I Am No Righteous Man

I am no righteous person.

Do you see me give a damn

about those people on the streets

who avert their eyes from me?

 

Do you see me turning my cheek

to those who harm me?

Resist that serpent

who would have me wrong?

 

Do I learn

from all my terrorising mistakes?

Do I have the strength

to turn all the right that I’ve made wrong?

 

I have done so much, too much,

that already I am too ashamed to bare.

Thoughts, images, are poison,

coldness within me that is agonising.

 

There is no good greater

than the hug offered to a grieving sister.

No life of glory, but this unglorified one.

No perfection, but this imperfect soul.

 

No righteousness

but this being here

—an unrighteous man.

Reviews

[Damien Dsoul]

The coolness thing about this poem - or rather, about the narrator - is his stubbonr, yet tenacious spirit. Even as he feels the world's against him and his ways, he still forges onward like the world's last rebel. Another factor is that there's not much hint of anger in his words. Just his decision of nonchalance: more like giving us, the world, the finger.

I like that!