Thu | Mar 28, 2024

Poems

Published:Sunday | September 27, 2020 | 12:11 AM
Silhouette of a woman praying
Silhouette of a woman praying

The God in each one of us

The God in each of us is not asleep

Though most of us have gagged Him,

Closed His eyes, and tied His feet!

Each day we try to suffocate Him

Based on our lurid acts, or, deeds

Which, for many, seem fulfilling.

We’re all doing as we please.

For some, though, God is in a catatonic state,

Or else, completely comatose.

In many minds, He’s fully dead

And in the realm of ghosts!

We prefer, then, to worship men

And tweak them as we go along.

We grant them praise and accolades.

So, they feel like gods.

Also, in our temperamental state

We decide on whom to love, or, hate

According to ‘their choice of colour’

In our modern, democratic space.

We have come to worship self-made gods,

Men ‘of straw’ with ‘feet of clay’!

‘Sacrificial lambs’ prepared with bullets

Are dutifully offered up each day.

The God in each of us is not asleep, comatose, or, dead.

According to ‘our ballots’,

Each of us will reap a fitting verdict

In the end.

– Erica Brown Marriott

Loss multiplied

In a lifespan losses sting in degree like a burn.

Loss of dignity, a first-degree burn, fosters,

introspection leavened with humour.

Loss of purpose, a second-degree burn,

challenges us to reinvent ourselves.

Losses multiply – propelling us forward,

like a flip book until the ultimate loss,

leaves us leaden, benumbed, a player in

blind man’s bluff.

Tagged by Corona personally or by extension,

a third-degree burn sears our landscape,

now littered with markers as losses multiply.

– Carol Chapman