Image 1: “Grinning Beast“
Never Poke a Rough Beast from the Past
for Mold Man
“For never can true reconcilement grow,
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep.”
―John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV, Lines 98-99
“what rough beast
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
—William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming”
Never poke a rough beast from the past:
Likely, you will find yourself ambling
Among tombstones in the rain
Through a ramshackle garden
From which you fled
So many years ago.
Out of that moldy drizzle, you emerged.
Into healing waves, you progressed.
From a death-star specter, into the life-breathing spirit,
You returned, grateful that the Unsensed Force
Had directed your return home,
Where poetry could spray forth in joy.
Never poke a rough beast from the past,
Unless you are willing to be singed
By the bile spewing through his forked tongue.
Unleashing his aggressions, he is rabid
To strangle you with his tangled verbiage,
To erase you as he covets your triumphs.
Never poke a rough beast from the past—
The present will secure your future
As you walk in Spirit.
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To read my prose commentary on this poem, please visit, “Original Poem: “Never Poke a Rough Beast” with Commentary.”
Image 2: Mold Cartoon
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