Fools, Dunces & Boors

 “How embarrassing it is to be human.”
                                     — Kurt Vonnegut

The human famiglia is a foolish lot
full of dunces, oafs, and shameful louts
on fools’ errands to a fool’s paradise,
and there I am, one of these useless idiots,
having lived life where nothing human,
no matter how humiliating, is alien to me.

Nothing is too boorish for us,
nothing too outrageous or disgraceful,
nothing too stupid or ignominious
for us not to embrace with cold zeal;
we diminish one another, even kill
in all the ways possible to make die.

We forget the poor & neglect the starving,
avoid the sick & run away from the lonely,
we curse & blaspheme with Satan’s grin,
abuse with the worst & degrade the best,
we are emotional thugs & relentless criminals
as we live the days as if this were Hell. 

Yet below the surface of our ego dramas,
buried beneath long-running distractions,
our souls still live, limping along, forgotten,
waiting remnants of beauty and goodness,
traces of truth and love, bearing witness
to the Creator in the deepest divine image.