Poetry

A Prayer from Paralysis

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To bear the image is a fearful thing;
No small, simple responsibility.
What we do with it, for it, to it will
Make or break us now and eternally.
O Lord, fashion us eyes to see the sin
With which we break the mold you’ve given us.
Each one as wretched as the next in line,
Each one as precious to Thy holy heart,
Each one weighed and wanting in the extreme,
Each one weighed and filled with crushing glory.
Innocence and guilt are measured by Thee,
And not in a moment decided here.
To bear the image is a fearful thing.

“O LORD, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not hear?
Or cry to you ‘Violence!’
 and you will not save?
Why do you make me see iniquity,
and why do you idly look at wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
So the law is paralyzed,
and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
so justice goes forth perverted”
(Hab. 1:2-4).

Crying_Stone_Luba_Zukowa_Poznan copy

Chocolate Memories

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To bring a solid thing to a rolling boil works
Unspoken magic atop the stove. Combining
Butter, sugar, cocoa, oats, vanilla, milk irks
Some with its simplicity, but births such shining
Chocolate gibbosity that even gourmands
Cannot help themselves from begging for a second.
No proper name for such delectability;
“Sludge” we called it, homage to its amorphous glands,
A foul word would disguise tasty heights, we reckoned.
Childhood on wax paper is pure gentility.

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Deleted Scene: Brutus Bemoans

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Every month, it so happens, has an Ides.
Each one’s days come and go just like tides.
Why, among all, do we act as though March
Alone has a keystone in its arch?
Of course! Blame Caesar’s untimely demise,
Or smarmy  Antony’s over-dramatic cries.
I don’t buy for a moment
That filthy soothsayers foment.
For me, this foul murder is chalked up to boredom;
That late winter tedium was what floored him.
Before spring had found its full greenth,
We made quite a mess on the fifteenth.
Now he’s the hero, his death Rome’s acme,
While I hang my head, waiting for someone to whack me.

Caesar's Ghost

A Jurist’s Prudence

/ JRLonas / Leave a comment

Born an only child, staking a fresh claim,
New life far from his father’s native land.
Freedom’s song echoed deep in him, a flame
Lighting the road appointed beforehand.

Justice called his name, from schoolyard to bench.
He turned his mind to law, memorizing
Line upon line, with thirst he could not quench;
In due time, kings and nations advising.

Anguished by cruel and raw philosophy,
Words that stand written wadded up, thrown down;
He spoke hard truth, quite nearly prophecy—
“Ad fontes!”—and was called out as a clown.

“Words truly live when documents are dead;
Meaning’s fixed mark is study’s only aim,
The woven past an ever-present thread.”
Classroom to courtroom, his refrain the same.

Truth and order drove his faith in the law,
Great leveler of heroes, villains, all
Ordinances grounded on rock not straw,
Flow from One Judge. He answered to that call.

Dissent became his firebrand, though not
For its own sake. Foolishness earned his wrath
Wherever righteousness was left unsought.
Few dared draw his ire on the warpath.

Even so, those he fought admired him,
Those flaming arrows a badge of honor,
His depth, wit, and gusto inspired them
To lose well when their case was a goner.

He has left today, old and full of years.
A republic mourns, a people fret, for
He was too often alone in his fears
That this great land had been struck to its core.