In The Western World Poem by Laurence Overmire

You will be judged.
For good or for evil, to win or to lose
One or the other
There is no other
In everything you do
We black and white you with our tongues
Lash you to the stake of our
Burning inadequacies
Guilt that must be flogged
Flames rising
To star our sleepless nights
Feed the demons who sit across
The Dinner Table
Making nonsensical conversations
We like to call “quality time.”

Don’t think you can escape
Be bigger than a sea that
Covers the bones of a mythic Atlantis
We carry the ark of a covenant
With a damning God
Jealous Creator of all men (and sometimes
Women) in His own image
Flawed, sinful, needing to be
Saved from His own unholy
Desires.

In the Western World
You will be judged.
Daily.
By every man, woman and child.
For good or for evil.
Winners and losers.

That’s who we are.


(Previously published in uXu, Dec.30,1999, #35)