Eight: Honor (poetry series)

Honor

First no one gets blamed, no one can

You have honor enough to shoulder

the gross mistakes of humankind

You embody discarded virtues

No one wants to drown or burn

count seconds in a broken plane

Om! (sob) Om! (sob) Om!…wait

hemmed in by traffic

The tsunami wave, the nuclear cloud

the rolling fog, again the flames

Mumble forlorn curses…

What have they done? Use your fucking brake!

Lie in a ditch, painted in sugar pop and ketchup

Ant-devoured, a murder hornet in your bonnet

the boredom of your brain dialoguing with your brain

suffer thou the racks and tongs of    jot this down

remorse

Heaven ordains it, apologies for the spoiler

Flesh you’ll shed, or are in process

of shedding, daily

under which the sterling core ought to show

Or would have by now, if it were going

to, why would God care, He, as soon

Would have you past endurance sorry

Sorry to know it counts, what you were harming

was dear little you yourself

Twisting tortured with it    relax

I tease, you can’t…

Lucifer’s mill forever churns

How do you pass into the kingdom

Short answer: you don’t

You have been fairly pleased, not hampered by belief

Only—

You believe, because you live

in faith that you’ll be better later on

Honor

A Small Exchange

Duty

(2020, Stephanie Foster)