Ernst Schoen-Rene

From An Exceedingly Brief Guide to Great Comedies

Lysistrata (c. 400 BCE)

It is clear to Lysistrata:
To stop this war, you simply gotta
Find a way the troops to vex,
And this way means withholding sex.

The gals take the Acropolis
And hold it tight. Their goal is this:
To make the soldiers seek their pardon;
And soldiers come, each with a hard on.

But there will be no compromise
This warfare stuff—it’s just not wise.
To Lysistrata goes our praise:
She makes good points—in a couple of ways.


Imitations

A variation on Robert Frost's "Nothing
Gold can Stay

Frosting

Nature’s last green is gold
Vain glory ‘gainst the cold,
But gold decays to brown
And tumbles leaf-wise down;
Thus green and gold are lost
As winter comes, and frost;
But frost melts into rain
And gold-green comes again.


A consideration of the old question: "If God is good,
why is there so much bad in the world He created?"

Lord Of The Flies

As the Adirondack summer
Builds toward its dog-days
I work with my Skilsaw, near the edge of the porch.
And the flies come
The big ones

The drones, more than a half inch long,
Drawn by a vibration so much greater than their own
That they hover about, as if expecting some apocalypse:
God Himself, Lord of the Great Buzz!
One lands on my bare shoulder to watch.

Similarly, the dung beetles
Who inhabit the five-gallon plastic bucket standing in the woods
Near the dead poplar tree and covered by a lidded toilet seat
Continue with their ordinary lives,
Until suddenly
A great light appears overhead,
Only to be partially blocked seconds later
As manna rains down from above.

Some would say they are fools, and worship an asshole.
But I would not go so far.
Rather, I would say their God
Gives them the makings of a universe
Half digested.
And in so doing
(Thanks to His Grace),
Leaves them with something to chew on.


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