Penitent
 

Magdalene with Skull

The flesh has let me down. But bones are true:
a hard truth that has led me near despair
for deeds that you deplore. You know you do.

You picture me disheveled, pale, half-bare,
remorseful for my sinning ways cut short,
twined in luxuriant swaths of shining hair.

A pinup for repentance. Of a sort.
For private contemplation when alone.
My mute friend doesn't cavil or exhort,

keeping the welcome reticence of bone.
Your flesh will let you down. The bones are true.
And yours will tell you what you've always known:
the deeds that you deplore you know you do.


Revisions:
L1 after "true" the colon was a period
L2 "A" was "a"
L12 "will" was "now"

Hi, Susan—

I like the terza rima connecting this poem to the Dantean tradition contemplating death and the afterlife. Mary Magdalene is such a multi-layered character, and you do a good job of exploring the tradition that she was a repentant sinner. In fact there is very little in the Bible to suggest this. Mark and Luke both mention in passing that seven demons were cast out of her, but the tradition that she was a repentant prostitute goes back only to the sixth century when Pope Gregory I proclaimed that she was the unnamed sinful woman in Luke, Ch. 7 who anointed Jesus’ feet and dried them with her hair. Elsewhere in the Gospels, Mary is presented as a respectable single woman with enough wealth to allow her to travel with Jesus and his chums. She is bold enough to stare down the raised eyebrows that a single woman traveling with thirteen unrelated men would elicit, and is unafraid of the Jewish and Roman authorities who crucified Jesus, showing up at the cross and his tomb, proudly announcing her association with the condemned criminal while Peter and all of the male disciples except John scuttle away in fear. More recently Dan Brown popularized the tradition of a romantic connection between Mary Magdalene and Jesus.

I wondered how to interpret line 5. Did you mean “regretting that my sinning ways were cut short,” or “able to feel remorse because my sinning ways had been cut short?”

To whom is Mary Magdalene speaking? Is the “you” God? Jesus? the reader? the skull?

My favorite is line 7. “A pinup for repentance. Of a sort.” This suggests that it is possible for repentance to contain a prurient dimension in which the penitent thrills to think of the sins for which he or she wants to atone. I assume that the skull is the “mute friend” who can be counted on not to judge the penitent for this.

I wondered about the word “reticence” in line 10. Is bone “reticent” or shy because it hides inside the more outgoing but less dependable flesh? I need a little more guidance on this.

Your last line was especially resonant and effective in drawing the poem together. You echo the phrase, “You know you do,” but with a difference. In line 3, you mean “You know you do deplore the deplorable deeds.” In line 13, you mean “You know that you do the very deeds that you deplore.”

Very thought-provoking piece!

Glenn

Hi, Glenn, thanks for responding. I am aware of the debates about the true nature of Mary Magdalene in the Bible, but that is not what I am focusing on in this poem. Here, I am interested in the pictorial representation of the penitent Magdalene through the centuries. It was a wildly popular subject for painters and sculptors, and the range of images is vast and intriguing. Many famous artists portrayed her--Titian, El Greco, Van Dyck, Gentileschi (father and daughter), Reni, Donatello, de la Tour--often multiple times. It is not surprising, since the image of a beautiful, often half-dressed, young woman in a religious context ticks a lot of boxes.

I meant L5 to be ambiguous: remorseful for the sinning ways or for their being cut short? The speaker is addressing the person who is "picturing" her. I think the prurience alleged is associated more with the latter than with the speaker. The skull is the "mute friend" who is reticent (i.e., remaining silent) because it cannot speak. I am glad you got the last line. The syntax is unusual, but I think most readers can make sense of it.

Susan

I like this poem quite a lot, Susan. At first glance, it’s about hypocrisy. About those who deplore Mary Magdalene and contemplate her flesh in private (!), while continuing to sin.

I didn’t get any ambiguity from L5. “Cut short” is used adjectivally, so she’s remorseful for her cut-short sinning ways. It’s too much of a stretch to read it as “remorseful for my sinning ways having been cut short.”

My favorite line is the same as Glenn’s, and in general I like your use of short sentences and sentence fragments.

It must be the picture of Mary Magdalene that’s “for private contemplation when alone,” though it could also be the skull. (It’s hard to keep poor Yorick out of this, but I see no direct connection.)

I think the last line is as you say: convoluted, but comprehensible. Also Pauline: “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”

The poem delivers a very Christian message, except that you’ve substituted bone for what Christians would probably call spirit. That’s intriguing.

Carl, I don't insist on ambiguity in L5, although given the uses to which the image of Mary Magdalene may be put, I could argue that her "sinning ways" may be continuing, whether she likes it or not. The skull is a very frequent part of the iconography of the penitent Magdalene. It is a memento mori. She is often shown as crying or appearing melancholy. I am using "bone" in an ambiguous way, too.

Susan

I like it, Susan. A few suggestions:

I would change the period at the end of L1 to a colon, so that the "hard truth" fragment seems more connected.

In the penultimate line, changing "now" to "will" would let "yours" refer either to plural "bones" or just a singular one, which seems helpful to the ambiguity.

Thanks for the suggestions, Julie. I have adopted them.

Susan

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The life of Mary Magdalene is a touchstone for me. She was my awakening to the carnal side of religiosity. Her wayward ways were the stuff that pubescent altar boys dreamed of. I know now that is just a perpetuation of Christianity's biases and blind spots. I've long ago lost interest in her rumor-laden life. Strangely, Stephen Dedalus in Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist" is something of a Mary Magdalene. I pictured myself as him in my twenties.

I, too, wonder who "you" is. I even had some doubts as to who "me" is. I like the ambiguity of not knowing for sure who is who — Although I wouldn't be surprised if, upon subsequent readings, it becomes perfectly clear.

There are a handful of great lines in this. But given my strict Catholic upbringing this line hits home:

A pinup for repentance. Of a sort.


Julie made good suggestions that you adopted. I checked all your t's and i's and they're good to go : )

A parable poem.


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Jim, it was good to hear what you connected to, what was ambiguous, and your feelings about both. I think a certain level of ambiguity is good, because it lets readers bring their own ideas into the poem, instead of just listening to the author's ideas. A poem like this is more about imagination than about facts.

Susan