Here is a poem that I wrote about quitting work, which is something that I have recently had to do. It has been written in the form of a rondeau redoublé, where the four lines of Stanza 1 are repeated at the end of Stanzas 2-5. The poem then concludes with the first part of Line 1 (Auf Wiedersehen which, in German, means goodbye); this repeated phrase structures the entire poem. Enjoy! Nahum.
This poem that I wrote reflects on how our lives are not for ourselves. It is written in the form of a terza rima, where each stanza has three lines each and there is an interlocking rhyming pattern of a-b-a/ b-c-b/ c-d-c, etc. Enjoy! Nahum.
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We Living Die
We live to die and die to live
To sacrifice ourselves each day;
We die to self to better give.
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To spawn new tree the acorn lays
In buried soil to spread its roots;
From there an oak shall make its way.
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Cut down from branch is ripened fruit;
Their deaths sustain what starves on earth
And bears the seed for orchard shoots.
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New babes are brought through painful birth
And hardship motivates the weak
To push them onto lives of worth
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And find the words they ache to speak.
The carcass of a shark or whale
On sandy floors both dark and deep
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Are eaten ‘neath the ships that sail.
We eat what farmers packed and grew
That once had leaves and heads and tails.
*
We learn the things that others knew,
Those men who breathed in ages past;
The things we know are nothing new.
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It’s so for us as those who passed:
We work our hands ‘till worn and spent
No matter what our race or class.
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Five days a week we earn our rent,
Providing clothes and food to feed
On bended knees and backs that bent.
*
We’re here to meet what others need,
Our comfort not to find in rest
But live as sacrifice that bleeds.
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Then others pass what we invest
Once we have given all our best.
*
© All rights reserved. Nahum H. Sennitt 2024.
This poem that I wrote today is a prayer, that God will save this city of Sydney that I live in. It is written in iambic tetrameter (where every line has 8 beats) and is in the form of a garland cinquain. It is a serious and a somber poem but it comes out of a heartfelt desire for people in this sprawling metropolis of Sydney to be saved. God bless, Nahum.
Save This City, Sydney
God, save this city from Your wrath
From scorching death on Judgement Day;
Come send Your Spirit now with speed,
The Lord to meet its precious need
That all may seek The Only Way.
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God, save this place that apes like Lot’s:
His burned to ash and sandy grey
Despite his desperate calls and pleas.
Come bless this Sydney, save it please
And do not turn Your ears away.
*
God, save this city; spurn me not
But save Your chosen, this I pray
That they behold the bleeding tree
Where Jesus died at Calvary.
May they repent without delay.
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God, save this city; put a stop
To all the games these people play.
Unplug their ears, Your voice to heed
Instead of cold, indifferent, greed.
I beg you now and do inveigh.
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God save this city lined with yachts,
Your grace and mercy to invade.
Bring down its pride and worldly glee
That in the ashes they shall see
The Lamb who was for sinners slayed.
*
God, save this city from Your wrath
And do not turn Your ears away.
Unplug their ears, Your voice to heed;
Bring down its pride and worldly glee.
May they repent without delay.
*
© All rights reserved. Nahum H. Sennitt 2024.
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