Tag Archives: life

Mercy was a schoolyard word

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Mercy was a schoolyard word,

the key unlocking the grip of the bully,

something I saw often enough

but normally (neatly, nimbly)

dodged myself. God did thus

himself a disservice, putting

his good word first in the

mouth of the enemy who demanded it –

of his victim no less.

And this was part of a larger pattern,

I saw, God betting on the wrong horse,

dumping his treasures in the mud,

thinking all-screwed-up might make

the good, the true and the beautiful

self-evident.

Oh I’ll admit:

I never see the truth better

than when I’m wrong

or love purity more

than when I’ve sinned.

So maybe this is just the way.

But why?

Why must dark

dress up our day?

Who you are

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You won’t be passing out stones

or scorpions or wasps on the other side

of apples. You won’t be not holding

the ladder when he climbs,

or not looking when she crosses.

You’ll not wonder when you should know,

for you’ll know, though you’d rather not.

You’ll know and do what you should do

because you are who you are,

the man, at last, you were meant to be.

There are forgotten reasons why

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There are forgotten reasons why

you didn’t do what you didn’t do,

but now you’ve only what still

never existed – Technicolor scenes

and whiskey ads, gunboats in Esquire,

the Senator before his subcommittee,

the microphone, people clinging

to his every word.

From where you watch he’s far away,

mute lips on a screen as sunlight

climbs the outer wall. Soon there’ll be

nothing left to catch it. It will unravel

in cold dark corners of space.