From Skin to Blood, to Flesh then Bones – A Poem

O, for thy blessed skin, draping thy torso

Radiating key images to beholder’s sight ‘n mind

Acuities thus forged, save for the blind

Launching love at first sight

Much like hair, eyes, nose, lips

Whose contours spark admiration, adoration

Forsaking traits of souls laying buried deep

Worthy of love ‘n awe for all eternity

For do the skin ‘n exteriors

Not speak to us or those espying

Forcing choices ‘pon us

Via merely eyeing, not feeling, absorbing nor sensing?

Yet beneath them all lie our vitals

Blood, all infusive, red for all, never royal blue

Raw flesh, in glistening pinks, equals beef

White fat streaking ‘tween stacks of flesh

Deep within lie the bones, white ‘n firm

Body’s scaffold, matching for all

After death, remain for millennia, then some

Betraying neither clan, status, tribe nor race

The foods eaten; the fluids imbibed, lavish for the rich, rationed for the poor

Processed alike, expelling wastes in solid, liquid or gas

Bearing no stamp of intake, race, rank nor clan

Crap, pee and farts, levelers of kings, loonies ‘n serfs

Yet ‘tis the skin ‘n façades

That push us to love or scorn

Redeem or contemn, reject or kill

With blanket measures, feeding massive egos

Bruising fellow humans for traits inborn

They as choiceless as Us, yet ‘tis venom They spew

At Others’ traits no more ‘n skin deep

For the might They wield, the power We don’t

They speak of Us in demeaning tones

Yet ‘tis more ‘bout Them bereft of honor

Judging Us as if They knew

Little do They know, ‘tis Their souls They doom

Yet beneath all anatomy, resides the unseen

Defining humanity, and its core

That amorphous, transcendent, colorless yet real

Soul, spirit, essence, kernel

Where love and pain vie, for the heart’s space

If life’s to have sense, esteem and honor

Must cleanse itself of all rancor

For love ‘n honor to prevail, our crux to occupy

Then gods They invoke

Of Love They claim their gods be

Only Them do gods cherish

The rest can vanish or perish

‘Tis alleged hell awaits, those not of Them

That gods will save Them

Not Others with skins to loathe

Gods peeping no deeper than Their own eyes can

What in truth, is to be made of such gods

And the humans they make?

‘Tis Them that forged their deities

Twisted souls, deifying crafted ghouls