Confounded

    poem ending with a line from another poet

I do not want the skies to open

again & the Writ to sift down

like dust from a mill. It settles

nothing, as I said to our neighbor

the infidel before firing

into the air. We were getting married,

our daughter to his son, & showing

our teeth. My house is your house-

hold now, he said, & I almost wept

with rage. Let us pray together,

I should’ve offered, give thanks

for nothing, for prayers

ignored & virtues

made compulsory, & therefore

meaningless. There is no God

but God, & I’m still His faithful

cur, charged with the hard work

of making people happy.

__________

[Poetry Thursday – dead link]

Thanks, January!

To read other responses to this week’s challenge, go here.

12 Replies to “Confounded”

  1. Wow! You’ve taken my line and made it all your own. I love the tension in the poem, lines like “wept with rage” stay with me.

    And I agree what’s already been said, the pacing suits the poem.

    Nice take on the prompt!

  2. Forceful energy in this poem, you can really feel the tension rising, loved the line “wept with rage.”

  3. (Thanks, all. I’m away from home for a few days and not on my own computer, so my comments will be sparse here even though blog posts continue to appear automagically.)

  4. Hi all – I’m a little abashed at all the comments this thing garnered. I almost like it now myself! But I think I’ll still file it under “interesting exercise.”

    Thanks to everyone for stopping by.

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