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Best Poems From
RICHARD BETTS
(December 8,1964)
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17.
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Discovered
I know you are holding back,
I just can't understand why.
Are you afraid to search yourself,
Fearful of what you might find?
Do you not wish to be free,
To release yourself from your inhibitions?
Wouldn't you like to know for sure,
Rather than decide from suppositions?
Perhaps if you break loose,
You will discover liberation,
And instead of guilt and shame,
Maybe you will feel exoneration?
Aren't you tired of being shackled
By thoughts that pinch and bind?
Would you like to experience freedon
And not feel so confined?
Do you think in your exploration
You will end up lost and all alone?
Do you fear you might lose yourself
And never find your way home?
Face down your fears,
For there are wondrous things to uncover.
There are so many details about you
That have yet to be discovered.
Richard Betts
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18.
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Earthbound
As a child, I always felt so close to heaven,
And my soul always felt so light and clean.
But as a man, the sky retreated from me,
And the world turned dirty and mean.
As a boy, I would playfully wrestle
The cottony clouds in the skies above.
But now when I grapple with the clouds,
I try to trample them into the mud.
As a boy, I was always faithful,
And my faith kept me pure and free.
Now, I am unsure. For truth
And falsehood look the same to me.
I have grown to become a man,
But I possess more doubt than faith.
I feel as if I'm covered in filth,
So, driven Earthbound, I wait.
Richard Betts
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19.
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Eye
You lecture about light
And love and Gods and sun.
You speak of saints and haloes
And brilliantly colored rainbows.
You sit there pious and protected,
The world's ills pass undetected.
You speak of calm and clarity,
Yet you remain your favorite charity.
You ensure your interests are represented,
And you care not for the discontented.
Turbulent winds swirl around you,
Yet you stay oblivious to the rage that surrounds you.
You sit in the center of the storm,
Where you remain well fed and warm.
You engorge yourself on grapes and cheese,
While others pick at the pieces of their shredded dreams.
Richard Betts
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20.
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Fail
Your most loyal lovers seem to
Loathe your most basic commands.
Your most faithful followers
Fail to meet your simplest demands.
Those who profess to love you
Fail to love thy neighbor.
While those who live 'a good life, '
Fail to find your favor.
Your many followers complain
Humankind may have failed you.
While others explain,
You fail to award virtue.
Those who say they know you
Use your words like a razor.
While those who still seek you,
Pray to find their savior.
The answers may not
Be impossible to find.
They may not lie above,
But more appropriately inside.
For if I do not love
And protect my brother,
Then it is he and I
That have failed one another.
Richard Betts
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