The Value of Life
The Haves and the Have-Nots
Good times keep me going
Bad times keep me growing
Uncertainty keeps me entertained
Karma keeps me chained
***
Love walks me with God
Hate marks me a fraud
Euphoria tempts with false sights
Suffering makes my stand right
***
History makes me wonder who wrote it
Debate makes me challenge the partisans who quote it
Geography makes me question the borders
And those, behind them, issuing orders
***
Language makes me human
Between the lines, read, acumen
Deceit is the currency of the world
Life a flag, at half-mast, unfurled
***
Had it been better had I not been born
And dodged the pain from my crown of thorns?
Is it better to go-and-grow from times good-and-bad
Than to wonder, not, from a life not had?
***
I am spewed into the world
Uninvited, unwelcomed, and hurled
Come what may, it's mine to be
Being alive makes up for what life does to me
***
***
Inspired by Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses: “The fact of being alive compensated for what life did to one.”
About the Creator
Gerard DiLeo
Now in Phase II of my life in Hull, MA. Tangential thinking, amygdaloid incentives, and hippocampal flashes from left to right on the page. (Phase I: New Orleans.)
https://www.amazon.com/Gerard-DiLeo/e/B00JE6LL2W/
email: [email protected]
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What My Therapist Doesn't Know
It's a freezing day in December, almost Christmas. My breath puffs out like clouds of cigarette smoke in the clear night air of the motel parking lot. At the moment, I wish it was cigarette smoke because I can't remember being this nervous in a very long time. Maybe the Christmas Eve service twenty years ago, when a pushy grandmother shoved her mini-skirted teen granddaughter up to the piano in our little Baptist Church and plopped an unfamiliar piece of music before me, stating, "Missy is going to sing. Play this."
By Tina D'Angelo7 days ago in Confessions
Comments (4)
This certainly was very thought provoking! Excellent poem!
Yup, that about says it. Nice quote, really drives home how you strike even, like it or not. Nice work as always.
Super thoughtful discussion poem. Not read any Salman Rushdie. Would you recommend?
Great poem! Very dramatic and well done! Great read! 💛❤️💙♥️🖤