Brandon Marlon

Societal Beatitude

Of all of prosperity's ingredients, two predominate:
the individual's willingness to contribute to the collective,
and the collective necessity for respect among individuals
in spite of the innate urge among the diverse to diverge,
which engenders conflict.

All who strive to thrive as a cohesive mosaic,
all who would see coexistence as prosaic,
must daily renew their commitment to goodwill,
to being bonhomous, open-minded, large-hearted,
graciously offering doubt's benefits.

Inculcate the inclination to serve; assume responsibility
for preserving the common good; doing one's fair share
is the work of a lifetime.
We need not be equal to be equitable; we need not
be identical to behold our reflection in our fellows.

Let us prize value and reward merit,
lauding the worthiness of those who rise above;
let those who excel lend a helping hand
and be adored instead of merely admired:
only when a tower lies prostrate does it become a bridge.

A community's quality is measured by its kindness quotient,
by its share of sharing and its understanding
that while we are all independent stakeholders,
we are too mutual trustees, cooperative and duty-bound
to ensure flourishing.

The aggregate of altruism is bliss, and we would be remiss
if we aimed for anything less idyllic;
nor are we obsequious slaves to tendencies and trends,
but masters empowered to contour the future
and sow paradise today for tomorrow's reapers.

Carnal

Those who geminate lonelinesses find
them canceled, replaced by intimacy,
a copula binding, intertwining
spirit and flesh, the grasping limbs
of beings rutting and craving warmth,
touch, syncopated breaths, acts
of feverish grappling and single-minded
yearning, mutual burnishing, a choreography
of senses, sinews, pendulous breasts,
his phallus anxiously probing her thicket
and invaginating in the ingle of her hearth
so that for moments so intense they seem hours
they throb, grope, jounce, and grunt
in acrobatic coitus till erumpent fluxes
of seed and soil blend beyond all distinction
and they suspire in blissful antiphony,
tenderly caressing contours,
twitching amid paroxysms of pleasure,
their every spasm rebuking the graveyard.

Mourning Light

While sitting shivah it dawns on the daughter,
lorn and reft of an existential pillar, scalded by misfortune,
that the deceased was a fleeting blessing,
a foretaste of eternal companionship,
and that even the pain she inflicted was better
than the pleasure derived from others.

Strange how only in a period of darkness
shades of difference come to light.

Garbed in the customary dishabille,
she slouches on a lowered chair
as the community enters bearing
hot platters of food, setting them down on trivets,
proffering condolences and prayers lauding life.

When the world finally leaves the home,
she notes that the foods are the familiar foods
and the aromas the very aromas
reminiscent of the dearly departed,
who even in death made certain to nourish the family.