The Gallery of Sin

February 5, 2019 · by Vera · in Poetry · 6 Comments

Clarity is rarely expected
A relaxed focus

A pattern out of
Pale constellation

Provocative
Understanding

I would never ask you to
Explain it away

What astonishes me is our ignorance
Of our will to delude ourselves

* *

Again I realise how reality
Confounds our picture gallery

(The one who says we could
Make one the other)

Obtruding with its mechanisms, activities,
Exigencies, vanity

The stain of baby’s vomit
On the shoulder

Is trifling and yet
Such things are declarations

* *

This street given over to the homeless
In every shop entrance

Law enforcement clearing them away
No ‘hard feelings,’ blame the time,

Blame responsibility: one is born
And at once one is guilty

Does Adam eating the apple
Demand expiations such as this

I tell you
Clarity is rarely expected

Action and inaction
Line up a gallery of indictment

* *

This game of chess we try to play
This multi-party politics

That everywhere smells the same
This theatre in which we receive

What the other alone has to give
And give what the other alone

Knows how to take
This world of conundrum,

Contusion, contempt

This spirit behind the farce
That still laughs and breathes

To Dad With Love Poetry