Skip to main content

THE SCREECHING VIRTUES (The 22nd Violent Verse)

We know so little about ourselves,
what triggers our detonation,
leaves our mark upon flesh
shaping turncoats of love.
We can’t stay clean of our affliction,
our very presence is vulgar and empty.
The seven virtues tremble and screech
fleeing such redness, fearing infection.

Chastity hasn’t the appetite for our hunger.
Temperance hasn't control over our deeds.
Charity discerns we’re thieves of all things.
Diligence sees our work and staggers deep.
Patience shall not our turmoil stay again.
Kindness cannot penetrate our human boil.
Humility shall never defy our foul arrogance.

The deluded champions of this trampled story
suffer from humdrum sleep and idle dreams,
they’re us and we’re innocent until approved.
What are we to do with such dismal weakness,
the contemptible collapse of obligation and honor?

O! We know so little about anything worth saving!
All the progress we’ve made is a breach of love!
If we are to begin anew, we’ll need be born again,
hatched from agony’s egg with open hearts, hands, feet
evolving toward one another. Equally... not above.


© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

sdrawkcaB nruT (Turn Backwards)

I have been witness to the four pillars and see no reason to carry death there. Doesn’t the world know that life moves for more than just the sons of Abraham? O! I see the stunned throats floating by in the dusk to their stiff-limbed sleep as metal rains down over the Jordan’s western prophet, children dying there. I am here, waiting, breathing in the dusk under the shadow of the patriarch, asking, can we again build the shrine inside the soul and leave our flesh to time? © 2008 mrp/thepoetryman
32 comments
read the poem
........•SHRIEKING MACHINE•........                  •HEAD-LINES•                           •RIP•     ---(“Russian missiles blast Ukrainian military academy and hospital, killing more than 50, officials say”)---    There are no more lessons to learn here, no more beds to hold the human wounded, just missile’s shrieking their grotesque ode, The Death of Humankind! RIP, children of God…    ---(“Hundreds attend Mercer Island vigil, march for murdered Israeli hostages”)---    Dear mourners, this is the brutal vacuum of a genocidal, terror-filled, indiscriminate war-machine made of fear and we are all hostages to its deafening roar! RIP, children of God…    ---(“10-year-old allegedly confesses to fatally shooting 82-year-old man and his daughter”)---    I must confess, this is part of war’s shrieking, children lost with a we...
Post a Comment
read the poem

FAULT METER

FAULT METER    When you get a question wrong you will hear three loud beeps followed by an even louder ticking of a clock.    (Like tick-tick-tick-tick-tick?)    You are half right.    (Like tock-tock-tock-tock-tock?)    You got two halves of it.    (Then I give up!)    You do?    (It ain’t out of weakness, it’s my adhdad.) I understand.    (You understand what?)    That it’s not out of any weakness on your part.    (Weakness, on my part in what?)    Never mind, it’s definitely adhdad.     •    We float, we fly, we soar! We find our wings in each other. We find friends, cousins of the one seed of existence. An existence which never began, but always was, that loves us enough to provide life’s needs, our own, the same. A collection of living peacekeepers upon the surface of the most heavenly example known to them. • © 2017 Mark Richard Prime
Post a Comment
read the poem