Contortionists all are we . . .

More Fun to Hate than Mediate

How we do love to boil our blood

And wrestle into controversy

Things that once were small and slight,

Warranting more, sure, our mercy

Than our spite or fear or ire,

But our desire to scream and swoon

Out-reaches wisdom to require

Tempests in every old teaspoon

No amount of prettifying attempts can cover our darker selves . . .

Rough around the Edges

In the hearts of faithful men,

Sacred or not in path, a yen

For self-fulfillment will arise,

And if successful, choose a guise

Pretending prophethood and care,

Made up with clothes and wavy hair

And social graces and faint wealth,

To steal the souls of all by stealth;

Little is so rank and smelly

As to be a Machiavelli

Covered with the smooth veneer

Of love, charisma—to appear

Compassionate and selfless when

Inveigling your fellow men

Under a banner of religion—

Never was the night so Stygian

As when worlds were overthrown

Not for God’s sake but for men’s own,

And all while silkily insisting

Disagreement or resisting

Constitute cruelty and treason

Against goodness, faith and reason—

All while perpetrators ate

The fruits of conquest, greed and hate.