Stray Doubt

Two wrongs don't make a right,
Though three lefts generally do.

~The Shah of Athabasca

Attached by a rope,
Borne into chaos,
So close nature's heart,
With sword in hand,
We cry, and try, and
If condemned forever,
The rope must sever;

Hardly remembered,
Free at last,
With pen in hand.
Irresolution, though, perhaps
The consequence of tributes
Various virtues pay to vice,
The mother of all hypocrisy
Seems cheaper than deaths

Relentless frame
Up of solitude; so
Much ground to cover,
A moment of clarity
Worth lifetimes of sanity,
But brews the rage,
Even precludes the cut,
Through crowded conscience,
To invalidate the sentence,
And keep free the innocent
With pen in hand.

~Victor Imari, 2001