Compassion
We live in a blessed age
where monsters are god and god a monster
to teach us the small surrenders
where we battle
in between.
When god is Love
Merciful and Compassionate
then we,
omnivorous insects that we are,
eat hate for bread and mate with death.
From monsters sometimes
we learn
compassion.
April 2012
Posted for Open Link Night at dVerse Poets Pub
The inspiration for this poem is drawn from past and current events.
Image: 12th-century icon of Archangel Gabriel from Novgorod, called "Golden-Locked Angel", currently exhibited in the State Russian Museum Sankt Petersburg,
Tempera on wood, public domain
Omnivorous, meaning eats everything and insects are indiscriminate, does not think, simply swarms. The middle stanza is pointed and unfortunately that seems to be how it is. Why do we tend to behave opposite of that which we claim to worship? From hard lessons, do we learn to be soft it seems. Lots of thoughts from this one.
ReplyDeletesome great lines in this hedge...
ReplyDeletewhere monsters are god and god a monster
and the eat hate for bread line...
interesting too bringing in religeon as it is just another voice of the state these days....vote for this one...and give to ceasar....god is here to make you happy, you deserve it...step right up and see the bearded lady
The curves of compassion twist from our own suffering to ameliorate the suffering of others. That's where your brief and tight lines took me in their arc between extremes. Yes, our little surrenders happen in between, what an insight.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Ruth. Perceptive and vibrating in tune, as always with your harp.
DeleteNothing like learning in reverse, with fools for instructors and our bumpers festooned with parking stickers for Wassamatta U. Shakespeare wrote "Macbeth" as "a play to unlearn hatred," rubbing our noses in the offal of the Game of Thrones so we might yearn for a whiff of Duncan's humility. And yes, if godhood drives us to mayhem, then devils surely chase us back. I give reluctant thanks to their monstrous persuasions, and settle quite happily for the surrenders inbetween. This one's for the breviary or psalter of what consoles. Amen. - Brendan
ReplyDeleteMy sticker says STFU, but I'm with you all the way. Macbeth might make you want to unlearn a lot of things.Glad if this makes a bead on the twisted rosary of comfort, B. Thanks.
DeleteI think it was Kahlil Gibran who said that he learned kindness from the unkind. Mom??? Is that you?
ReplyDeleteI'm not linking tonight, but I will be there with you in spirit. Please consider my new poem my contribution. Teh hosting powas...you haz dem! :_)
Mom? ... LOL
DeleteShe doesn't mean me.
DeleteNot a wasted word here, Hedge. Amazing writing.
ReplyDeleteWe live in a blessed age
ReplyDeletewhere monsters are god and god a monster
eat hate for bread
Great lines, much to think on....
"eat hate for bread and mate with death." Wowzers! Great writing.
ReplyDeleteGiven the desire of the deeply religious to do evil deeds this resonates with me and serves to remind us of the price we sometimes pay in defence of 'reason.' Perceptive and intelligent.
ReplyDeleteha - you turn it all upside down...make us think...
ReplyDeleteeat hate for bread and mate with death...monsters god and god a monster...i like the balancing on a line that can change each second...challenging us to face the monster in us..
Wonderful stuff here Hedge. Makes me think differently, turning it all around. Well done my friend.
ReplyDeleteFabulous short poem with so many layers, so much to dwell upon. I think it's a fine summation of our age.
ReplyDeleteHedge, I really like this idea. From monsters we sometimes learn compassion. I know I'll be tossing this idea around for a while tonight. Great write. Thanks
ReplyDeleteThanks Fred--got quite the laff at your place.
Deleteoh wow, i love this. this is actually something i've been thinking about a lot lately, perfect finish to this.
ReplyDeleteThe suscinctness of this, the brevity, is powerful, and the message so damn true.
ReplyDeleteyou are an amazingly insightful poet, Hedge.
Lady Nyo
Thanks, Jane. Glad you're feeling better.
DeleteJoy,
ReplyDeleteI guess religion isn't quite so simple anymore--not so easy to walk the walk
omnivorous insects that we are,
eat hate for bread and mate with death.--Very sharp and distinctive, this, though the last stanza is super, too. This reverberates. Very nice work.
Thanks Steve, yeah nothing is so simple any more--enjoyed yours much, as you know.
DeleteSo deep, Hedge. Lots to ponder! Thank you! :)
ReplyDeleteIf all we were ever taught were love and compassion, I wonder if there would we would still learn how to hate or, is it something we are taught by our elders? I suppose we are still animals (albeit the top of the food chain) when all is said and done and, all it takes is a small catastrophe to send so many of us back to caveman mentality.
ReplyDeleteLovely thoughts and prose.
very insightful...this..wrapping with your words' magic from the first line to the last. i'm in love with challenges your poems deliver to my mind.
ReplyDeleteYeah man! aint that the sweet truth; last evening i watched a documentry by Werner Herzog - Death Row... Texas... if this poem
ReplyDeletedoesnt sum up how i felt at the end of the most relentless tregedy....then i'm not hung like the giant off of G of T's! - lol...
brillant hedge
nice visual touch too :)
Yeah, the look of tedious forbearance on that icon of Gabriel sort of sums up the stereotype of compassion--I like to see it flow a darker red myself. Herzog is pitiless when it comes to telling the sorry truth--have to check that one out. thanks, Arron.
Deletethis speaks the truth on so many levels... def connects with issues that go on every day...
ReplyDeletePowerful & intense with lots to ponder.."omnivorous insects that we are, eat hate for bread and mate with death." ..wow...I'll be pondering on this one a while...it's so true of our age...
ReplyDeleteThe closing lines. Just sublime.
ReplyDeleteThe whole thing is emotionally and technically excellent. Deliverers an emotional impact, and it's just so tight, everything perfectly placed.
Masterful write.
Love "omnivorous insects that we are"
ReplyDelete"When god is Love
ReplyDeleteMerciful and Compassionate
then we,
omnivorous insects that we are,
eat hate for bread and mate with death."
I found this - both image and observation - striking, even brilliant. And yes, where we learn compassion is not necessarily where we would think to look for it...
Amazing write--and I am sitting with the idea of the small battles in between--very well crafted!
ReplyDeleteShor, sharp and deep. A bit different again for you- but still as challenging and emotive as always. We do live in an age where God is seen as cruel and Monsters (celebrities?) are seen as gods...I suppose I do feel compassion for some celebrities- what a vacuous life some of them must lead (generalising I know)....strange what could be defined as religion these days- see? Look what your words have done? I'm rambling again! Great stuff hedge- I ALWAYS love reading your words
ReplyDeleteThanks stu--I was thinking more along the lines of dictators, religious and secular, and politicians, but wait..they're the uber celebrities of our time, aren't they? Thanks for stopping by.
DeleteThose first two lines hit it out the ball park! That has all the pith of an Ayn Rand quote, and the rest of the poem drives the main point home in no uncertain way: when we learn compassion from monsters, what have we become?
ReplyDeleteyou last stanza basically says that we can always learn what not to do
ReplyDeletepportunity on mars
Your perspicacity startles, which is strange after all this time reading your work but there it is. This poem entered my mind in the way of a kōan. Everywhere I see the need for compassion.
ReplyDeletePoem with a bite and asks some big questions
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts aren't deep with this one as I was chased by zombies in my sleep last night, so feeling literal. Everything you say here it true. Its funny how easily our allegiance can be changed from God to vampires. Who knew we just needed to add sparkles?
ReplyDeleteBest.Comment.Ever.
DeleteThings that bring people together...common gods and common enemies. I am waiting for aliens to attack so the world can become one. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThese lines are just great...When god is Love
ReplyDeleteMerciful and Compassionate
then we,
omnivorous insects that we are,
eat hate for bread and mate with death.
Deep and true!!!!!!
If there ever was or ever was going to be an "anti-Christ", it seems to me the crossbreeding of today's politics with the new "Christians" seems to be he. I don't know where one might apply 666 to that entity but working, thinking and voting outside the box seems to be our only way to confront (or possibly escape) it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the deep insight, Joy.
Your words never wasted in this poem..I especially loved this verse "eat hate for bread and mate with death." shows your talent for turning a phrase..great work Hedgewitch
ReplyDeleteThat which doesn't kill us makes us strong! And how often adversity brings out the best! You are right, I suppose--but I really would prefer not to have so many small surrenders! Or battles! K.
ReplyDeleteNo argument with this poem, Good and true.
ReplyDeleteIf you'd like to read poem it's http://leah-jamielynn.typepad.com/
Monsters taught us to reflect. What they did we do the opposite. That would mean giving back goodness without getting even. Great thinking, Joy!
ReplyDeleteHank
the small surrenders are the times. i remember a friend of mine way back when said life is really about mundane moments. confrontations with monsters end up with a surrender one way or the other, and they end up always being smaller than i anticipated. just thinking something along those lines last couple days. you make it sing.
ReplyDeleteFrom monsters we sometimes learn compassion, IF I don't squash them like a bug first :)
ReplyDeleteReally, very nice, telling, and true. I like the comparisons and contrasts. And I think the piece is just long enough. It's like a poem that used to have longer hair, I like it shorter. It reads tight, edited tight, and presented very skillfully.
Someone once said that the most mostrous inhumanities are those committed in the name of God. I fear that such an idea - promulgated by that aphorism and by your poem's brutal succinctness - is, in many cases, all too true.
ReplyDeleteCompassion can be selfish and self pleasing, I found this out when I found Quan Yin Buddhist Goddess of compassion for all people ( I have her tattoo'd) , now I bloody enjoyed the write as it made me comment the way I did :)
ReplyDeleteBrief, but powerful and deep The last stanza resonates with me. Thank you!
ReplyDeletePowerful and thought provoking ....loved it thank you so much x
ReplyDeleteVery interesting and thought-provoking words.
ReplyDeleteA very interesting, startling idea, that has set me thinking and pondering. :)
ReplyDeletehedgewitch, what you have managed to capture in three crisp stanzas is truly remarkable. I wonder how many times lessons have to be taught before they are not only learned, but applied?
ReplyDeleteFantastic! In such a minimal space you have made the reader dwell on not only the balance of such things but also the fact that everything in life is double edged! I really enjoyed this! xoxo
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteA powerful statement in few words but, each is heard clearly monsters lurk in life not just under your bed.
my goodness, the age has indeed decayed and we have no gods except hate and greed. I don't know that the god will even be able to save us, if we continue. The beauty that comes in moments may perhaps find us where we find ourselves alive and aware that there's so much hypocrisy and stinking servility towards generalizations and theoretical truths.
ReplyDeleteI just hope that we can raise a generation that will hear words like these and know that there once lived a person who heard the spirit of the age and know that the age spoke a double-tongued lie.
Brilliant write, Joy. It is most interesting that I keep running into the word monster in blogland. What is not such a stretch, the linked commentary oft mentions the recent debacle down in Florida with the Martin case. Sadly, I shall say that my mirror knows both of these faces...alas, I'm of the third category, human ~
ReplyDeleteThis was thought provoking and a challenge, but well worth the read.
ReplyDelete