PODCAST · religion
The Darkling Psalter
by Andy Patton
New translations of the Psalms with new poems to go with them. darklingpsalter.substack.com
Episodes
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Psalm 7—Make Our Weary, Waning Days Into a Refiner’s Fire
Lord, I am on the run. This has all gone farther Than I could have imagined. I’m in the wind. I have seen what hunts my trail And crouches at my door And it scares me. If my enemies have their way, They’ll swallow me whole. I am not innocent. I have repaid evil for good. I have brooded thoughts...
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Psalm 21—Their Mighty Plans Have Brittle Seams
Lord, you made a king from clay, And set a crown upon his head. Before a need was on his lips, You knew it. He asked for life, And you lengthened his days. You breached the levee of your love And your ways flooded through him. He became a hollow hand, raised and waiting, and you filled it. He...
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Psalm 20—We’ll Know the Silent Sky Can Speak, and Holy Heaven Ring Like Struck Bells
May the Lord hear you And answer with strong wings Beating on gale winds. May your help come Even before the need is raised— Swift as hunting hawks, fleet as falcons . May he send you every help you ask, Bigger than heart hoped, dream guessed, Or mind ever tried. Then we will watch you and sing...
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Psalm 14—Every Fool Knows God Is Gone
Every fool knows God is gone, So they give themselves to things They can’t come back from; Feed themselves on limelight; Live by the hope of moving on. Like everyone who has sold themselves, They insist it was worth it. The Lord looks down to see If anyone has yet let Goodness creep up on them…
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Psalm 46—No rage, nor waves can rise higher than God
When trouble days came, I rooted and waited for God. Though the walls of the world give way, And the mountains are upended, And the foaming waves climb As high as the sky; I will stay settled here. I looked a fool, but my shelter stood. Father, sweep me into your high hold And seal the doors.…
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Psalm 28—You are there when the grace gathers around the table at dinner, in the hallowed halls of the real world.
Psalm 28—You Are There When the Grace Gathers Around the Table at Dinner, in the Hallowed Halls of the Real World. I forget how to begin, Lord. Wait for me. It’ll take a minute To find my way from here To somewhere else. I’ve been digging ditches all summer, Sweating through my graveclothes. I…
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Psalm 30—No night tears can stop the birds and bells of dawn singing every morning
I ran scared for a long time, Wanting to be safer than I was. I made narrow escapes but couldn’t Quite shake what hounded me. I cried for help, for healing, For answers, for anything. You heard me. You gave me My life back. You hid me In a quiet place only because I asked— But it was years before…
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Psalm 62—It took a long time, but I found my quiet again
It took a long time, But I found my quiet again. I wrap it around me and wait for God alone. He is my fastness, quick keep, faith’s fort, My rest and release. How many of my battered days Slipped soundlessly to nothing? How long was I a man of strings Pushing through a hedge without end? What did…
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Psalm 41—I followed my own road home and found fear waiting
You laid long lines in the world, And trod out paths for our feet to follow. You said, “This is the good way—walk in it.” The one who gives away what she gained, Will find a goodness that time won’t wear down, Will find grace a sunbeam in the blank dark. The one whose repentance Sears stripes in...
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Psalm 36—The clouds are not higher than the measure of God's love, nor the stars, nor the farthest flung distant folly of hope.
The wicked man’s mind runs glad With evil thoughts and he can’t sleep. His heart tramps from wrong to wrong In a dim parade, full of all the wrong fears. He wonders why he would let this glamour go Once he got it started. He spins traps And hangs them in corners. Words tumble Out of his mouth…
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Psalm 47—Ring the words on your hollow heart’s bell.
Psalm 47—Ring the words on your hollow heart’s bell. Ring the words On your hollow heart’s bell. Fling and strike the song To every corner: God is king. The Lord layers his rule Down on the lacerated land In hoards, in heaves, in mountains, in downward drawing, heaven-heighted droves. Everyone…
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Psalm 29—Everything in the wide home of the world flings Godward, crying, “Glory!”
Psalm 29—Everything in the wide home of the world flings Godward, crying, “Glory!” God’s high heaven is choired With singers ringing back Ranks of bright light in song. Praise him! His voice troubles over the sea, And the waters writhe and surge. The voice of God towers and crests And rises up…
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Psalm 2—Don’t ask for answers; ask for waiting. You barely know the meaning of things.
For more renditions of the Psalms, visit darklingsalter.substack.com. Text of the rendition: Psalm 2—Don’t ask for answers; ask for waiting. You barely know the meaning of things. Why do the lost nations rage and rally Devices against the living God? The kings of the earth take their stand…
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Psalm 8—I am thistledown the wind has taken, yet the lives of stars are nothing to me.
Psalm 8—I am thistledown the wind has taken, yet the lives of stars are nothing to me. Lord, even the air echoes your name. The river thrums with it. The bright mountains tower it out. The holy birds sing it dawnward. Yet, the earth and the whole heavens Can’t contain the barest sum of you. When…
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Psalm 38—I chewed black thoughts like cracked bones and made a meal of my sin’s marrow.
Psalm 38 God, in your anger, don’t set me aside. I suffered the length of your chastening. Your arrows have fallen all around me. Your hand pressed me into the ground. You heaved my heart whole over. I am all raw wounds. My heart is scoured bright as brass— Abraded, burnished, blazing hot Under…
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Psalm 27—Where things are barren, but he is near.
The Lord is my light in dark And my salvation in danger. What other force should make me fear? The Lord is my shelter. How could dread ever dog me? What fear could ever reave me? Who could harrow me and hem me in? When my enemies teemed Snapping and gnashing at me, They staggered and fell and…
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How Do You Write the Darkling Psalter?
Listen to Andy talk about the process of creating the renditions of the Psalms in this interview with Leah Boden from the Mind Gallery (https://modernmissmason.substack.com) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Psalm 1—I will layer ring on ring as God’s years mark loops in me.
Psalm One I came to the garden to listen and wait, To walk in the way, to leave my mistakes. The word growled in me day and night. I writhed and raged. I moaned, And meditated, and suffered. I prayed the seed’s prayer at night, alone, And something grew in me. The word made root room. It branched...
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Psalm 43—It wasn’t away from my wreck that I found you, but in the middle of it.
You were never supposed To let any of this happen. Why did you allow that dog grief To bound me down and Stripe my body ragged? Why did you give me these ghost days That I wish had never happened? All day a fear runs Like a song through my head. Is says: Faith is a fool’s game; Faith is...
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Psalm 25—Is the friendship of the Lord nearness as I come apart?
All autumn long and all alone, I trod a path through the woods While I prayed and fretted and watched The leaves go bright as pennies. Behind me walked ghost years I thought I’d shaken. Teach me the steps. I know There is a difference between Seeing the way and walking it, But my trust is...
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Psalm 40—Pierce me straight through, and scrawl your lines on the paper walls of my living heart.
I waited longer for the glimmer Of the Lord than I thought I could, Or would, or should, but waiting Inside the waiting, I was answered. I gave myself up for lost. My head slipped below the water And my life listed to unsaid silence. My days were cracked, kettled consonants Succeeded by rhymeless...
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Psalm 19—If you would have light and heat, why are you not more in the sunshine_
The heavens declare the glory of God. Every night, the sidelong hip of the Milky Way Shows itself to you. You see Backward across miles and years Along the light of the works of the Almighty. The earth at your feet is fruitful, wild, and weary. It pours out words day and night. The sky and the...
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Psalm 34—I did not know light could ring, nor faith stretch true as a plucked string.
Lord, there is so much to say. I open my mouth and find your praise in it. My life is your boast. May those who are cast off Take comfort and consolation When the rumor of God grows great among us. There is no count of the needs I brought him, Questions I cried out and answers That blushed over…
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Psalm 6—I haunt from room to room. People pat me on the shoulder and don’t know what to say.
Don’t press me any harder. I am scraped low, slung out, And strung hard between bitten hours And bent, bated minutes. I haunt from room to room. People pat me on the shoulder And don’t know what to say. How long will this last? I’m not going to make it. But if you love me, save me. Stop me. Carry...
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Psalm 23—When I meet the shadow falling between the way I wanted and the way I went—I will fear no evil.
The Lord is my shepherd. With him, I lack nothing. He guides me in the last way left— Farthest round and the first home. He walks me to the river And settles stillness over me Like a tree at the water’s edge. He seeks me when I wander Into danger and don’t come home. He leads me along the good...
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Psalm 15—Who can find their home on your holy mountain_
Lord, who can journey with you? Who can find their home On your holy mountain? The one whose walk and work are blameless, Whose rest sings the seventh sunrise, Whose days bloom goodness, And whose heart is kernel crushed, Chaff blown, and light As deep heaven’s snowflake bread. Their tongues do…
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Psalm 22—God, why have you left me here? I would have traded anything For a glimpse of you.
God, why have you left me here? I would have traded anything For a glimpse of you. Slow syllables that never resolve to words Growl out of me, but no one hears. At night, need holds my eyes open, But no answer comes. There is no peace in the silence, Only disquiet. Yet, you are here; Higher…
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Psalm 3—Give us the shelter of your strange light.
My enemies are a storm of seas. They are snapping teeth, an endless, Unkillable, unloveable, unlistening night. I stumble and they laugh. I tuck tail and tremble. They pounce and play. They take what they will with indelicate bites. They lay wagers on whether God will share Any of his dwindling...
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Psalm 17—A Fulgurite Among a Million Sands
I have asked before And I will ask again: hear me. This prayer is all I can manage, But it rises from an honest heart. Winnow me and claim what remains. I am a fulgurite among a million sands. Sift me and start again with what is left. Seek me and sound me out. Stand at my side as I groan Through...
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Psalm 18—Every naked thought crisped in the lightning light.
Lord, I love you though Your strange steps blacken A path backward along my trail. But you are still my cleft, my crag, my solace. You have been my promontory, My high hideaway, my safe, close space. I am no stranger to need. I know death rises like a rogue wave From a cloudless sky and...
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Psalm 51—If your love is as true as you say, forget the rest.
Lord, relent. I regret My summer palaces; the violence I mistook for virtue; the days I was always elsewhere; the years I flung down the fidelities I should have followed home. If your love is as true as you say, Forget the rest. My failures are always with me. They are more than I can stand. I...
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Psalm 31—Wing around me, God. Everyone knows I have hoped in you and suffered anyway.
Lord, I raise the frail flag Of prayer and ask for help. My fate went freewheel and fell. I fled this far on the lam. Now hide me in the high place. Hold me. Hush me. Take me in. Trouble is singing down around me. There is no end of it. So lock me in a love that won't be breached. Take my hunted...
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Psalm 32—Lives I thought I’d lost honeycombed and hunched down like winter bees eating my heart's honey.
Innocence is a better world, but I Can hardly imagine the Lord keeps No count against me. I was bent double over My riddle days, wracked and walking The years of my life backward. Lives I thought I’d lost honeycombed And hunched down like winter bees Eating my heart’s honey. I shuddered long,...
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Psalm 16—My old loves all return like birds to eat from my hands.
I came to shelter with you Like you were the last hiding place left While the rumbling world clattered down. You are my God, what other home Do I have but where you are? What other family have I but yours? Those who sell themselves To other gods will find that sorrow Billows all around them…
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Psalm 42—I say to my soul, sing! Lift aloft. None of this is what it seems.
Lord, where are you? Where is your river I wanted? My soul’s throat drinks Salt tears and clicks shut. What is the count of days until I stand before you in the flesh? Everyone laughs at the holes in my needs Where my God should be. But I remember when I walked With the throng to your house. We...
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Psalm 35—Your prophets have always been too paltry to stand up for themselves.
I don’t need to look far to find My enemies. They are right here, Sitting at my right and left, Snapping with dull teeth, shaking me down, Faces all pallid as bone; Hotscrabble, grasping, devious as hell. They kick a shallow hole and lay me down in it. They have told me lies, but I can’t tell…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
New translations of the Psalms with new poems to go with them.
darklingpsalter.substack.com
HOSTED BY
Andy Patton
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Darkling Psalter have?
The Darkling Psalter currently has 36 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Darkling Psalter about?
New translations of the Psalms with new poems to go with them. darklingpsalter.substack.com
How often does The Darkling Psalter release new episodes?
The Darkling Psalter has 36 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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You can listen to The Darkling Psalter on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Darkling Psalter?
The Darkling Psalter is created and hosted by Andy Patton.
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