In this poem I am trying to see if you read enough "poetic devices" to keep it out of the prose pool.
Tuesday Evening Service
Sitting in your church, I question
“How big is your hope?” I hear you
elucidate seven minutes of verse here
and six minutes there. Inside one of those
experiences are two lines
that hint at the intervention
of a supreme being, or a wind,
or a meditation that, upon scrutinizing,
eke out a drop of promise.
I want to take a drink, but there’s not enough
for a taste, not enough for over thirty mouths
who’ve spent the past year in a desert.
This desert of cruelty, disrespect,
lawlessness, chaos, and disorder,
grows decade after decade. Any oasis
we once could see, even as mirage,
is swallowed up by line breaks,
by shifting sands, by mountains
of political correctness, an equality
defined by personal benefit. I hope
to stand up, expand the borders
of the oasis that is truth, grow grass
at the edge of the sands, toss a branch,
no, a tree of hope large enough
to float across, relaxing until strength
is restored enough to swap places
with one stuck behind the manuscript.
--Todd Sukany 23 Apr 2015
Tuesday Evening Service
Sitting in your church, I question
“How big is your hope?” I hear you
elucidate seven minutes of verse here
and six minutes there. Inside one of those
experiences are two lines
that hint at the intervention
of a supreme being, or a wind,
or a meditation that, upon scrutinizing,
eke out a drop of promise.
I want to take a drink, but there’s not enough
for a taste, not enough for over thirty mouths
who’ve spent the past year in a desert.
This desert of cruelty, disrespect,
lawlessness, chaos, and disorder,
grows decade after decade. Any oasis
we once could see, even as mirage,
is swallowed up by line breaks,
by shifting sands, by mountains
of political correctness, an equality
defined by personal benefit. I hope
to stand up, expand the borders
of the oasis that is truth, grow grass
at the edge of the sands, toss a branch,
no, a tree of hope large enough
to float across, relaxing until strength
is restored enough to swap places
with one stuck behind the manuscript.
--Todd Sukany 23 Apr 2015