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| House Member Is Rebuked After Nude Swim in Israel--NY Times |
Sacred pond,
shimmering pond wet eyes of grief.
Consecration becomes desecration
becomes humiliation becomes castigation:
the frat boys frolic,
drunken choir boys exposed:
they’ve been faking their way through the notes.
Sacred pond,
sullied, soiled by the unholy flesh,
buck naked, ass dragging
through the fishermen’s waves.
An old ruse: playing at God,
but acting the thug.
All hubris, always undone,
often with raw, feral relish:
Mussolini, hung and shot by the mob.
Henry VIII, brain a syphilitic rot.
Ted Haggard, methed up and messed up.
And so many more: a helluva list.
And these merry boys, who filthed-up our pool:
their stain is real,
unlike their pose.
Dana Yost is the author of two published books, 2008's Grace, a collection of new poems, and 2010's The Right Place, a collection of essays and poems. His third book, A Higher Level: Learning Life's Large Lessons Through Small College Sports, is a work of local, cultural and sports history and will come out this fall from Ellis Press. His poems have appeared in a variety of magazines and journals. Yost was an award-winning daily newspaper editor and writer for 29 years until June 2008. His wife and he live in Forest City, Iowa.