The Sinful Woman

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FranktheFrank
Posts: 1983
Joined: 02 Mar 2016, 18:07
Location: Between the mountains and the sea

The Sinful Woman

#1 Post by FranktheFrank » 16 Feb 2018, 13:26

Your sins are forgiven.
Luke 7:37-38.

I had sought love,
somehow it had eluded me,
I became its victim when all that remained
was lust, for my own needs and my suitors,
and when mine faded all there was
left was a way to earn my daily bread.

I'd heard there was a man who could
wash away all sin, a perfect man.
The men I knew promised
much, left me filthy, despised.
I was tired of their unwashed bodies,
their insatiable demands, vile,
hidden unnatural practices.

Against all that I'd experienced
all that I'd known, against all that,
against this current of despair
I'd found Hope, a desire
for my heart to be satisfied.

I took all my savings, every penny,
bought precious ointment of myrrh,
took it to Simon's, the Pharisee's,
house to meet the Teacher.
The moment I saw Him I knew,
He was the Lamp of the world,
my burden eased instantly.

My sins are forgiven.

Kenneth2816
Posts: 1619
Joined: 01 Jun 2008, 09:17

Re: The Sinful Woman

#2 Post by Kenneth2816 » 16 Feb 2018, 14:46

I think you should expand this to verse 48, include her washing his feet with her hair, one of the most poignant descriptions of devotion in the Bible.
It isn't bad as is, but I see a missed opportunity. Nicely done.

FranktheFrank
Posts: 1983
Joined: 02 Mar 2016, 18:07
Location: Between the mountains and the sea

Re: The Sinful Woman

#3 Post by FranktheFrank » 16 Feb 2018, 15:15

Thanks Ken
I'm in a bit of a quandary, some have said it is too routinely told
i.e. they already know the narrative. I had in an original versions included
the washing of the feet as an epitaph. Maybe I can add that.

Kenneth2816
Posts: 1619
Joined: 01 Jun 2008, 09:17

Re: The Sinful Woman

#4 Post by Kenneth2816 » 16 Feb 2018, 17:45

It is plainly told. That doesn't make it a bad poem

BobBradshaw
Posts: 2683
Joined: 03 Jun 2016, 21:03

Re: The Sinful Woman

#5 Post by BobBradshaw » 16 Feb 2018, 21:49

I like the strong voice, but I wanted a stronger ending... lamp of the world too weak and overused... you need a freshly radiant image...and no telling... let the image ‘tell’ for you

Bernie01
Posts: 777
Joined: 30 Jul 2015, 11:14

Re: The Sinful Woman

#6 Post by Bernie01 » 16 Feb 2018, 22:31

I'd heard of a perfect man.
I bought myrrh to gift him.

He washed my feet---
there are men like that.

Later, he made the water
into wine.

My sins forgiven, his sins
forgotten.





find something beyond cant, something to reward/or shock the reader.


bernie


a far reaching, philosophic observation that escapes the ordinary political shuffle and achieves art.

Rebecca West ---Black Lamb and Grey Falcon



Rebecca West's vast, complex book Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is more than a timeless guide to Yugoslavia - it is a portrait of the author's soul and of Europe on the brink of war. Yugoslavia; In a cafe in Mostar - then a sleepy backwater but a boundary then as now - she went into a cafe:


"Young officers moved rhythmically through the beams of white light that poured down upon the acid green of the billiard tables, and the billiard balls gave out their sound of stoical shock.

There was immanent the Balkan feeling of a shiftless yet just doom. It seemed possible that someone might come into the room, perhaps a man who would hang up his fez, and explain, in terms just comprehensible enough to make it certain they were not nonsensical, that all the people at the tables must stay there until the two officers who were playing billiards at the moment had played a million games, and that by the result their eternal fates would be decided; and that this would be accepted, and people would sit there quietly waiting and reading the newspapers."

FranktheFrank
Posts: 1983
Joined: 02 Mar 2016, 18:07
Location: Between the mountains and the sea

Re: The Sinful Woman

#7 Post by FranktheFrank » 16 Feb 2018, 22:54

I had to use four words Bernie,
elude - hidden - current - lamp.

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