Tag: I.E. Sommsin

Prayer

By I.E. Sommsin

God, will you forgive the sins of our times,
this sad era, its soft habits of thought
and the glib assumptions easily taught
that breed the lying slogans worse than crimes?
We cannot help how the words work to cloud
and clog and flood the forums of the mind.
They build the thick high walls that keep us blind
and kill the calm silence with all that’s loud.
Myth, wild tales, and the clever fools come cheap,
and the boldly stupid prompt great cheering,
while the magical, repeated, jeering
accusation makes the shallow look deep.
You in the future will know what I feel
when your nation’s caught on history’s wheel.

 

I.E. Sommsin, a writer and artist from Kentucky, lives in San Francisco and has a fondness for sonnets.

Photo credit: donaldjtrump.com

A Brief History

A sonnet by I.E. Sommsin

Into the toilet endlessly flushing

leap the great state and vast empire,

fat and swollen, on schedule to expire,

onward toward oblivion rushing.

They got the loud proud words that prove them strong,

and the firm resolve that works on teevee

and the raw courage made for a moovee—

if you look tough enough, you can’t be wrong!

So fade the golden years of aggression,

as all glory molders to regression.

Led by old children—mean, demanding, shrill,

prone to stumble and forget and to kill—

they never know how they are afflicted

by deep and bloody wounds self-inflicted.

 

I.E. Sommsin, a writer and artist from Kentucky, lives in San Francisco. He describes this piece as a “hard-hitting sonnet,” written some time ago, “whilst in the grip of a creative fit that turned out to be prophetic.” Indeed.

Photo Credit: Golden toilet image by La Ira Graffx via a Creative Commons license.