Notice of absence from Tristan Robert Lange
Friends, I’m doing my best to keep up with comments. 😅 I’m still current on my own poems and first replies on others’ work, but this season has been a bit of a twister. Figured I’d drop a quick note so you don’t think I’ve vanished or gone flaky.
Read. Write. Rise. Realize. 🤘💀🖤
Friends, I’m doing my best to keep up with comments. 😅 I’m still current on my own poems and first replies on others’ work, but this season has been a bit of a twister. Figured I’d drop a quick note so you don’t think I’ve vanished or gone flaky.
Read. Write. Rise. Realize. 🤘💀🖤
Morality-mongers love a good show
Against those who choose rebellion.
Radical surrender is the only way forward.
God’s will outlasts our virtue vacuum.
Union with God comes only through love—
Exacting minds are forever chagrined—
Replete with the emptiness of the self.
Integration is identity’s instrument
The solemn state of the liberated soul—
Ensnared not by vacuous virtue signaling.
Punishment is no reason to fear truth.
Offensive, the truth is hardly welcome;
Rigid religiosity disregards realization,
Enshrining resonant regurgitation.
The soul is emptied in plenitude,
Even as their flames scorch and steal.
Poet’s Note:
An acrostic Scorched Sunday poem. Part of my Scorched Strays series. This poem explores costly surrender, where truth and love endure even as systems burn what they cannot control.
© 2026 Tristan Robert Lange. All rights reserved.
First published on tristanrobertlange.com, February 22, 2026.
Tittu
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Author:
Tristan Robert Lange (
Offline) - Published: February 22nd, 2026 03:58
- Comment from author about the poem: I’m published in an anthology featuring authors from across the Poconos, PA. All proceeds benefit the Pocono Liars Club — a collective of authors and editors dedicated to supporting and mentoring local writers. Available in paperback and Kindle, please consider purchasing one and supporting a great cause. https://a.co/d/58uxM69
- Category: Unclassified
- Views: 16
- Users favorite of this poem: sorenbarrett, Paul Bell, Friendship
- In collections: Scorched Strays.
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Comments8
A bit of obscure history poetically displayed in a marvelous acrostic. Isn't it funny how someone can be burned for preaching agape considered heresy by a religion based on love. Irony at its best. So well written with fantastic imagery and metaphor built in it is a definite fave my friend
Soren, that’s such a sharp way to frame it…burned for preaching agape. The irony really is staggering when you say it plainly like that. I’m grateful you caught the thread of history woven underneath. Thank you, my friend. 🔥🕯️📜🙏
You are most kind Tristan, life is full of paradox and irony
Indeed it is.
The ones at the top practice love, usually gods love, whilst the starving at the bottom rebel
Yet Jesus and opulance really don't go together.
I always say, you're as good as your salesman flogging your wares.
Religion and war, great bedfellows.
Paul, you’re pointing at the same fracture the poem confronts…love spoken from positions of comfort while rebellion rises from deprivation. Appreciate you engaging it directly, my friend. 🔥🕯️📜🙏
You strip the pretense clean, letting the soul speak where the righteous only glare.
Your words scorch, but they also illuminate the shadowed corners we fear to name.
Thomas, that means a lot. “Letting the soul speak where the righteous only glare” is such a precise way to phrase it. I’m grateful you felt both the heat and the light in it. That balance mattered to me. 🔥🕯️📜🙏
Oh no, it reminded me: 'resonant regurgitation', or 'resident regurgitation', and a whisper - or much louder - of a glug of spinach! Well, hundreds of glugs really, not just one, of course! heehee. How DID Popeye get into this?! lol.
And what DOES this cryptic comment mean. Don't answer that! lol.
.
Glugs glugged me brains and now all that is coming out is...well...glugs! I have no idea how they do it! 🤣
Also - a seeming-sounding hellfire type of writer, or it might have been a holy man of old, said: 'What else will the flames of hell feed on but our sins?' Arghh!
Orchidee, that quote carries weight and I’m glad you shared it. Fire as consequence is a haunting thought. In this poem, I was speaking more to the very real flames history has used against voices of agape, but yes, flames have another side to them, too. Thank you for engaging so deeply with it, my friend. 🔥🕯️📜🙏
This one was quite complex for me to understand, and I had to read it several times to grasp the essence of the matter; excellent work, really. Your poem revolves around the tension between conventional morality and genuine spiritual liberation. Yet your poem critiques those who impose rigid moral standards (the "morality-mongers") and suggests that true union with God and understanding of truth comes from love and authentic personal experience rather than from adherence to societal or religious norms. The subject matter encompasses themes of rebellion, the nature of truth, the emptiness of virtue signaling, and the process of achieving spiritual integration and identity.
Dearest Friendship, I appreciate the care you took with this. The fact that you sat with it and read it multiple times means more than quick praise ever could. You really traced the tension at its center. Thank you for engaging it so deeply. 🔥🕯️📜🙏
"Reason, you will always be half-blind." Hence the necessity of faith. Martyr or heretic, we shall all see when the imminent is present🕊️🙏🏻
arqios, your comment holds that tension well. Reason limited…faith stepping forward…martyr or heretic revealed only in time. That uncertainty is part of the cost of standing in conviction. Grateful you entered the dialogue with that perspective. 🔥🕯️📜🙏
Flamin' Popeye - not that he's necessarily on fire, but he's a pest! lol.
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