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How can we stomp it out?
all the rude crude
smashed glass & heartache
the grabbing stabbing
fussing & fuming
Sledgehammers just break
fingers Unset bones
won’t heal straight Is it worth
all it would take to mend?
Those trapped & unreleased
send acid into their bellies spread
grief thinly into the world
but my corrosion singes heaven
bends its floorboards
with the weight of all I ask
The Infinite is infinitely
up to the task

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

D.S. Martin

D.S. Martin is the author of five poetry collections, including Angelicus (2021), Ampersand (2018), and Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis (2013) — all from Cascade Books. He is Poet-in-Residence at McMaster Divinity College, the Series Editor for the Poiema Poetry Series. He and his wife live in Brampton, Ontario; they have two adult sons.

2 Comments

  • Pamela Spiertz Adams says:

    This captures the brutality of violence. Thank you for picturing it for me.

  • Susan says:

    The turn of this poem on acid, grief, corrosion that singes and bends but disturbs not the Infinite, is brilliant. It is a statement of the difference between finite and infinite and the possibility of help being without question. Infinitely. This is not just about being able to ask. It’s much bigger than that. Worth contemplating.