We Question the Utility of Humility

Even when we almost

Have that taste of grace

Even then we cling to faith

That place of no-face

Numbed by all we’ve done

Scared of standing still

And yet too scared to run

Thought

Humble is for losers

Who have no sense of purpose

Who have no strength of character

Who ought to make demands

Not doing everything the world commands

Of course these are just the lies we need

And this so-called honesty

Provides a basis for security

It’s out of necessity we believe

This painful paradox

All power

Is ours

But suffering

Is brought to us by others

Not bought

With bitter fruit of false desires

See

We needed all of our denials

To hide us from the trials of our truth

To provide ourselves permission

For commission and omission

We heeded

Defects

The broken glass of shattered dreams

Reflects

Solutions that now become the problem

Old tools of wars that now

In peace

Are flaws

To be at peace

Demands a different strength

To be happy

To be human

To be whole

Is not a role

It’s real

  

The Gorgon Rose

I cannot see the coin but I can feel its heft
Blessings be upon you, your grace and excellence
Each modest tribute of a few small pence
Is great to me
But a florin or a crown as alms!
I am bereft of words
As I am of sight

Yet I would be the more so in your debt
If you could also briefly lend me eyes
I seek a statue in this grand square
It is my place of usual and humble work
But in the bustle of this day
I am lost - Misplaced
Of course, I would not touch your hand
Nor dare to touch your sleeve
But my ears can hear the velvet of your cloak
And I would follow that
If you allow

A thousand thanks again
How foolish I
Far-roaming
Lost
Am found by you
A stranger guiding me to my
Sometime familiar place:
To the South West of this galleried Piazza
To be shielded from the Tuscan sun

Do you see it there?
Shaded in the square
Raised slightly from the ground
An open stage
Do you see the graceful columns?
Holding up the heavens

Look up
They say the portico is gracious no?
And see above
The gabled female virtues carved on high
Facaded fabled:
Fortitude
Temperance
Justice
Prudence

Below
Do you see the theatre filled with frozen testament?
Statues
The witnesses of lanced and stolen love
The raped Sabine
The dead rejected Patroclus
The violated Polyxena
The beaten horseman Nessus
A chorus
Of stories
I am companion to these ancient marbles
Thankful for your accompaniment
To be among them

I can tell by the smell of dust and masonry
We are among them
Do they seem titanic?
Heroic
Not mortal like you?
They are both

Mortal in fact - since they
Were killed most surely dead
Heroic in the way
That they were murder'ed

Let me with my guttered

Bronze noble
Fallen slain

The Gorgon Rose