This is my fourth poem of week two of the online retreat.

We have mythmakers in our midst;
they make merry whilst misery multiplies,
dead and dying on either side.

The old stories talk about Nero fiddling,
and the Roman Senate being the best that money could buy;
if he’d been there, I’m sure Sisyphus would have loved
to step aside and let the rock tumble—
walls come tumbling down!

Today’s tale-tellers talk of trials and tumult,
and imagine walls that have never been built,
dead and dying on either side.

The new stories cast the mythmaker-in-chief
as the conquering hero thwarting the ministrations
and malfeasances of miserablists prone to snatching
defeat from the jaws of victory—
anyone for a slice?

The history of past, present, and future may depend
on what we do here.

May we undo what must be undone.

(15 October 2020)

Wishes sometimes have consequences is available to order from your favorite local bookstore.

IndieBound search: https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=wishes+sometimes+have+consequences

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Information about my other books can be found here.