Indictment of a Passive Voice
Discussions on our prayer nights confuse
As much as clarify how we’re to live.
One friend asserts our peace demands we sieve
Disturbing stories by not watching news.
Our world’s a bomb tied to a burning fuse,
The sight of which is doubtlessly to give
Nightmares that prove to be provocative.
Our calm is too invaluable to lose.
To that I offered this opposing thought:
Where falls a ruin crumbled past repair,
An active hand’s required to sweep the lot
And to erect a finer structure there.
So gather in the news and the outrage
That moves a moral soul to change the stage.
The Wise Ruler
The soul cannot endure an anarchy.
Ponder the voices crammed within its walls;
Note their vociferous and pompous calls.
Each is a zealot who purports to be
The one whose force will set the spirit free.
As such they do not understand at all
Why he who’s loudest isn’t passed the ball,
Given the chance to turn the master key.
Anger asserts she has some mind to give,
While Lust would drool at how some girl’s designed.
The Sloth, the Hoarding Bear; all wish to live
In open air and vent what’s on their mind.
But the sagacious soul remains a sieve,
Denying freedom to the unrefined.
The Unsought-for Find
My window showed small children at their play.
One sprite-like youngster, flighty as a wren,
Stilled as he turned to count, what seemed to ten,
With eyes, shut, as his playmates ran away.
It was clear as glass they never planned to stay
And hide somewhere inside his yard. So when
He flicked his last finger, and turned again
To search under shrubs, hedges and rosebay,
He came, at last, to understand they’d gone.
Then, as if breath were punched from him, he fell
And curled his throbbing body on the lawn.
I longed to, but couldn’t hold him to expel
The hurt that makes one feel so all alone,
And turns the heart, in time, to shards of stone.
