Alt-Psalm #1 (a poem)

Why, O LORD, do you stand far off?

up in cloudy heavens

obscured by bright suns

that brutalize my brethren

i seek peace, O LORD

but pieces of me shatter

into tiny shards

every time the gun shots

blare in this dystopian world

a world you didn’t have in mind

when you, O LORD, created it

but, alas, we must deal

whether you can hear this

prayer, up there, or not

(Photo from Wikimedia Commons – The biblical king David as depicted on a miniature from the medieval Georgian manuscripts of The Psalters – Source: Center of Manuscripts, Tbilisi, Georgia).

Author’s Note: The first line of this poem is taken from Psalm 10 from the New International Version of the Holy Bible. I’ve been reading the Psalms again, and my idea was to use lines from them as a poetry prompt to create “Alternative Psalms” applied to the 21st century world.