Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Lest Ye Shall Not

Based on a Poetic Asides Prompt, Message in a Bottle


To whomever finds and reads this
know that not everything you read is true.
Just because it’s on the web or reported as news
doesn’t guarantee it’s fact

If you’re opening this up on another shore
which would mean your own and not ours
know that we’re mostly a good people.
There are crazies everywhere
and it’s likely we have more than you.
Ours are just more visible and we always
have enough of them to export.

But for every Fred Phelps, Sarah Palin or Charlie Sheen
we have cities filled with caring and generous people.
For every distraught mother who drives her kids swimming into a fast moving river, there are twenty million good moms. For every arms dealer who beats plowshares into swords there’s a family owned farm helping to feed the world.

On the balance we’re a good people.
We help out when your city is flattened by an earthquake when it’s time to quash polio, when the wall of water sends isotopes pinging off the heavens.

If you only believe one thing you read today, let it be this. We are not as we sometimes seem, we are better.
Peace be unto you.

2 comments:

  1. Oh I don't know..you're not so bad.Some of you write brilliant poetry,bit short on irony,wrong spelling but overall you're pretty good and have very nice teeth. Some of the women are a bit screwed but then you can always get imports I suppose.

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  2. Thank you for introducing me to Fred Phelps. I hadn't heard of him before.It explains a lot of the problems I have been having in the blogging world.He's not a poet is he?

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