The Born Identity

Marc Meierkort | Poetry

Dr. Seuss proves practice makes perfect.

A taste for the earliest of persecutions.

There’s a subject in there somewhere.

Somewhere a baby cries. Damned if

babies cry. Foul originates the telling

of lies. Augustine that steely raconteur

& scoundrel of the self-image. A heated

transfer. Personal hatred now humanity’s

flaw. From Adam’s first major shit-storm

of stupidity & bad manners mistakes made

graven. We’ve been slurred from birth.

Unchosen. Unformed. Incomplete drawings

left to the right side of the shelf marked

incomplete drawings. It’s a shame really.

This society we call sin. This run on belief

says we’ve fallen still but ready to rise.

Beside the point of being fully in love

with the length of the line there’s room

for a subject in there says I am not that

sin. I am not that profanely original.

art credit: "Halved" (2021) by L.A. Hawbaker