Faith Hope & Fiction

Ancient Wisdom

I remember when actions and consequences
were indisputably joined;
as natural and understood
as sunrise and sunset,
no ambiguity, no uncertainty—

Civilization’s guardrails,
boundaries intended to hold
humanity’s unpredictably faulty
freewill accountable.

Like most things in life
safety nets weaken, fail
or are simply ignored
by the rudderless among us
who have entitlement issues;
cause chaos in an otherwise
semi-orderly civilization.

Marcus Aurelius
would know what to do.

Needful Things

I hope that hope does not hide
from me and faith does not flee;
what will I be then,
if they just leave―

Carefree, smiling and unassuming
or desperately disillusioned
from a famine of appreciation?

Will I deliriously dream of being
special in my swagger or
will I be a weary, wandering minstrel;
singing off-key campfire songs
worldwide to lessen the pain
of my intolerable selfishness;
indescribable emptiness
and the self-destructive
short-sightedness
of losing needful things.

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Joseph Roque is a poet who frequently writes about life, love, loneliness, growing older, alienation, and the joys of youth. His poems have appeared in Psychopoetica, Mad Swirl, Aphelion, Death Head Grin, The Poet’s Haven, RagMag, and Cerebration. His latest book is Ashes And Excuses.