Jack Pelham

The tool that does everything
Will not fit into one’s pocket.

It’s the lighter
With the fold-out fire extinguisher.

She leads with logic
In this case she is making—
As if believing
(And expecting quite naturally to be agreed with by all)
That valid logic is authoritative,
And ought rightfully
To rule the day.

He tips the hat to virtue,
Thinking it a signal of his own.

But he’s a fool
And out of balance—
Grossly over-invested
In the praising of
His own good intentions,
While ignoring the shame
Of his own unvirtuous habits.

When he hangs up on you
Without even hearing
Why you’re calling,
One wonders
If this is the only way
He shoots himself in the foot.

When there’s no outrage over injustice,
There’s no righteousness.

And when there’s no righteousness,
There’ll be outrage over justice.

There are many exits
On that great interstate of learning—
The end of which cannot
Be reached in a lifetime.

Perhaps, at no particular hour
It might strike a man
That he has a mind
That is capable of good work,
And that good work
Might be worth the effort.

I wonder about what it will be like in Heaven,
Where there will be so much to be learned
Beyond what we have yet mastered here.

“Is this literal or figurative?”

That’s an important question to ask about any passage of scripture. Indeed, it’s fairly obvious that some things in the Bible are figurative (“I am the vine; you are the branches.”) and that some are literal (“Jesus wept.”)

And some are certainly slaves to literalism, while others recognize that both types of language are used.

Can you imagine a day
When a culture—
Long hardened against theft,
And having counted it an intolerable
Menace to society—
Should suddenly change its mind,
Congratulating itself on
Its new enlightenment—
Now heralding theft as a sacred right,
Glorifying the plight of the thieves,
Dismissing the great cost of it all
To the society,
And reviling those darkened souls
From the old school
Who still dare to complain?

It is not hard for me to
Imagine that day—
Having recently seen
Others quite like it.