

As morning reaches where only night had been,

dew once more settles on the brittle earth

and breath returns to one,

so all can breathe again.

 

After the tomb

When blood, still damp, soaked through

the sleeves of shrug-shoulder’d men,

did you cry for their laughter?

 

Were your accusers held in sleep

when Mary’s shaking hands

held fast your plundered feet?

 

How long before bewildered men

and doting women find again

their reasons for remonstrance?

 

Will a miracle suffice

to fill the gaps in minds too young

not to lust for proof?

 

Were the angels surprised

to find their silenced songs

reignited for their fittest subject?

 

Did you know these walls would

only remind you of this one, unending breath?

This one effortless act for one so bored of death?

 

Death’s death

Live! Live! Not one minute

more to solemnize the squaring truths

of the dark, exasperating. Exsanguinating.

The probing luminant, juggernaut

of dawn brought down as a quickening

shade of brilliance over the tar-black,

songless night – now gasping out

its own greying reminiscence.

Kicking against the goads, a denouement

of despair, decay’s quietus comes to mock.

But its voice is too dry now for anything more

than the androgynous whisper of a skeleton.

The bones rattle and try in vain to spark, to scare,

to survive the day, already here.

Death, this needy after-thought, this choking

wheeze of duskish, tight-lipp’d groaning –

it can no longer hunt, its legs are

broken, a dislocated shoulder no longer

suited to hefting hopelessness.

Spring! Spring! O antediluvian Spring! How

many are your salted children, lined up

outside your garden wall. Someone

has unchink’d the tangled gate and trodden new

footprints – fresh, ancient and deep – in the Virgin soil.

We come too, having hid ourselves in

the wisp of your blood-colour’d sleeves.

Droughted, now, a tomb and the perfect surprise:

breaths in lungs once shut, re-sighted eyes,

and in the first of all new hours,

Someone has made light work of death.

Viral Dailies, Day 10

On By robertalanrifeIn National Poetry Month, Prayers & Liturgy, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

Candle.jpg

Good Friday.

Well, not so good for someone. Especially so for the rest of us. This day in history, God absorbed all the hatred, shame, pain, violence, discrimination, sin, and division into himself. Jesus became the great black hole out of which could escape nothing other than love, redemption, hope, and all things new.

As we lean, by faith, into this cosmic narrative, what once was dark can become light again. What once promised fear and undoing, now has potential to unlock a billion answered prayers.

This poem isn’t specifically a Good Friday poem. It is however, in the context of night and sleep, a promise therefrom. 

____________________________________________

nighttime songs our fears erase

a story lived, now story told

we, early young, now later, old

see stranger things than daytime held

but not without our sorrows quelled

____________________________________

we fluff and tuck and yawn and brush

pray God remove all sinning blush

the air now cool in silver glow

what dreams may come we do not know

_____________________________________

divested now of time and chance

we bid adieu and leave the dance

till thricely woven round with grace

the nighttime songs our fears erase

 

(c)Robert Alan Rife, 2013

What’s so different?

On By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Prayers & Liturgy, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

LFIMVFUM2JEXRI7GBYQ2WNAHSI.jpgWhat’s so different,

now that one bundle of thirty,

arbitrary and detached, passes,

barely noticed, from one to another?

We have a time.

 

What’s so different,

as we look out from inside the same

rooms with their corners, known but

unobserved, safe but stultifying?

We have a place.

 

What’s so different,

the streamers fallen, wine now flat

in decanters of promise, jokes all told,

recognized, congratulated?

We have another.

 

What’s so different,

these moments of grey ineptitude

encased in more moments, equally

lacking in certitude?

We have ourselves.

 

What’s so different,

promises made, unkept from the year before,

through wine-stained teeth, and 

blurry, careless shrug?

We have a hope.

 

What’s so different – 

she still can’t remember your good things;

he still doesn’t recognize your worth;

they still haven’t apologized

from last year’s infraction?

We have more time.

 

What’s so different?

We’re alive to ask the question.

I could say that

On By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Prayers & Liturgy, Theology / Spirituality, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

I could say that this hour

is set apart for prayer, the obligations of my station.

My expected obedience.

A fitting praise.

A suitable gratitude.

A reasonable confession.

An obvious adoration.

A humble intercession made in proper posture.

I could say that.

 

I could say that this hour

is ours to do the business of heaven,

The diary of eternity.

The stuff of paradise,

changing sheets and fluffing pillows

for the angelic choir.

Making coffee for saints.

Cleaning up after holy gatherings

of those whose leisure time fills the eons.

I could say that.

 

I could say that this hour

is to learn the language of God.

Syntax of saints.

Songs of millennia of songs sung

and sung again.

Singing still.

Poets poeting.

Writers wording.

Artists arting.

Lovers longing.

So many people still laughing at old jokes,

funnier with each telling, always new.

Always the first time.

Constant punch line surprise.

I could say that.

 

I could say that this hour

is an exercise in self-discipline.

The prowess of patience.

the wages of praxis,

paid in full with each Doxology.

Invocations only please.

There is no need for Benedictions

to forever stories.

You don’t preach any sermons.

You are the sermon.

I am your words.

I could say that.

 

I could say that this hour

is the first of many just like it.

A rehearsal in minutes for what will

soon become lifetimes.

Epochs.

Never less.

Always more.

Without the constant threat of boredom,

the language of loneliness,

all sentences run on.

It doesn’t matter, if they all matter.

There’s no hurry for anyone

to make their point.

I could say that.

 

I could say that this hour

is mine alone.

These shoulders carrying

no burdens, since I never need to

look over them to see another.

A solid silence,

never morose.

No longitude of self-abasement.

No latitude for self-praise –

coordinates of old religion in the checkmate of grace.

I could say that.

 

I think I will.

In The Busy-ness Of Life

On By robertalanrifeIn National Poetry Month, Prayers & Liturgy, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

Today’s beautifully arresting poem comes from the hand of our Celtic soul friend, Tadhg. Drink deeply friends.

Tadhg's avatarTadhg Talks...

20190421 IN THE BUSYNESS OF LIFE POEM PRAYER BLESSING

It’s Eastertide, and for some it’s a long weekend holiday, a time to ‘recharge’ those ‘batteries’, to relax and enjoy the first blooms of Spring, as temperatures rise.

Here’s a poem, a prayer, a blessing just for you – because I care, and welcome you as you faithfully read my blog. And so, the following words are penned  so that you and yours might enjoy this Spring season, this time of new life, hope and renewal

In the busy-ness of life,
may you find the quiet repose of the Source of All,
and be blessed.

May the love of Life itself
fill your soul
with the energy of a thousand flowing streams.

May the love of Mary, the archetypal Mother,
pervade every gentle activity
of yours today.

May the Sun’s smile
reside in your heart, the hearth of your being
to seal you as one of His own.

And, may…

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