Tag Archives: Evil

“I make peace and create evil.” Isaiah 45:7

Surely the desire to create evil comes
from some crooked past untouched by the divine.
Or, does this line join all the other buried texts
that make us uncomfortable when standing
before the burning bush and with each other?
One does not mention the nature of the whims of God
in polite company seeking to drink tea in peace.
Is it any wonder that redemption then waits
for us on the other side of how we spend our time
passing each other over with our judgments
that come from some tiny space inside our hearts?

1 – Of the Worst Men

(Found Poem in Michel de Montainge’s “Of Solitude” translated by George B. Ives)

Let us leave on one side this tedious comparison
   between a solitary life and an active life.
Let us boldly refer ourselves to those who are in the whirl.
The evil methods by which men push themselves forward
   clearly indicate that the end is worth no more than the means.
Everywhere it is possible to do good and ill;
   none the less, the worst men are the greater number.
For good men are rare, that in a thousand there is not one good.

There is great danger of contagion in a crowd.
We can not help imitating the vicious or else hating them.

     There is danger,
     because they are numerous, 
     of resembling them;
     and because they are unlike us,
     danger of hating them much.

And the merchants who travel by sea are wise
  to look to it that those who sail on the same ship
are neither dissolute nor blasphemers nor wicked men,
  esteeming such company unlucky.

3 – Of Cruelty

(Found Poem in Michel de Montainge’s “Of Cruelty” translated by George B. Ives)

For my part, even in matters of justice, any thing 
that is beyond mere death seems to me pure cruelty.

We should practice these inhuman barbarities
on what is insensible, not on the living flesh.

We find nothing in the ancient histories 
more excessive than what we experience every day.

Nature has herself implanted in man some instinct of inhumanity.
Considering that one master has placed us in this palace for his service.

For that is the extreme limit that cruelty can attain.
That a man should kill a man solely as spectacle!