#magdalene: poems

[theoptia]

Marie Howe, from Magdalene: Poems; "The Teacher"

Text ID: So, I thought I had to become more than / I was, more than I'd been. / but that wasn't it. It seemed rather that / something had to go. Something had to / be let go of.

[aboutbirds]

Teacher, they said to Jesus, The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say? —John 8:5 You know how it is when your speeding car spins on the ice at night and you think here it is? When the deer spring across the headlights? When you begin to slip down the steep and icy steps? Now imagine someone is about to push you, someone you know and then they don’t.

Marie Howe, "Magdalene: The Woman Taken in Adultery," from Magdalene: Poems

[weusedtobegiants]

(because we are writers and make art out of our struggle). It is true that I create over and over again the same difficulties for myself in order to struggle over and over again to master them;

Marie Howe, from Magdalene: Poems

[allurlsaregone-blog]

Being there!

Marie Howe, from Magdalene: Poems; “The Landing”

[asoftepiloguemylove]

WE SHOULD JUST KISS LIKE REAL PEOPLE DO

Marie Howe "Walking Home," Magdalene Poems // Mo Xiang Tong Xiu Heaven Official's Blessing (via Alpha Coders) // Florence + the Machine Cosmic Love // Hozier Work Song // Mo Xiang Tong Xiu Heaven Official's Blessing (via weibo) // Coldplay Sparks // Brenna Yovanoff The Replacement // Mo Xiang Tong Xiu Heaven Official's Blessing (via Wallpapers.com) // Hans Christain Anderson // Richard Siken Crush // Mo Xiang Tong Xiu Heaven Official's Blessing (via panda_colada) // Madeline Miller The Song of Achilles // Leah Horlick For Your Own Good

[rosemaryshrub]

you ever think too hard

[contremineur]

Ales Debeljak, Mary Magdalene

from here

[saintcande]

Mary Magdalene

[zaraisnotcool]

Hic requiescit magdalenae corpus Mariae.

My rotting skull encased in gold, under the house of my lord.

Time, beauty, and decay exude my body. I am gold and brown. I am nothing and everything.

Touch me not in my final resting place, where the angels sang me to sleep.

They will pillage my body from where I was promised to stay. I am no longer mine.

May my womb be lost to time and tale.

Here lies the body of Mary Magdalene.

[oh-my-little-hearth]

Anon Poem Request: Mary & Jesus

Written in a folk perspective.

A Love Lost In The Ages

Love meant for the ages,

Suddenly lost entirely from histories pages,

Savior, Messiah, Shining Teacher.

By his side you’d always see her,

Never faltering in her faith,

Something so true, impossible to scathe.

Love filled her body just as it filled the Lord

For her life was built, on his teachings she adored,

He was a humble servant of all broken kind,

She was a servant of his word divinely assigned.

In Mary's eyes, redemption's light did gleam,

As Jesus walked beside her, in every dream.

In hymns echoed, their spirit remains,

Mary & Jesus, concluded eternally with tear stains.

[mystery-of-a-magpie]

Mary Magdalene

“There was a little girl, who had a little curl,

right in the middle of her forehead.

And when she was good, she was very, very good

But when she was bad, she was horrid.”

- Henry Longfellow

Bandages on her knees and that

all-too-familiar wide toothy grin

that can only come from a child

not yet chastised for joy.

A smile that came before the altar, 

when “Magdalen” was just her name. 

She was a devil of a child.

The statue was grotesque. 

It’s head was turned down to the altar, 

staring into the souls of sinners.

The replica stood all bruised and beaten

in immaculate detail, from the 

bloodied coils of matted hair, 

down to the emaciated torso

where ribs protruded from

yellowing translucent skin.

He was lifeless in most regards,

a porcelain pilar to which they prayed.

But he was not dead.

You could tell by the sorrow in his sunken eyes

to weary to look up to an uncaring sky, 

but pleading for mercy nonetheless.

Painted blood dripped

down pained porcelain,

congealing at forged nails

that tore through artificial flesh.

More dripping from the crown of thorns

that bore deep into his forehead,

and bloodied knees, not a bandage in sight.

So very real in the eyes of a child,

not yet old enough to understand

the significance of suffering.

When their eyes met, she cried

like her namesake. “Mary Magdalene”

echoed through candlelit corridors as 

she ran from the warmth of hellfire

to the painful flare of frigid light.

Uneasy terror creeping its way in,

making a home in her skull, 

Scaring her curls straight. 

The image would come to her today in shards.

With tears, a sinner’s only sacrifice,

trickling down in prayer. 

With it, an apology disguising a farewell, 

a dream from a dreamer scorned,

and a sly smile resurrecting.

Eyes filled with darkness and heresy,

as every half-truth sliced through flesh,

she shattered porcelain walls.

Freed by her own blood this time,

scrambling towards the past,

She bared her toothy grin

with bandages on her knees

and unkempt curls in her eyes.

And she was horrid.

[theoptia]

Marie Howe, from Magdalene: Poems; "The Teacher"

Text ID: Can we love without greed? Without wanting to be first?

[aboutbirds]

The first cold morning, the little pumpkins lined up at the corner market, and the girl walks along Hudson Street to school and doesn't look back. The old sorrow blows in with the scent of wood smoke as I walk up the five flights to our apartment and lean hard against the broken dishwasher so it will run. Then it comes to me: Yes I'll die, so will everyone, so has everyone. It's what we have in common. And for a moment, the sorrow ceased, and I saw that it hadn't been sorrow after all, but loneliness, and for a few moments, it was gone.

Marie Howe, "October," from Magdalene: Poems

[weusedtobegiants]

The worst had happened. What else could hurt me then? I thought it was the worst, thought nothing worse could come. Then nothing did, and no one.

Marie Howe, from Magdalene: Poems

[wakamotogarou]

To Heal the Shattered World: Magdalene Speaks

By Harmony Harrison

(this is the most powerful poem I have ever encountered)

When the world is shattered as I have been shattered, the world goes on, broken, as a life goes on, broken, until the dismembered life feels like a normal life, though it is far from the wild wholeness of God.

Sisters, brothers, kin— find the pieces of your own dismembered selves strewn through the shadows of the world.

Seek them in the desert of unknowing, in the stories lying buried within caves.

Seek them in their coffins of clay, in the boles of the trees, in the rivers that roll beneath the wing beats of the angels and the crows. Seek them in the hawk’s spearing cry, and in the hunted dove. Seek them in the nighttime, cradled in the seed and the stone

Seek them in the hum between the ancient words, but seek them, too, in the asphalt and exhaust fumes and char, in the skid marks of fear, in the ashen ruins of our lives.

Seek them in the trauma— nothing is truly lost, and everything deserves to be reclaimed.

Bring them home to me, bring them home to the fullness of humanity. As you bring home your soul, you bring home my story, restored. As you bring home my story, you bring home the soul of humankind.

This is how we remember. This is how we re-member, this is how we begin to heal the shattered world.

[iamliyv]

this poem rlly struck me and has inspired some of the music i'm working on rn ❦