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Sackcloth
I made sackcloth my garment once, by cutting
arm and neck holes into a burlap bag.
A croker sack they called it. Sackdragger
they called the man who dragged a croker sack
between the cotton rows to pick. He dragged
a gunnysack behind him in the ditch
collecting empties. Him they chose
the Likeliest to Sack Seed in the feed store,
or to suck seed. He was your daddy. He sacked
groceries part-time, and they jeered:
you sorry sack of shit. Sackcloth,
which Job sewed upon his skin, was goat hair.
God who clothed the heavens with such blackness
said, I make sackcloth their covering.
Isaiah understood. God had him speak a word
in season to the weary. Speak, Isaiah, now, to me.
Before the stars like green figs in a windstorm
drop, the sun is black as sackcloth, and the moon
becomes as blood. My soul is weary. Speak,
Isaiah. Sing. I was a scholar as a boy:
I cut the neck and arm holes into the burlap,
pulled it on, and cinched it with a hank of rope:
what I have done from then till now is itch.
poem by Brooks Haxton
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Under the sackcloth there is something else.
Who can tie an oven brush, weave a sackcloth and turn over chitterlings is ready for marriage.
Thicker Than Water
Blood is thicker than water and love is stronger than death!
But be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves;
For many are those in sackcloth with ashes upon their heads,
Because this world is not fair in many ways as i do see it.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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To Say Out My Mind
If i can stay on it for one hour,
Then, i will be satisfied with the muse of love to say out my mind;
For m ypeople are now clothed in sackcloth,
And horror had covered them in the name of this famine.
Oh Somalia! !
Your silver and gold are unable to deliver you;
For the famine is severe and sadness are now seen on your faces!
But, i will hand over my love to care for you people.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Don Juan
My own dream is lofty, simple thing:
To seize the oar, put feet into the stirrups,
And to deceive the time, that slow tries to stir us,
By kissing lips, forever new and pink;
When getting old, to keep the law of Christ,
Cast down looks, put on sackcloth and ashes,
Put on the chest, as heavy obligations,
The iron Cross, that He died on for us.
And only when, amidst the orgy’s madness,
I get my senses – a sleepwalker aimless,
Just frightened in the silence of his ways –
Then I recall: the worst of many others –
I had no children from a woman in my years
And never called a man a brother.
poem by Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part III: Gods And False Gods: LXXXII
HE WOULD LEAD A BETTER LIFE
I am tired of folly, tired of my own ways,
Love is a strife. I do not want to strive.
If I had foes I now would make my peace.
If I less wedded were I now would wive.
I would do service to my kind, contrive
Something of good for men, some happiness
For those who in the world still love and live,
And, as my fathers did, so end my days.
I would earn praise, I too, of honest men.
I would repent in sackcloth if needs be.
I would serve God and expiate my sin,
Abjuring love and thee--ay, even thee.
I would do this, dear love. But what am I
To will or do? As we have lived we die.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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I Turned To Hear
The sea of windows and the sea of love,
My spirit is truly ready for you;
The sea of colours and the sea of care,
I turned to hear the voice of love;
And i will whisper back to you when i am ready.
I am black as the sackcloth and ready to tell you a story,
But be very zealous to understand my mind;
For that which is sweet had been eaten by the bird.
You are the course of life and,
I am with the great power of glory!
But, salt is perfect in form and in nature.
I turned to hear,
And of the spirits of love dancing around me;
So be very zealous to understand me when i speak.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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In The
She came and stood in the Old South Church,
A wonder and a sign,
With a look the old-time sibyls wore,
Half-crazed and half-divine.
Save the mournful sackcloth about her wound,
Unclothed as the primal mother,
With limbs that trembled and eyes that blazed
With a fire she dare not smother.
Loose on her shoulders fell her hair,
With sprinkled ashes gray;
She stood in the broad aisle strange and weird
As a soul at the judgment day.
And the minister paused in his sermon's midst,
And the people held their breath,
For these were the words the maiden spoke
Through lips as the lips of death:
'Thus saith the Lord, with equal feet
All men my courts shall tread,
And priest and ruler no more shall eat
My people up like bread!
'Repent! repent! ere the Lord shall speak
In thunder and breaking seals
Let all souls worship Him in the way
His light within reveals.'
She shook the dust from her naked feet,
And her sackcloth closer drew,
And into the porch of the awe-hushed church
She passed like a ghost from view.
They whipped her away at the tail o' the cart
Through half the streets of the town,
But the words she uttered that day nor fire
Could burn nor water drown.
And now the aisles of the ancient church
By equal feet are trod,
And the bell that swings in its belfry rings
Freedom to worship God!
And now whenever a wrong is done
It thrills the conscious walls;
The stone from the basement cries aloud
And the beam from the timber calls.
There are steeple-houses on every hand,
And pulpits that bless and ban,
And the Lord will not grudge the single church
That is set apart for man.
For in two commandments are all the law
And the prophets under the sun,
And the first is last and the last is first,
And the twain are verily one.
So, long as Boston shall Boston be,
And her bay-tides rise and fall,
Shall freedom stand in the Old South Church
And plead for the rights of all!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Saturday's Child
Some are teethed on a silver spoon,
With the stars strung for a rattle;
I cut my teeth as the black racoon--
For implements of battle.
Some are swaddled in silk and down,
And heralded by a star;
They swathed my limbs in a sackcloth gown
On a night that was black as tar.
For some, godfather and goddame
The opulent fairies be;
Dame Poverty gave me my name,
And Pain godfathered me.
For I was born on Saturday--
"Bad time for planting a seed,"
Was all my father had to say,
And, "One mouth more to feed."
Death cut the strings that gave me life,
And handed me to Sorrow,
The only kind of middle wife
My folks could beg or borrow.
poem by Countee Cullen
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Austerity Of Poetry
That son of Italy who tried to blow,
Ere Dante came, the trump of sacred song,
In his light youth amid a festal throng
Sate with his bride to see a public show.
Fair was the bride, and on her front did glow
Youth like a star; and what to youth belong--
Gay raiment, sparkling gauds, elation strong.
A prop gave way! crash fell a platform! lo,
'Mid struggling sufferers, hurt to death, she lay!
Shuddering, they drew her garments off--and found
A robe of sackcloth next the smooth, white skin.
Such, poets, is your bride, the Muse! young, gay,
Radiant, adorn'd outside; a hidden ground
Of thought and of austerity within.
poem by Matthew Arnold
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Easter Communion
Pure fasted faces draw unto this feast:
God comes all sweetness to your Lenten lips.
You striped in secret with breath-taking whips,
Those crooked rough-scored chequers may be pieced
To crosses meant for Jesu's; you whom the East
With draught of thin and pursuant cold so nips
Breathe Easter now; you serged fellowships,
You vigil-keepers with low flames decreased,
God shall o'er-brim the measures you have spent
With oil of gladness, for sackcloth and frieze
And the ever-fretting shirt of punishment
Give myrrhy-threaded golden folds of ease.
Your scarce-sheathed bones are weary of being bent:
Lo, God shall strengthen all the feeble knees.
poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins
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tribute to John clare
Tribute to John Clare.
Love lies beyond.
The tomb, the earth which fade like dew.
I love the fond
the faithful and the true.
John Clare 1793 = 1867
A glosa
Love lies beyond
all of our dreams old and new.
The silken bond
which binds me to you.
Fair Rosamonde
The tomb, the earth which fade like dew.
No magic wand
can make me forget you.
I must respond.
There’s nothing else that I can do.
I love the fond memories
that I cling to.
I have donned
sackcloth garments and ashes too.
For you have gone.
The faithful and the true
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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Keen to be green
I’m keen to be green like you
Though I haven't got a clue
But please don’t recycle me
Or I’ll go from green to blue
I want this planet to keep on spinning
Because with you I feel I’m winning
When I close my eyes I see those arrows
Maybe that triangle will save the sparrows
Being green is really joyful
When we’re down and getting coital
I love the way you tug your hair
When you rant about species that are rare
Because of you I ditched my car
Gone are holidays that are too far
I’ve learned to embrace being frugal
But recycled toilet paper is really brutal
Because we signed up to Kyoto
Eating meat is now a no-no
But lentils are no good for greenhouse gases
And hemp clothing is really sackcloth and ashes
I’m getting with all the green lingo
Because you are the end of my rainbow
Please don’t throw it all away
I want to be with you till doomsday
I’m keen to be green like you
Though I haven't got a clue
But please don’t recycle me
Or I’ll go from green to blue
poem by Sam Street
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Bible Defense Of Slavery
Take sackcloth of the darkest dye,
And shroud the pulpits round!
Servants of Him that cannot lie,
Sit mourning on the ground.
Let holy horror blanch each cheek,
Pale every brow with fears;
And rocks and stones, if ye could speak,
Ye well might melt to tears!
Let sorrow breathe in every tone,
In every strain ye raise;
Insult not God's majestic throne
With th' mockery of praise.
A 'reverend' man, whose light should be
The guide of age and youth,
Brings to the shrine of Slavery
The sacrifice of truth!
For the direst wrong by man imposed,
Since Sodom's fearful cry,
The word of life has been unclos'd,
To give your God the lie.
Oh! When ye pray for heathen lands,
And plead for their dark shores,
Remember Slavery's cruel hands
Make heathens at your doors!
poem by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
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Hymn 86
God holy, just, and sovereign.
Job 9:2-10.
How should the sons of Adam's race
Be pure before their God?
If he contend in righteousness,
We fall beneath his rod.
To vindicate my words and thoughts
I'll make no more pretence;
Not one of all my thousand faults
Can bear a just defence.
Strong is his arm, his heart is wise;
What vain presumer's dare
Against their Maker's hand to rise,
Or tempt th' unequal war?
[Mountains, by his almighty wrath,
From their old seats are torn;
He shakes the earth from south to north,
And all her pillars mourn.
He bids the sun forbear to rise,
Th' obedient sun forbears;
His hand with sackcloth spreads the skies,
And seals up all the stars.
He walks upon the stormy sea,
Flies on the stormy wind;
There's none can trace his wondrous way,
Or his dark footsteps find.]
poem by Isaac Watts
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A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London
Never until the mankind making
Bird beast and flower
Fathering and all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
And the still hour
Is come of the sea tumbling in harness
And I must enter again the round
Zion of the water bead
And the synagogue of the ear of corn
Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound
Or sow my salt seed
In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn
The majesty and burning of the child's death.
I shall not murder
The mankind of her going with a grave truth
Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath
With any further
Elegy of innocence and youth.
Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.
poem by Dylan Thomas
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Grief's Harmonics
At evening, when the lank and rigid trees,
To the mere forms of their sweet day-selves drying,
On heaven's blank leaf seem pressed and flatten-ed;
Or rather, to my sombre thoughts replying,
Of plumes funereal the thin effigies;
That hour when all old dead things seem most dead,
And their death instant most and most undying,
That the flesh aches at them; there stirred in me
The babe of an unborn calamity,
Ere its due time to be deliver-ed.
Dead sorrow and sorrow unborn so blent their pain,
That which more present was were hardly said,
But both more NOW than any Now can be.
My soul like sackcloth did her body rend,
And thus with Heaven contend:-
'Let pass the chalice of this coming dread,
Or that fore-drained O bid me not re-drain!'
So have I asked, who know my asking vain,
Woe against woe in antiphon set over,
That grief's soul transmigrates, and lives again,
And in new pang old pang's incarnated.
poem by Francis Thompson
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I Would Rather Be Torquemagret
Finally managed to read through my political document
lamentators in sackcloth, strewing ash upon their heads,
explaining how Africa’s slavery is continuing, wallowing
in victimhood, descrying Ghadaffi’s demise
It cost me blood and tears to read through, anger made
my eyes go out of focus, luckily I heard life summoning
is important, not completion, the document helped me
to identify a desire which summoned life energy
It became my fervent wish that these self pitying martyrs
should embalm themselves in their happy victimhood;
I realise a bloodthirsty spiritual life is just right for me
being a member of the Spanish Inquisition
To help rid the world of people who insist on being victims
in the face of all contrary evidence, to purge the universe
of self fulfilling prophecies of doom and damnation and
all self defeating attitudes!
poem by Margaret Alice Second
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It would never be Common—more—I said
430
It would never be Common—more—I said—
Difference—had begun—
Many a bitterness—had been—
But that old sort—was done—
Or—if it sometime—showed—as 'twill—
Upon the Downiest—Morn—
Such bliss—had I—for all the years—
'Twould give an Easier—pain—
I'd so much joy—I told it—Red—
Upon my simple Cheek—
I felt it publish—in my Eye—
'Twas needless—any speak—
I walked—as wings—my body bore—
The feet—I former used—
Unnecessary—now to me—
As boots—would be—to Birds—
I put my pleasure all abroad—
I dealth a word of Gold
To every Creature—that I met—
And Dowered—all the World—
When—suddenly—my Riches shrank—
A Goblin—drank my Dew—
My Palaces—dropped tenantless—
Myself—was beggared—too—
I clutched at sounds—
I groped at shapes—
I touched the tops of Films—
I felt the Wilderness roll back
Along my Golden lines—
The Sackcloth—hangs upon the nail—
The Frock I used to wear—
But where my moment of Brocade—
My—drop—of India?
poem by Emily Dickinson
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