What is it that deals us our greatest blows?
That is our undoing?
Is it our enemy, the devil?
Or blatant evil, so closely cloaked
----‘live’ spelled backwards?
Were he so out in the open and obvious
He’d be easily stopped or avoided.
Yet hidden behind the dailiness,
the benign and harmless,
It isn’t the devil,
but merely distraction and dissipation.
Distracted by the simply innocuous,
(“surely this couldn’t hurt”),Dissipated by my attention to frivolity,
(“certainly I have energy for this as well…”)
We succumb to defeat.
dissipation—“to lessen one’s effect or impact, to deflate”
distraction—“to look away from, to lose one’s direction and goal, a mindless diversion.”There is no actual destruction;
Either way—deflated or diverted,
eventually we fall,becoming
over time,
useless
and at last,
invisible.
Very effective how you changed the font in that last verse.
ReplyDeleteAs much a philosophical dissertation as verse. I like the way you incorporate the definitions into the structure of the poem, dissipation and distraction, irony at its finest.
ReplyDeleteThat devil only has to 'work' at tempting the holiest of Peeps. Regular ones (like me?) do his work FOR him/her...and we fall into the trap like a fly-and-spider. Hoever I do believe "evil is live", and quivering beneath every soul's pillow.
ReplyDeleteGod, Jody. thank you.
PEACE!
Steve, I'll have to agree with you, it is often just my flesh that is my undoing....my "I can do it myself, thank you." But then, why would Jesus die for me if I could do it?
Deletethanks for your thoughts.
cheers.