Day Nine

A National Poetry Month Writing

How comes it that there were so few a note

as would believe in times long spent to gouge

and torment the hearts of men?

Was it that the crows could cackle no harder

than when they were already atop the head?

Alack, it was not so, for I hath seen a crow dive

it's head through man just to crack his ribs

and torment his heart with stinging beak.

Was it then that man hast risen above such noble

strife as Job with three thousand ducats eradicated

from his charge, and Shylock lost three daughters

all his sons, all his lands, and all his life?

Perhaps we hath cried so hard for so many epochs

the tide has risen high and the starving among us

are seen as starving fat, not bloated. Our temper

claims acceptance of the fat actor beggar, and the

bone-wanting body of our souls, for we are stripped.

We are nude upon the heath, battered by rain

tormented by bullets and shells. We are unfit

in our own comforts, and in our shelled lives blind

staring out into the tempest as a few minor knaves

the fools with wisdom have been hung, and we are naught.

We, who see this, we who read this, we who write this,

we are nothing. We are no fool, no beggar, no royalty

no Cordelia, no maddened king, we are the peasants scrounging

we are all Edmands, all the vialest of lightning bolts cast down

for no purpose but to making glass unfit for use. We are

nothing.

Author's Note

Allusions are to Shakespeare's Macbeth, King Lear, and The Book of Job. Mostly King Lear

Reviews

[Botania]

The immensity of life can certainly make us feel small sometimes.