Caught in the Cross Hairs

7/22/22

How do we stop the routine

that blinds us

from the privileged position

of the earth

that binds us

as it turns?

 

An image brighter than the sun burns.

 

Like ants we run away.

 

Survival is our day-to-day.

 

He looks through a just scope

for a voluntary scapegoat

to find, at last, a respectable kill.

 

His motive?

Neither a self-aggrandizing thrill

nor for the money

like a provincial mercenary

pleading a case

before a guilty jury.

 

We have neither liability of insurance

nor can we pay the deductible

for Perfection.

 

Our reassurance

is His willingness

to be caught in the cross hairs,

a red dot

at the intersection

of an atoning fare

and a predetermined time-slot.

 

With one eye that never blinks,

He stares intently

and waits patiently

for centuries

on a mountain of laws

to put an end to the bloodshed

with the last shot

heard around the block.

 

The King of the Ants

moves into position

to be burned by the Light

only to be brought back to life.

 

Never has a buck been given this birthright.

 

Like a statue

the Hunter and His weapon of righteousness

stand still.

 

Here comes the kill shot.

 

Suddenly, the old ways are void.

 

The moon drips crimson

and the rifle’s destroyed.

 

The curse is lifted.

 

A new decree is gifted—

“Cast not the first stone.”

 

Forevermore,

the inhabitants of the land

drink heartily

and eat merrily

for the sacrifice

of one of their own.

3/24/24

The withering of the imagination to the point of poetic impotency at the hands of reason (logos) clad knowledge-seekers during the epoch of the Enlightenment left a void in its philosophical wake. But as we know from experience, human nature has a way of redressing itself by swinging the proverbial pendulum back toward what it…

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3/22/24

Category: Literature, Poetry

The effect of the Enlightenment bifurcated not only faith and reason but also imagination and knowledge. “[S]ome philosophers of the Enlightenment thought that image and imagination simply clouded and obscured the pure dry knowledge that they were after” (Guite, Faith, Hope and Poetry, 2). This was done in vast contrast to the age when fables,…

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2/13/24

Category: Poetry, Suffering

We’ve wandered into the maze of the Minotaur— a chemical chimera that pursues synthetically manufactured routes   deep inside labyrinth folds in our skulls with no way out   where pleasure is the highest good.   “Made” we’re told “to conquer mountains that wait to be subdued.”   Our Maker— the Succor— sovereignly sneezes, washing…

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