What Need Have We For Poetry? Poem by Denis Martindale

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What need have we for poetry in such a year as this,
Another poem yet to see as real-life goes amiss,
When bad news comes such that it stays as people sigh and weep,
While God hears everyone who prays before they fall asleep?

What need have we for poetry in such a time as now,
Another poem yet to see as life crawls on somehow,
And medicines are brought to bear, yet not the final cure,
While God in Heaven knows we care, how can we know the score?

What need have we for poetry as if it answers all,
Another poem yet to see, as if a miracle,
While God observes the fools on Earth and judges every sin,
How many poems still have worth if none on Earth can win?

No wonder men still go astray, as sheep within a field,
While wolf-like devils seek their prey and victims' wounds aren't healed,
Yet I declare and thus decree, as prophets have before,
That God sees all of history with nothing to ignore.

It's Man to blame for sins exist, wherever there's a home,
Wherever sorrows can persist, wherever sinners roam,
A billion poems tried to warn, but Man can still repent,
Just don't dismiss or treat with scorn each poem Heaven-sent.


Denis Martindale. March 2021.