Living into Words (Poetry in a Time of Killing)
Selected Poems, 1997 - 2004
Selected Poems, 1997 - 2004
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J. M. Beach. Living into Words (Poetry in a Time of Killing): Selected Poems, 1997 - 2004.
New York: IUniverse, 2007.
New York: IUniverse, 2007.
Vates
The pretensions of a prophet like an inconvenience
Prick at the pride of the righteous, the comfortable
Jeers of the satisfied do more than mock the dreamer;
Vanity kills, the very fiber of reform endangered with a glare.
Would rather a hail of bullets or the strong hands secretly
To silence than the scoffing vainglory of the moral majority;
Would rather the conflict of opposition than nothing,
Being ignored, a peculiar tragedy beyond all violence,
The terrible incomprehension of the idiot staring blankly.
Oh the misdeeds of the foolish fumbling through life a danger,
The fool who imagines himself wise and punishes
When in power all dignity, the cost of ignorance too much to bear.
To say a prophet cannot breathe without choking on injustice
Is not a lie nor spoken lightly, the vatic voice a necessary burden
Determined as a curse to punish the wicked.
But why not remain comfortably anonymous, disgusted, dreaming
Of peace and promised lands? Compelled the misery to preach
Because of the misery to live where people compelled by tyranny,
When the only impossible outcome
to be seriously disposed
is justice for all.
The pretensions of a prophet like an inconvenience
Prick at the pride of the righteous, the comfortable
Jeers of the satisfied do more than mock the dreamer;
Vanity kills, the very fiber of reform endangered with a glare.
Would rather a hail of bullets or the strong hands secretly
To silence than the scoffing vainglory of the moral majority;
Would rather the conflict of opposition than nothing,
Being ignored, a peculiar tragedy beyond all violence,
The terrible incomprehension of the idiot staring blankly.
Oh the misdeeds of the foolish fumbling through life a danger,
The fool who imagines himself wise and punishes
When in power all dignity, the cost of ignorance too much to bear.
To say a prophet cannot breathe without choking on injustice
Is not a lie nor spoken lightly, the vatic voice a necessary burden
Determined as a curse to punish the wicked.
But why not remain comfortably anonymous, disgusted, dreaming
Of peace and promised lands? Compelled the misery to preach
Because of the misery to live where people compelled by tyranny,
When the only impossible outcome
to be seriously disposed
is justice for all.
J. M. Beach. Studies in Poetry: The Visionary. Lanham: University Press of America, 2004.
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