virtue

to understand

virtue

ones life must

first be crushed

inside a vice.

experience

wont arrive

no head

behind a text

can comprehend

the paycheck

earned on blood

cut blistered hand

to hand.

as dogs chase

every ambulance

mice run

for the cheese

virtue

comes when least

expect

upon a jagged edge

as one walks

out

from ember ed lies

and pressure lifts

inside the vice.

 

 

 

Reviews

[Miss Coral]

Love this piece- reminds me of the concept that you can't understand something unless you have been on every side of it. Like, you can't fully understand murder until you have been the murderer, the victim, and people related to both roles. Deals with reincarnation and whatnot- I find it extremely interesting.
You need to be on every side to appreciate the other..


Very nice write- love the concept.

-Coral-

[Ed Hart]

i like it that your reviewers show how well you are understood, what you understand so well

[ryderflyte]

I loved this!

[Khitii Lae-Ahn]

Beautiful to read...you are indeed an Exquisite being...your voice echoes softly as i read these words...and melts them into mind...knowledge is easy to obtain...but Wisdom and Virtue are Earned...by blood of metaphoric heart bled out into air...and blisters forming holes in palms of overworked, worn and weary hands...and exposure to every sort of element...this is.....Perfect.
One can feel this vice tightening as they read...and releasing in last moment to let the throbbing pulse of blood rush forth.

[A.A.Romanczuk]

Insightful...delightfully wise ! A beautiful...straightforward declaration of the teachings of experience...of the learning of virtue....no man is born perfect...he learns to strive for perfection by the cliche burning of his hand...
Alan, You delight us all

[...]

. ah, alan ... you are on a shattering glass spree ... and boy is it an honour to witness your journey ... this write of yours is so lucid ... so cutting edge ... so precise ... and so definitive ... you make words speak beautifully ... and the last six lines ... ah, they are momentous ... i can smell a series ... a rather enlightening series of poems ... in your voice ... with our amazingly skillful rendition ...

[NoneOfYourBusiness akaK..]

felt through every porous bone~there's a strut in the broken down vestiges of human crush~ only virtue licks those bloody thighs clean of all allusions to ego~
while reading this the fingers on my left hand were playing with mala beads which suddenly makes lightning sense as in streaming back up and streaming back down your poetic lattice exhales an aural mantra all its own~

[Sweet_pale_cacophony]

This poem sums up for me in the opening lines 'to understand ....till vice'..and 'virtue comes when least expect...pressure lifts inside a vice'.I love how intellectually stimulating your writings are.So crisp,precise and so very refined.More than anything else they always reflect the mind that is behind them..your effort and your thoughts show.