Torch of Liberty
If we could kidnap inequality and lock it safe away,
then resurrect our scruples and let them have their say,
we could acquit our consciences and set our nation right.
Then reilluminate her torch to guide us through the night.
Prompt words today are acquit, scruples, kidnap, inequality Photo by Juan Mayobre on Unsplash Used with Permission.
Damning Science
Wisdom newly learned or tribal,
from Koran or Scroll or Bible
demarcates a line between
what shouldn’t or what should be seen
or said or listened to or done.
No matter how seemingly fun,
some things cannot be integrated.
No masterpiece is tolerated
if banned by the censor’s tool.
Thus do bigots thrive and rule
spouting truths long since belied—
asserting them as bonafide.
These half-truths to reason’s sorrow
may dictate how we live tomorrow—
our whole world screwed up by some fools
who bend the laws to their own rules,
spouting words skewed to their favor,
creating slogans dullards savor.
There is one rule for what the zealots shout.
After you have heard them out,
use your good sense to judge the acts
of those determining the facts.
Use your powers of reason to test
those who rule at our behest.
Prompt words today are masterpiece, tribal, integrated and demarcate
Unnamed
Perhaps it was a blunder. He could be a stubborn mule.
A myriad of actions branded him a fool.
Scarce as they were, his virtues always managed to redeem him.
Some fools with little foresight even seemed to quite esteem him.
Still, a vulture is a vulture, and his dark side always won.
Self-serving minions always saved him when the day was done.
How do these soulless tyrants ever rise to power?
How long before he topples from his golden tower?
dim Jim Kim Limb rim stem tim vim beam seem dcream seem team ream esteem him.
Prompt words today are blunder, scarce, vulture, myriad and mule.
Suspicious Coloring
If those of foreign ethnicity around our sacred nation
are being questioned over their passport identification,
are others far more grandiose being questioned, too?
Are those of nordic extraction locked up in a human zoo?
If chain migration must end now, will the extraction rope
extend around the family of our grand misanthrope?
Or is there exemption for folks of wide renown?
Are these rules only extended over people who are brown?
Prompts today are nation, ethnicity, identify, grandiose and rope
Raw Truth
Some think this holy gift of life should be lived as austere,
while others make a game of it, maintaining that it’s clear
that life’s to be enjoyed in all its possibilities,
and so as long as no one’s harmed, you should live it as you please.
Still others think life consists of all that you can glean.
Leaving nothing for the others, they pick the landscape clean.
Prone to public office, they’re suffused with artifice,
content that the dull masses will not see their avarice.
Considering their blindness, do folks get what they deserve—
growing ever leaner as the masters that they serve—
the very ones who should serve them get rich and ever fatter—
focused on the truth that they’re the only ones who matter?
jdb photo
The Church of Zeke
Zeke was a very handsome man, well-schooled in vendition,
yet some said his lifestyle had him headed for perdition.
When others went to church, he said he preferred to go fishin’,
He couldn’t stand the piety or the erudition.
He wasn’t their sort of spiritual. When they made a tape
of the preacher’s sermon, he made a grand escape.
Even taped religion to him was not a treat.
When told to go down on his knees, he remained on his feet.
When grilled on his decision, he’d been known to just repeat
that when he kicked the bucket, he’d rather face the heat
than listen to those preacher boys with their great oration
the subject of which, without fail, was his own damnation.
He fed the poor. He did not judge men by their lifestyle or their race.
What he said to others he repeated to your face.
Helpful to his neighbors and faithful to his wife,
he did no ill to others for his entire life.
All of his religion was garnered by his doing—
his piety in action—not in listening or viewing.
And when he faced the pearly gates, they welcomed him right in.
It seems the key to heaven is not talking about sin,
but how you treat the needy and your actions toward others.
Do you accept all people as sisters and as brothers
no matter what their skin color or sexual decision?
Do you face even “different” folks without scorn or derision?
Picking up a prayer book and sitting in a pew
is not retribution for what you say and do.
What you state in piety, others are out doing—
preferring to dish out the fat that you are only chewing!!
They carved on his tombstone what his whole life he’d been saying.
“What others only talked about in sermons and in praying,
he put to practice in his life by not judging his brother
and not letting his actions be dictated by another!”
photo of fisherman by Chris Sarsgard on Unsplash. Used with permission
jdb photo
Not an indictment against religion by any means. Just a reply to those who claim piety but seem not to understand the words they read and preach by putting them into action.
“Actions speak louder than words.”
“Suffer the little children to come on to me.”
. . . . Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii[c and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have. Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
James 2;1-4 KJV: My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel,and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?
Then Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. And the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I do not know!” he answered. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” “What have you done?” replied the LORD. “The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.
Therefore whatever you desire for men to do to you, you. shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets.
And, my friend Christine Goodnough, after reading this piece, added this scripture:
“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” Micah 6:8
Prompt words today are spiritual, tape, handsome, vendition and treat.
Photo by Deleece Cook on Unsplash
Bail to the Chief
The prediction is most likely. His surfing days are through.
Lies never imperceptible are sticking now like glue.
His lobbyists don’t have enough cash to hide the fact
that the power they once lauded is folding up its act.
His juggling days are near an end. The balls litter the ground
of the White House where he juggled them. They’re lying all around.
His circus act soon over, those who lauded him must see
that all of his maneuverings were based on trickery.
The wave that brought him into power was fueled by deception
traitorous in its acting out and vile in its conception.
Here’s a chief we want to oust and cannot bear to hail.
The oval office does not suit him. He’d be better off in jail.
Photo by Avalonia on Unsplash.
Prompt words today are imperceptible, lobby, prediction, laud, and surfing.
photo thanks to James Lee on Unsplash. Used with permission.
Donald Trump Tweets from Hell
With tardy regrets I come to you, now knowing what is best,
for there are things I simply must get off my chest.
You may wonder at my timing, and you may find it strange
that I should choose the afterlife to make this last exchange.
In life I was a basket case and I too easily yielded
to the influence of cronies and the power that they wielded
to make me go along with what my wealthiest peers wanted.
I blustered and I blathered. I acquired and I flaunted.
But now that I’ve departed, I must say that I’ve regrets.
I should have done the right thing. (I should have hedged my bets.)
For though my life on earth was one of privilege and ease,
I do not find the afterlife all that I might please.
The climate here is much too hot—perpetually baking,
but the greatest agony is that it is of my own making.
It seems that merely proclaiming that I’m on the Christian side
does not actually serve me in saving my own hide.
I realize now that actions must reflect what I profess.
What in life I overlooked, in death I now confess.
I did not serve the common man. I made him pay and pay
by cutting corporate taxes and courting the N.R.A.
I put children in cages, I lusted and I lied.
I turned my back on science as the planet slowly died.
But now I cannot call fake news all that they accuse
and with no golf courses in Hell, I finally pay my dues.
Phot
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash. Used with permission.
He may profess to be sorry, but he’s still a rule-breaker. His tweet definitely far exceeds the space limitations of Twitter!
Today’s prompts are: Chest, Basket, Regret, Strange and Yield.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 