1. The Merciful Man

He walked along the brush,
Feasting on the currants
Off the trees. His enemy
Sought to trap him, it's sure.
Yet, he mercifully moved his feet
And forgave: For why throttle
The man who stole, when you owe
Hundreds of Talents of Gold?
Thus, he prayed for mercy,
For a righteous man shall receiver her;
He who is merciful shall receive mercy
So the Beatitudes say:
And upon the path were a perfect fish
A bass, just recently died:
The heron stood on the pier
And probably dropped it in flight.
He picked up the fish, a trophy of a catch!
And threw it back into the pond.
For, it had died of its own
And was not lawful to eat.

2. The Tree of Life

Imagine if you would,
A Hickory Nut on the forest floor
With a little rotted piece
Concaved on its green husk.
And consider the vines
Beneath its shell, where the fruit
Once sat protected.
Now, imagine, this shape
Were designed by a logic
And that logic described perfectly
The physics of something else.
Or the logic that was used to solve it did.
Consider that Hickory Nut,
Its very shape like a curve
Its volume or surface area or a line within it was the logic
That would describe the very physics of something in our world.

Now consider, a formula that is as a tree
Shifting in time, a Date Palm,
Flowing in the wind.
It bends and flows;
Consider that tree, there
Swaying in the breeze
Is another form of logic,
Its very volume and motion
Used to describe an advanced form of physics.
Can you? Just for a moment?
Understand, it's like the tree of life.

3. Silence

Jerusalem, you whore, imperious:
Stay quiet, my love.
Write your thoughts,
But be as a mime and cheer people
With your love.
Just be quiet.
I am like Jerusalem. 

4. Holy Bias

I read, in 2004 even,
That Athanasius did not
Write the creed.
Yet, in St. Gregory's writing,
There is mention of him writing
Down such confession,
And giving it to an emperor.
Thus we can conclude,
That French monks
Wrote down the creed
By direction of the extant document,
And then canonized it.
Many things go unnoticed by scholars
Just like this: But that is the division needed,
And it is a Holy Bias.
For a little faith is necessary to hold all things.

5. They

I take my notes in verse, understand:
Creatively reflecting upon the hearts of man:
Spenser is barred from the canon
By angry children and college mammon.
"They" is not a conspiracy of the left;
It is what the markets want, and cleft
They do a trailblazed path...
All so all forget the past.

6. The Preacher

The preacher preached a sermon
On Marcus Aurelius. The Impasse
Is the way... you move it, you go over it
You climb under it, you go around it.
Then, he said, "With God there is a way,"
And, "The brethren say, but God says differently." 
Then he said there was work to be had everywhere...
The brethren say.
But God says differently. 

I walk the narrow path,
I see all things go against my favor.
Is failure sign of God's disapproval? 
I think the Thyatirans were poor
And so were the Anabaptists.
What the preacher worshipped was the economy.
His fortune, and you heard it in his voice.
I am a writer.
"The brethren say, but God says differently." 
Those were his words.

What is the true impasse?
Do I go under, over, around, through, move it?
They say, so it is,
"The brethren say, but God says differently."
They are like Lawyers, attaching burdens too thick to carry
And won't even lift it themselves.

I recall why there was a revolution fought,
In Hackcock's own words:
The British would not let commerce
Be had, for they would not suffer
A man his livelihood.
Who shall fight my revolution?
It is only mine in words.
You, preacher, can lift me up.
Or you can push me down.
I recall many martyrs who died
At the hands of idol shepherds.
"The brethren say, but God says differently."

I recall Christ crucified, 
I recall Jeremiah put in prison,
I recall John Bunyan in long imprisonment,
I recall Hans Brael whom the rats ate his food and his clothing rotted off his flesh.
I recall 3,000,000 killed by Spain,
11,000,000 killed by Rome,
And untold killed by the Orient, for records of such things aren't kept.
"The brethren say, but God says differently."

You have the power to unyoke me, and my captivity.
But, you rather strengthen it with falsehood.
"The brethren say, but God says differently."

7. 121 Martyrs a Day

Recall, during Rome, they played games with death.
It was to appease the gods, and Christians were the victims.
121 Martyrs a day, for 250 years, that is the number.
Believable, don't you think, now that you consider?
For if there were no victims, the gods got angry,
Therefore the blood must have been the oblation.
Across many territories, the games were played,
A country the size of our United States.

8. The Conversation of the Martyr

"There is no God, dude, it's all a lie." He shrieks with joy.
The martyr sits in silence,
"By the time you're finished, and the hell you create
"They'll cry out for God, and He will answer."

9. Dark Age

So few read, and it becomes 
The rite of the privileged.
They speak of demons:
I give you demons to read about.
No, not literal...
What they've always been.

10. The Daisy and Aster

The daffodil is
The first flower, in springtime;---
The aster is last:
The yellow nosed daffodil;
The aster a mauve daisy.

Springtime the yellow daffodil blooms first;
In the first days of fall, the aster, last.
The Phlox and Chicory still bloom; also
The Hardy Hibiscus. Yet I speak, so!
The wildflowers are nature's timepiece.

11. Work?

Work comes in different forms---
The bearded Country Man
Reads books, and tells his thoughts.
He gets paid. I listen to him.
But, I feel the judgmental
Glare of my Earthly sire
Over in the dining room.
"You are doing fake work."
No... I am not. I am listening
To a thousand voices
So mine can be well informed.
Someone must, or we'll all
Be ignorant.

12. We All Come to the Sacred Book

We all come to the sacred book;
Each of us carves out a sacred nook.
Wars are made, challenges accepted---
The liberal and conservative spar.
The Conservative reads his Transcendentalist;
The Liberal reads her Postmodernist;
The Doctor reads his Modernist;
The Lawyer reads his Historian;
Another lawyer her Best Seller;
The CEO reads his Philosopher;
The Economist reads his Capitalist;
The Rebel reads his Marxist;
The Philosopher reads his Logician;
The Feminist her Mythology;
The Christian his Theology;
The Muslim his Tafsir;
The Asian her Mystic;
The Hindu her Vedda;
The Atheist his Existentialist;
The Author his Sages.

This writer listens to them all
Like Mr. Whitman, able to believe.
Listen to all the different things
People say. And you shall gain
Some insight.
He thinks the smallest voice should have their say;
For all wisdom is bound in the many voices of history.
Not just the scholar, or the sage,
But the folk and the radical, too.

13. Hark!

The fool slips in through the cracks:
He repeats verbatim what you said back.
Oh! It is not in your own words, thou fool!
I know, how I know, thou art an unthinking tool!
Pry as you might, into my secret things:
Just think on them, that is all I wean.
The man said to me just the other day!
A story has truth, even though it is fay!
For hidden in the untruths of life
Hidden in its inexactitudes,
Is a fortune of gold, if you like:
You shall see all wisdom that is true
If you search for it, hidden in their clues.
Listen for the truth that wends their life;
What is it, let wisdom be thy wife.
Know, Jesus of Sirach said,
Business continued shall one day be made black from red.
For that is the secret to my wisdom it's true:
I listen to all, and even you.

14. Circular Logic

In straight lines we go,
Infinite chains of infinite causes.
No effect having being,
For to have being is circular.
Thus, no one knows.

15. White-breasted Nuthatch

I am small, don't you know?
Like a White-breasted Nuthatch.
I climb the tree, and eat the grub.
The oaks are dropping leaves and acorns
The currants are falling off the branch.
The walnuts are seen in the bare trees
Like green testicles.
I consider life---
How I go, to be free like the bird
In the wild, to meander here and there.
Free to eat, and do my work
For life is labor to eat,
But it doesn't have to consume every minute.
There is time for mating,
There is time for marrying,
There is time for games,
There is time for books,
There is time to simply fly
Hither and to, and to perch
Upon the tree, and pick my grub.
Strange how we make all things labor
When the bird is as free as I want to be:
Moving, and plucking the substance
When I feel I need it. Not being told when and how to move.

16. Consider

A careful naturalist knows
When something ultra rare happens.
Usually imperceptible to the novice.
The squirrel seen once a day
The Heron seen once a week,
The Bald Eagle is a once a year sight
But the White-breasted Nuthatch noticed once
In this author's lifetime, until now.
“It is either a wood thrush or woodpecker.”
Neither, yet we can say, “It is a thrush or nuthatch”.
If it is a nuthatch, then it is not a thrush.
If it is a baneberry, then it is not a currant.

17. Politics

Spain, England, Japan, Mexico or New Jersey
War there could erupt even after our 
Sacred Civil War.
And men spoke openly about it
Without fear.
Today, you may only whisper
For offense makes all silent.
Spies listen, and take notes,
Women are prisoner for a word.
Dangerous times: dangerous times.

18. No Consolations

The writer, with no wealth, sat
To read Philosophy's dark
Consolations. Yet, no word
On virtue appeared in the
Pages. The Writer was vexed
And cried a bitter, mournful
Curse, against the gods of the
Age, those heathen, vile men.
For no consolation was
Had. What is philosophy
Without virtue? It is words.

Thus, he sat again at night
And read his book, seeing it
All changed back to what it said
Before: he was pacified.
Yet, how he realized that all
Philosophy now, was like
It, stripped of all virtue, so
It 'twere just poetic words.
As painful as hell. Torture
Of a kind that very few
Will ever understand.
For if the library will
Forget virtue, every page
Might as well burn and nothing
Would be lost. Why read? Without
Virtue?

19. Pitbulls

Oh, Christians, you are like pitbulls.
Sweetest temperament of all dogs.
Full of life, and vivaciousness,
Yet, falsely given a proud name.
Yet, we have the strongest bite
And when we latch onto Satan
We do not let go, and shake
Our Jowls. Yet, weaker
We get kicked, though we 
Will not let go.

20. The Dictator and the Sage

The dictator saw the Sage, and then he said,
"Tell me, the sage wisdom."
So the Sage said, "In war, kill your enemy quick.
"And only wage war, when a country deserves
"To have its children slaughtered."
The dictator, feigning rage,
Cried out, "Such is unlawful!"
The Sage then said,
"Lawful speech I have, to say you are an evil wretch."
The dictator then cried,
"I shall come and kill you, and make it quick.
"I will not torture you, just kill you quick."
To which the Sage said, 
"So come, and bring all you have."
The dictator did not come;
Where was he? The enemy was turned
To the sea, and their stink raised up
Before all the land.

21. I Don't Know What We Fight For

I sit and drink and eat:
Herodotus is changed.
Lacy is changed.
But history is not changed.
I know not what we fight for
Or the reason we fight.
Perhaps, it is to have a correct
Account of history and science and law.
Or, it is to make a billionaire richer.
Nobody knows.

22. 21st Century Hitler?

There was once a quiet boy, who played with vacuum tubes
And swung them in his basement, making worlds.
He was very beautiful, with chestnut curls, 
And he made mistakes, yes, quite a few.
He once came upon Athena one day,
While carrying on his daily chores.
A writer he was, and a writer he'd be
Yet Athena wanted him lured
Into his van, of candy and treats
He came upon him one day.
Thus, Athena made a plan so grand
He chose not to make this boy elite.
Thus, the boy wrote his songs,
And wrote his stories for himself.
The people all saw it, now,
And thought, "Aww, for bloody hell."
Thus, they rioted and called him wrong
And cried out for his very songs.
They destroyed free speech, and burnt the moors
Petulant children all called him wrong.
He didn't know, save in his vision---
He just was poor, but with fruitful mind.
They called him the next Hitler,
But all he did was purge his mind.
Thus the people all waged war,
Two wars were fought for the law
That this poor man had it all...
But a poor boy he was, with fifteen dollars
He simply wrote his stories for himself.
So the people cried, and they wanted him found
They cried ever so loud.
They cried, and fought, and blood spilled through every valley.
"This boy shall not be a man!"
They cried out in pain, and thus they were well pleased.
All so this boy wouldn't write his odes
All so he wouldn't sell his stories,
Now let us understand.
Was he Hitler, or did he sing
For the freedom of his Land?
Was he concerned with what the world did;
Was he even like a feral beast?
Or did he just quietly do his task
And learned what he could
Before it disappeared in ash,
Ash to ashes was the wood
On every paper that printed ink:
Thus all worlds were changed.
Was he really a bad man at all
Or was he really that insane?

23. The Faerie Wedding

The napkins were velvet,
Bound by strings of pearls
With diamonds sparkling in gold inlay.
The plates porcelain and crystal with gold leaf.
The cutlery vermeil, and supped
On figs, and grapes, and strawberries,
Smoked Salmon and Salami.
Two Eagles, a mating pair
Flew over the feast,
And a mockingbird sung in a cedar.
The children wore their brooch in hair
With diamond crust; the maidens in their silk dress.
The Fairy King, jovial, alighted on every table
To light the incense and off he flew in his three piece suit.
The tea kettle a silver pot, with golden legs...
Ambrosia, nectar, fruits of life.
The fae people, when finished with their meal
Tossed their plates into pits,
Where there, a rainbow fire
Sparkled, and consumed.

24. The World Rejoices

"As long as Locusts and Harsh Winters,"
Said I, thePoet, "Exist, this world shan't
"Ever be paradise. Thus, we are reminded
"When the Sage asks, 'Why does 
"'A Good God allow Suffering?'
"I retort, 'While the world rejoices
"'Behind me for but a short while,
"''One acre of Heaven's Fields
"'Shall be more treasure
"'Than the whole Earth's.'
"Thus why should I be sad?
"When I have treasure enough?
"Therefore, heart, sorrow no more."

25. The Election

One year, I voted for the Father Son and Holy Spirit
In an Outcry to fix our country.
Then, a miraculous thing happened,
The LORD Opened up to me wisdom:
"Research each candidate."
Thus, my vote was answered,
To go through each candidate on a ticket
And research their programs.
No matter how small the position,
Do your research.

26. Beowulf to Galahad

Lo, take up the harp and lyre,
Sir Galahad, to fend the evil Moor.
To silence the Golems at this hour
To fight against Babylonian whore.
For we two, off on our crusade
In pen and ink and might
Sing, oh we sing, and together we shall fight.
Remember I, and sing your odes
Original and the best...
All is all, and time is time,
Sing for Jesus and both our rest.

27. Home

I sit and rest, for home is here
Not yonder and far away.
Nowhere do I need to be
But here.

Like a dream it is, when far away
And in decadent abodes.
No, my modest home
Is here.

When in exotic places
With great treasures
For eyes to feast.
Home's there.

For I come back,
And rest my bones
And like a dream awake.
I'm here.

28. Thanks and Grace

Upon the trail,
The leaves are embers,
The walnuts and acorns fallen;
The leaves smell like bourbon,
And I thank You God,
For my life.

I am like heaven's journalist,
In my poverty,
A monk in a cloister,
And enjoying my rich foods...
I shall eat the finest of the grain and flour.

And here I tell of Antichrist,
A man as wise as Emerson on Montaigne,
As beautiful as James Dean and looks like 
Marcus Junius Brutus:
His religion the Greek Gods, and only as forces of the Earth;
And like Julius Caesar, can forge Fortune;
He can pick the lock.
For in the German Fairy Tale,
A chest is searched for, then it is found, and a key is forged.

And I thank God, that in a chess match
He would flank me on my King's Side;
The battle would be fierce, 
Many casualties in the war.
And there, we'd draw in threefold repetition.
For that is all I could do.
To win, would give me the world
To lose, to be given to torments.

Thus, I thank the LORD,
For all his rich kindness toward me.
I have my faith, I have my friends and family,
I have my allies, I have my food and drink.
And, I have my work, this heavenly journalism
Telling of the Heavenly Politics of our day.

29. The Eyes and Ears

The eyes form our reality,
Something like a digital recording.
Imperfect, and reconstructed.
Yet the ears, the blood scratches
Into our brain like a Vinyl Record.
Therefore, ears, I say, are a sensory organ
Greater than the eyes. For one 
Is merely code, the other is the scratches.
Therefore, faith comes by hearing...

I hear upon the path the world
And there is the world, in sound:
What we hear. Not what we see.
For hearing constructs our reality.
It is a funny looking organ,
And for right reason.
The dog it is nose and tongue,
The eagle it is eye,
The human it is ear,
The worm it is skin.

For the greater disability in life
Is not to be blind,
But rather to be deaf.
For the blind can still hear
And thereby attain company.
The deaf, though...
They live without even words of thought.

 30. Walking Through a Fairy World

A fairy world alighted---
'tis in your very yard---
The hare, not a rabbit,
Stood up, when I called.
It listened, and its tiny ears!
It wiggled its good nose.
'twas a beautiful thing
A truly beautiful thing
Not everyone would know.

Then, upon the park,
The angle shade was there,
That caterpillar crawled,
And that I had to share.
An alien thing it seemed,
Just like the hare,
So different, and unique
Yet it was the way of wear.

Then the squirrel,
Was talking in the trees
It cried, how it cried
And my dad, like it disturbed me
Saw it for the first time
And it caused my dad to fear,
The squirrels cry from their knots
I have seen it twice a month for years.

Then, alas, the climax of my walk,
Four mule deer, a herd
Crossed my leafy path.
My dad had looked for bluebirds
When he looked beyond his back
But, there, four females and a fawn
Rustled the leaves in their tracks.

It was like an ancient world,
So fairy and so fae,
It was beautiful, so beautiful,
This walk I took today.

31. Life

Life is a tic-tac
If heaven is every meal.
Your first, forgotten.

Life is like a bad
Dream that you wake from. It is
Forgotten someday.

32. Mock Strawberry

Late October, I walk
And see, yes I see,
'tis a Mock Strawberry.
I reach to touch it
Plump and round,
But do not eat it
As I walk in town.
For, it a noxious weed could be
For 'tis not June nor May
You see.

33. The Hero

The Slob is the form of our forlorn fate...
For he has been forged in the fires of favor
In the eyes of the fevered masses.
A wart is easier than a flower
To gaze at long, for there is no hope.
It is easier to give up, and not long...
To give into lascivious pleasure.
Does one need to be a millionaire?
Or can one be a simple Master
Smithing in iron and welds.
Making a Master's purse,
Modest, and nourishing?
Does great riches or great poverty
Follow from expertise?
Or can a middle class fortune arise?
For, it is either the slob,
Or the King, there is no middle...
No, that is what they have told us.

©2026 B. K. Neifert
All Rights Reserved

The squirrel cries, because it is autumn.
The oaks drop their acorns: the walnuts;
The chestnuts. I see upon them, a shape
Which perhaps an unknown prime
Can calculate---I know not. Yet it is.
That shape, like a leaf, can correlate
To a logic that can reach to something higher.
Why? I don't know... it seems God's
Universe is constructed with logic.
To say that is why I believe, it is the starting point.

I

I sit in the court:
They wave the Rainbow Flag at my face.
They say, "Your comment caused,
"Yes, it caused, this poor Zir
"To die. You have no regret, do you?"
I, undisturbed, say, "My freedom
"Is worth more than their life.
"I did not mean to offend like so.
"I never found where she lived,
"Sent assassins to her home,
"Ruined her livelihood,
"Teased her in such a manner.
"I only said it was a sin
"And the ruination of society."
They cut off my head.

II

I sit in the court.
They parade my previous offenses in front of my face.
They say, "You committed this offence
"And you feel no more guilt.
"Do you not regret your sins?"
I, undisturbed, say, "My joy
"Is worth more than my grief.
"I suffered enough for this,
"And paid my debt.
"I did my penance, now let me be happy.
"I never will claim to be a good man.
"But, I will claim that I have a right to joy and peace.
"I have shed too many tears;
"And my tears have been shed. Let my grief be pacified."
They put me in prison for life.

One is self taught, experienced past his passions:
The other is angry, and spitting his venom.
The autodidact with the wisdom of the sages;
The angry one with very little wisdom.
He wrote for 20 years.
He went to school.
Two writers, two separate roads.
And he ballooned in popularity in a few months
For the prestige his art school gave him.
Yes, the autodidact understood...
Talent is curated by how much money you can spend.
Yet, the autodidact knew something about the world
And outgrew his agitation.
Now, he is sad, mourning a world that loves its artifice 
And not the raw creative power of a fertile mind.
The autodidact a failure;
The agitated poet a success.

I've always noticed there are two two types of helpers. Those who do a task for you, or try to manage you, and those who simply allow you to do the task yourself.

Recently, I met a young man who was interested in learning from me the Gospel. I dialogued at the park the entire Bible, but then we began a lengthy text conversation. And I realized, "I am not this man's Rabbi." Who is Rabbi? We can essentially stifle someone by giving them advice. I remember a psychotic woman telling me that I would grow into a horrible human being, because God disapproved of my writing. And that psychological impact has stunted me... though I continue writing, as I feel in my bones it is what God called me to do.

There is nothing you do for someone, by trying to tell them what to do, or how to do it. Life is a learning experience. We are not Christ, wandering the hills, and preaching sermons. We are not a Catcher in the Rye. Even a pastor, or any teacher, has the capacity to try to manipulate their students to learn what they want to learn. We are not prophets, warning of dangers we do not know as our very curse could be the danger itself, instilling in a stable mind our own doubts and failures.

However, upon reading Ezekiel, I stopped, and opened up my book in Egyptian Mythology, and went to the exact page I needed to understand what Ezekiel meant. An act of providence. And I've noticed words do not cultivate reality, but rather what we say to someone sticks with them a lot longer than we think. An encounter we may never remember, may  be a core memory for someone else.

Therefore, I've noticed my didactic method, is simply to write my essays, my poetry, my fiction...  but in means of teaching someone, there's less that needs to be done, beside going over the hardest part of learning. Which is grammar, syntax, punctuation, vocab lessons, PEMDAS, how to do something safely. There is no benefit, doing a task for someone else. The best teacher is life itself.

There are safety tips; there are lessons on rudimentary fundamentals. That is what a teacher does, is give the student the capacity to read, write, do math and the general knowledge experience to broaden his or her horizons. The teacher teaches the student to observe. Rather than instructing, he makes an example by doing it the right way, so the student does the same.

I just told this fella to read the four Gospels and learn it by heart, and if he went further, I'd tell him to read Paul. For we must have Jesus as our Teacher. First and foremost. Jesus is our corrective lens, His life and ministry. We need the Spirit to comfort us, and give us patience. The Spirit for wisdom. That cannot be taught in a classroom. The student must be willing, first, and the teacher must understand their job is not to tell the student what to do. For we are not a teacher. Instructed on the fundamentals, the learner will seek out the knowledge themselves.

Thus, a teacher is more a guide, like Virgil, navigating hell with Dante, and then purgatory. And Beatrice is our ideal, which gets us into paradise. We experience with the teacher, and he tells us what it means. But that is all. Perhaps? And indeed, Jesus is our Virgil, and the Spirit is our guide. So the more, what does man instill in the learner? Only the tools they need to teach themselves. To inspire curiosity, and the thirst for learning. To be enthusiastic, and show them the things they need to see. To tell them what a thing is and be a vehicle for explaining what is obscure. Not to do the learning for the child. Not to do the task for the student.

I work five hours a day
And find the secrets of God.
I  peer over every tree 
And every flower, to know.
I discover the groundwork
Of math, master the Bible.
Learn; diagram a sentence.
Study history and art.
Learn theology and know
A thousand things. Write proverbs
Write novels, short stories, poems
Essays, novellas, epics.
I read the classics, and can
Fluently comprehend  them.
I studied politics, and
Economics, and theories
Of literature, and then
Literary devices.
I know the moon, the sun---stars
And seasons. Time by flowers.
I write in perfect meter,
Rhyme, but it is only a
Hobby to you looking in.
The world dies, do you know?

He sits across from Adam and his wife,
And he says, "Oh, to write is laborious;
"It takes an hour for every line."
An hour for every line.

Secretly, he knows. It takes a few moments
To but write it, yet an entire lifetime
To catch the muse.

That is why the poet secretly labors over every line.
He does not. It is rather spent a lifetime to make it.