A Moral or Amoral Verse

Fiction Portal Intergalactic Summit
1

A lot of our world it seems comes down to this: A question of what is right and what’s amiss. Exactly what’s proper depends on who’s asked, but what the stars really think goes around masked.

Am I right to see rights in a stellar corona or find purpose in spraying a potted begonia with some noxious stuff to ward off little evils (is it me that is wrong, though? Or is it the weevils just trying to find food to get through the day without any regard for gardener dismay?).

There’s no reason to think my sight is so clear as to distinguish what stars hate and what they hold dear. The Truth is obscured; the rest’s just what we think, though moral philosophers (driven to drink) have hammered at this with no ending in sight (despite probably quite a few late student nights).

Is there a clear truth to find somewhere, a fact, really explaining how we should all act? I’d like to hear thoughts and I’d like to hear reasons, but bitter, angry words keep leaving me lesions; I don’t need the pain or the grief that you bare (I don’t mean to say that I truly don’t care, but it’s not like your troubles and woe are all mine and not like I recognize any divine will or consciousness behind your personal pain; it is your own story, and so it remains).

Since discussing in prose here can wind up with curses, if you’ve statement or quibble-- come say it in verses! Iambic pentameter, rhyming couplets or haiku (I won’t judge meter harshly if you free-form like I do), or dactylic hexameter if you insist, or really any form you can find on a list-- or not; if you have a style that is artful I really don’t mind novelties by the cart-full.

I’ve no way to enforce this of course on this board-- although there might be a ravenous horde of station-duct sharks to keep order, you lot. (I’m not saying they’re real and not saying they’re not.)

It’s an endless debate and no one will win it, but the world’s pretty wide, with lots of minds in it. So come show your wit and your thoughts on what’s real, and insight, philosophy, religious zeal! There’s a whole lot to think over, and yonks to explore, so think of this list as a wide-open door for expressing what really seems real to your mind, and to take in the notions others leave behind.

An invitation
To kick up the autumn leaves
In your own noggin.

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2

Well well…
I see that you have done as you foretold
and made a thread of discussion in verse.
Let’s hope this simple scheme will not grow old
’ere we’ve seen th’best we’ve got (and too, the worst!)

But to the question posed I must give thought
and ample time for ruminations mine
for fulsome answers are most surely sought!
and pond-er-ance may bring wisdom divine.

And so for now I bid thee bide the night
and in the biding bid thee, too, "adieu"
in hopes the morning sun deep thinking might
bestow on me, that I might answer you.

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3

Taashti azkaanjo
Himo hinmonaa hido
Taashe dai laani

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4

I do not have the soul of a poet
I think that is abundantly clear.
Not when basking in the warmth of stars.
Certainly not when I am here.
I know neither verse nor meter
I know no cadence or rhyme.
I was taught very different things
By this New Eden of mine.

Where I was born a seed was sown.
I learned “I shall not obey.”
“My life is my own.”

With violence, torn out with the roots.
I eventually found a new soil.
Of the blood, but raised without
I learned “I shall be their foil.”

Now we soar so very high above
Detached and alien to our own.
Yet we can now see so much more
Than those who have never flown.

I see the weakness in those who know only peace
I cherish it as I wish it could be mine.
It must be protected and nurtured
But what of those we leave behind?
Do they not deserve what we have?
Should they pay the price of peace?
The price must be paid by those
Who have failed to make this all cease.

I have not the soul of a poet
I carry venom and bile.
I have precious little love left
And will not waste it on the vile.
When surrounded by convenient lies
I must speak for those who can not.
The price that must be paid
Will look like vengeance, violent and hot.
In a sea of stoppable forces
Weak and full of fear
I have a duty to be an immovable object
Not just for those who are near.

I am not a conquered soul.
I am what grew in that soil
Watered by a tear.
I will be their foil.

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5

dust in starlight is
bereft of purpose, but not
bereft of beauty.

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6

A moment’s peace
A quiet thought
Calm reflection
Not often sought

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7

This is perfect. That is perfect. Perfect comes from perfect. If you take perfect away from perfect, the remainder is perfect. May peace and peace and peace be upon you.

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8

A foil contrasts.
If you define yourself so,
Are you really free?

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9

Can you imagine someone with no ties?
What must they experience, I wonder.
So many lows, so many highs.

Yet none of the bonds
That give meaning.
The connections
That means feeling.
About anything but oneself.

Freedom is not anarchy.
It is choices and responsibility.
It is failing or pursuing duty.

It is freedom from.
It is freedom to.
It is binds, ties, chains and limits.
Decided by you.

Do you not see?
I am bound by nothing but myself.
I am free.

(Edit to add,
much as you can see.
Poetry and lyrics can be wonderful
but it is not for me.

I can write a song.
I can write a tune.
I can write a shitpost.
But I am just bad at it, okay?)

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10

Perfection is another way to say
It cannot be made better; neither, worse–
Accepts it all as worthy, come what may:
P’raps true-- but what of those who their lives curse?

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11

We are alike in that: both bound by will;
To dif’rent sides, though. Back before I came
Here I was much as you describe: no ties,
No chains, no binds, no meaning and no home.
And so I found a place. It’s now my own.
One time there surely was another way,
But bonds, connections, feelings make my place.
The inside left; the out came in, and so
My duty’s here, now. Why deny my choice
To live longside the ones you’re foil to?
Is my home less to me than yours to you?

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12

A free woman makes her choices.
She is free to do so.
Yet is freedom of choice
Freedom from judgment? No.

I am guilty of plentiful sins.
I embrace them.
I am guilty of plentiful crimes.
I am judged for them.
I have stood naked before judgment.
I have been punished for them.

I can not.
I will not.
Deny your choice.
I can.
I will.
Deny you freedom from responsibility.

You judge me freely.
I welcome this.
You are judged freely.
Is that freedom only His?

New Eden is impossibly large.
Dwarfed only by the choices we can make.
So when we pick any of them all
We will be judged for the opportunities
that we choose to take.

(( Last one for a while. Time to leave room for others on other subjects. No need for yet another threadnaught on this subject. ))

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13

Ideally, one would
Judge rightly. But in my eye,
Better right, than judge.

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14

A flower’s beauty
Has a purpose or effect.
Could starlit dust, too?

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15

Long united must divide and long divided Must unite

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16

Son,
my Sun!
Peer in brilliance though you are,
Heavenly globes bare no witness to thee,
Vast in girth and gaze afar,
See not where innocent splendor may be.

Only the infinite eye of God,
Beholds thy glories and proclaims:
Thee, my son,
Are truth and solace
Joy and redemption
All mankind rejoice
Hearing this small voice!

Yet cold and infinite are the heavens
My child’s cry lost in din and chaos
That cruel crush of a trillion helpless wails.
O doth man suffer! Aid is rent from me!

My hands are dragged away from thee, my son
To be sullied with the blood of poor fools
Misled by lies and given cruel intent.
War is upon us! Fathers to duty!

Treacherous flames leap from the hearth anew
Betrayers turned from God upon thy crib
To be turned back by thy love-bearing guard.
Darkness shall retreat! Mothers to thy home!

One babe a star shall not glimpse, live or die
A million blind and a billion ignored
Yet God sees our sin and withholds black fie
Despite murder and heresy abhorred.

O, meek boy in my arms, burden of men
I shall see your life before mine is done
Strength shall be yours and man you shall defend
Proclaiming to heaven, you Sun my Son!

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17

Words of the world, they pass. One farms. One goes about. One tends to business.
One wakes, so encumbered with the souls of others. Later, one’s own is hurt.
How a million souls may go to rot, suddenly. How thousands might plea.
We know what we love.

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18

Hidden in the shadows,
Of my troubled mind,
I see you.

Come out and take my hand,
Pull me back.
Remind me of who I once was.
The person I wanted to be.

You kept my heart pure.
Love, unquestioning.
I’ll never be whole again.

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19

Threadnaught, threadnaught, burning bright
on the forums, late at night
I wish I may, I wish I might
Be able to sleep, tis such a fright

To be so haunted, in my pod
where so many morons think a god
resides, and not some fragile bod
who’s running out of rhymes. Uhm… rod?

I still have not yet had the time
to put my OP response to rhyme
and I just noticed now that I’m
out of tequila for my lime.

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20

As something of an expert
on the matter of dust
There is no intrinsic beauty in it.

More times than I could count
I have been reduced to it
don’t look to me, I’m no poet.

Seriously, this isn’t verse. I’m not that edgy.

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