Saturday, April 23, 2011

Prayer for Good Friday

Splattered and smeared I have seen
Stones and stones with blood.
The agony in the faces,
The horror in the eyes,
The unspeakable torment that boils
In sabre-ridden entrails of night.

I have seen O Lord I have seen.

These are but glimmers that rise:
Moments of pity and fear.
Ours are passions that fleet –
Weeds that fuel
Some flames that fade.

Forgive us this day our sins
So that we may others forgive.

Beyond all sneers and howls of pain
Beyond all measures of debit and gain
Thine is the icon that bears
As scars, the price of our sins.

I know not what hope is left
For us that are reared in doubt.
Here we but toil and wait
Till thorns and nails have cleansed
The dross that shrouds our state.

13 comments:

Robert said...

Amen!

Awesome.Loved the choice of words and the flowing rhythm.
Let me share with you a poem that breaks my heart and I see the Son of Man here.Tell me if you like it.


"Nought loves another as itself,
Nor venerates another so,
Nor is it possible to thought
A greater than itself to know.
"And, father, how can I love you
Or any of my brothers more?
I love you like the little bird
That picks up crumbs around the door."
The Priest sat by and heard the child;
In trembling zeal he seized his hair,
He led him by his little coat,
And all admired the priestly care.
And standing on the altar high,
"Lo, what a fiend is here! said he:
"One who sets reason up for judge
Of our most holy mystery."
The weeping child could not be heard,
The weeping parents wept in vain:
They stripped him to his little shirt,
And bound him in an iron chain,
And burned him in a holy place
Where many had been burned before;
The weeping parents wept in vain.
Are such thing done on Albion's shore?

Its Blake -- A Little Boy Lost, Songs of Experience.

Abin Chakraborty said...

ofcourse I do.we had blake in our undergrad and postgrad.so quite familiar with these.wonderful, no doubt.as in other poems, here too the boy is the Son of Man.lovely and profound at once.

Robert said...

I'm curious about ur PhD thesis.I saw the topic.Interesting.What is your argument gonna b?R u gonna work on all plays of Girish Karnad -- even the untranslated ones?3writers belong to 3 corners of India,writing in 3 different modes.It would be nice to know how you bring them together.

Abin Chakraborty said...

the focus would be on the representation of subalterneity and the English texts.for the rest...plz wait till my thesis is done:)

Abin Chakraborty said...

Interestingly, someone asked me the same question last week!
What a coincidence!

Robert said...

Wow!Sounds like I have a soulmate somewhere in the world.Was it a she?I should be particularly interested then.Or was it a he?An alter-ego then,maybe.Both ways,its a win-win situation(prayin it was a she^_^)
As for the thesis,would I get to read that?Shall it be available online after a few years?Sounds like a pie in the making!Years time,huh?Shall we be around till then?Strangers of the sky that we are.Though at times it seems very funny,it definitely is cool & quite nice.Watsay?Thus the nicens little baby tuckoo meets the moocow coming down the road.

Abin Chakraborty said...

Amen to that.some of our conversations do have echoes of Stephen's conversation with Cranly!

Robert said...

O thats so fine of you!I had the dean of studies in mind who questioned the young poet so much like me.But then u mention Cranly,which is very nice of you as it perhaps conveys that you dont get irritated at my unmindful longwinding chatter at times.Thank Goodness for that!I want to talk less but then....

Brother Ollie said...

Cool poem...cool prayer AC.

Kerry O'Connor said...

Sometimes reason defies us and belief is all we have left. Thanks for sharing these thoughts on Real Toads.

Laurie Kolp said...

I think gratitude comes with forgiveness. Thanks.

Sherry Blue Sky said...

Written with depth, and beauty, as always. Lovely.

Anonymous said...

Weeds that fuel -> is a very deep concept. shows how powerful negativity is to individuals and to society both.