20180930.0430

I was sitting where I should have been
And happened to overhear--
The door was open,
And they were not speaking in hushed tones--
Them talking about their disappointment
That it had taken so long
To get to a place where an accusation
Might
Be taken seriously
Only to have the efforts made as nothing
Because some few thought
Someone should not
Have a particular job.

Ever does the weed
That Stupid God would seed
Emerge
And in every place.

20180929.0430

Her, I believe,
And her,
And her, as well,
Because I have been gripped by Stupid God,
Hand working up and down,
And by its pumping pulling out
What I have been taught is the end
To which I am made.

I did not say my teachers were good.

But I know that in being handled so,
I have been directed strangely,
And I have looked beside me more than once
To see other hands working
Pumping and pulling and producing
As crusting stains upon the floor
What otherwise might be directed
To fuller and more wholesome pleasures
That others might also enjoy.

But they are not,
Not often enough,
And the stains left behind
Are too often indelible.
A rug might cover them,
Perhaps a tattered orange one,
But they remain in place,
And likely cannot be cleaned.

And for my part in making such stains,
In consenting to having such hands working on me as I have had
And working with them, in turn,
I apologize.

Such words are feeble, indeed.
I do not expect forgiveness,
But I know that I’ve done wrong,
And that many others have does not excuse me.

It does tell me, though,
That I should believe her,
And her,
And also her,
And I do.

20180928.0430

It certain is some warmed themselves on flame
That burned ‘mid fiddling and the victims blamed
For cold they did not feel but had to name,
So crushed were they by power of Stupid God.
They, born under and broken by the rod
Its avatars did wield, did need no prod
To spread the mirksome gospel it would speak,
The words thus said their breaths making to reek.
By hour, by month, by day, by year, by week,
Their folly spread far faster than the flame
And sought on those unlike them to cast blame
For failure they’d not have themselves defame--
And now, as then, do many thusly preach,
Heeding not what thinking may well teach.

20180927.0430

They say that Nero fiddled while Rome burned,
The Cæsar celebrating how it turned
Out when he’d gotten what he had not earned,
And something like that seems now to be true.
Yet who the fiddler hear seem not to rue
The damage that the fiddler seeks to do
In playing out of key and out of time,
But gladly dance as if the tune’s a prime
Song called for, rather than an aural crime.
Around them, as they dance, much falls to waste
And ruin, and it falls with no small haste
To offer all who would seek it a taste
Of what will come when Stupid God, supreme,
Stands over all, as does now likely seem.

20180926.0430

That I might run aground is no surprise;
I find I often misdirect my eyes
And look at things that I would otherwise
Ignore, distracting me from what I ought
To do. It is not how I have been taught,
Although my daily life with it is fraught,
And even as I want to start to write,
I find myself consumed by foolish trite
Distractions. Soon enough, I lose the light
I had been hoping for as guide to set
My words in rhyming lines and tight--and yet,
Though I well know I all too little get
From doing so, I cannot help but do
As I am doing, carrying it through.

20180925.0430

It’s true: I do not work in verse alone,
But other skills I use and seek to hone
To keep as many from falling down prone
Before the feet of Stupid God as can.
But, even as my verse may well not scan,
I have not often ended as I’ve planned,
And such skills as I might well seek to wield
Have not the Stupid God compelled to yield.
Those skills that do not range too far afield
From what might be thought to have good effect--
They have not done as some might well expect,
And in their application left me wrecked.
Repairs are underway, as my ship’s not.
Perhaps to run aground is my life’s lot.

20180924.0430

I know not why I little songs still sing
When I do fear they do no little thing,
Nor anything at all. No joy they bring
In making them. No benefit they bear
In being read, no notion that they care
Who them do see of which I am aware.
I still press on, though; I’ve no other way,
And even if few care what I might say,
And even if I hate myself for play
When so much work does e’er remain to do,
And time not at it is time I soon rue,
I think I must this project carry through
Of writing verse in Stupid God’s despite--
I’ve nothing else with which to make wrong right.

20180923.0430

I look out on the world and feel despair;
The Stupid God does spread, and few do care,
And of them, fewer still will think to dare
To work against the spread--and I’m not one.
I end before I even have begun
To weave a net to catch it, or to have spun
A thread from which a rope might yet be made
To make a net; I see how it is frayed
Before I start, and I am grown afraid
That, should I cast a net of little worth--
Of value, I hold my works in a dearth--
I should be quickly brought hard down to earth,
Where I have beaten been too oft before;
I think not I could endure it much more.

20180922.0430

I know I erred. What irks me is not that,
But rather when those who have idly sat
And watched my struggle, folly to combat,
Say that I was a fool to take my path.
Perhaps I ought to feel Fortuna’s wrath
Because I did not much better math
When setting out, a child although I was--
But youth should be for folly no good cause.
Credulity should give any age pause,
And I was credulous, should not have been,
And would not, had I it to do again;
Perhaps I would thus find a better end.
But Stupid God would doubtless find a way
To take in toll what few would gladly pay.

20180921.0430

More fool was I to go without my eyes
Full open and to find a rude surprise
Than would have been the case were I more wise,
But fool I was, and trusted others’ word.
I put my faith in what I from them heard;
What they said may as well have been a turd,
For years and pains have flushed that hope away
That I once held from hearing what they’d say
In times now gone, when I in light of day
Did find myself and throve. Now that is gone,
And I know well that I do not belong
Where I had hoped once to find myself strong.
Such was the work of Stupid God on me,
And it on others I too often see.