A verse poem

Welcome home!

By Ed Rogers

I lay wounded from the world’s earnest attempt to kill me.
The life blood of my spirit flows freely across the landscape.
The soul within me melts from the heat of shame and embarrassment.
My pride wilts in the light of incompetence.
Grief and sorrow are now my companions.

I long to walk in the sunlight once more, but I fear showing the scar of my humiliation.
To hear the catcalls, the jeering, and the hostility that are heaped upon those who have failed to measure up to bourgeois expectations....

I can fight their wars and clean their toilets, but never sit at their table of abundance.
They begrudge me the crumbs I pick up from the floor of their great hall.
The wars are fought; the toilets are clean.
What use are you, they cry, and turn their faces.

I, who have become but a stumbling block, a piece of meat lying on the sidewalk, I was once called Hero.
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Copyright © 2013 by Ed Rogers
Editor's note: A prose poem by Ed Rogers appeared on Saturday.

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