by D. R. Goodman
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AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News. |
Hate is learned, they say. I say it’s born
and hunting for a target from within,
coiled like a cat and patient, weapons worn
in secret, sheathed and still. As claw, or thorn,
it catches what comes close and pulls it in.
Hate is learned, they say. I say it’s born:
a hollow place the world must fill with sworn
invented enemies. Beneath the skin,
coiled like a cat, impatient, weapons worn
in fancied self-defense, it levies scorn
against whatever hapless prey strays in.
They say that hate is learned. I say it’s born,
innate and natural. We cannot warn
away what lives inside us, burrowed in
and cat-like, coiled and patient, weapons worn
then sharpened once again—keen claw, spike-thorn.
Our work is to expose love’s mirror-twin.
They say that hate is learned. I say it’s born.
It coils like a cat within us, weapon-worn.
D. R. Goodman is the author of Greed: A Confession from Able Muse Press, a past winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, and twice winner of the Able Muse Write Prize for poetry. Her poems have appeared in Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry, as well as in many other journals and anthologies. She is founder and chief instructor at a martial arts school.
and hunting for a target from within,
coiled like a cat and patient, weapons worn
in secret, sheathed and still. As claw, or thorn,
it catches what comes close and pulls it in.
Hate is learned, they say. I say it’s born:
a hollow place the world must fill with sworn
invented enemies. Beneath the skin,
coiled like a cat, impatient, weapons worn
in fancied self-defense, it levies scorn
against whatever hapless prey strays in.
They say that hate is learned. I say it’s born,
innate and natural. We cannot warn
away what lives inside us, burrowed in
and cat-like, coiled and patient, weapons worn
then sharpened once again—keen claw, spike-thorn.
Our work is to expose love’s mirror-twin.
They say that hate is learned. I say it’s born.
It coils like a cat within us, weapon-worn.
D. R. Goodman is the author of Greed: A Confession from Able Muse Press, a past winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, and twice winner of the Able Muse Write Prize for poetry. Her poems have appeared in Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry, as well as in many other journals and anthologies. She is founder and chief instructor at a martial arts school.
