The Questions I Ask

Why don't people see what's right from wrong? 
Why do people hurt one another? 
Why do people not believe in Jesus? 
Why are people so evil? 
Why are questions deemed more noble than the answer? 
Why is everyone a skeptic of what's plainly true? 
Why does everyone need to be taught by one another? 
Why does everyone have to reinvent a system of morals? 
Why do the most intelligent men find answers? 
Why do governments oppress people? 
Why is freedom of speech not a given in every country on Earth? 
Why is the Human Rights Charter ignored? 
Why is the Constitution ignored? 
Why did men in the seventeen hundreds know our rights were unalienable, when now that's even questioned? 
Why doesn't everyone say, "Give me liberty, or give me death?" 
Why is everyone a coward? 
Why is everyone morally bankrupt? 
If there were a righteous man within a hundred miles, let me find him. 
If there were a wise woman within a thousand miles, let me find her. 
The rights of the people are infringed, and I'd like to know why. 
Why are sales more important than content? 
Why is poetry considered "Untrue"? 
Why do people believe that words have no meaning? 
If this sentence were understood, doesn't that insinuate everything we question about meaning is a lie? 
Why do strings of meaning tap into the Logos of the universe: Why is Lucretius discovering Newtonian Physics, and Milton hypothesizing the Atomic Bomb? 
Why do poets prophesy? 
Why is Love the muse of the great ones? 
I can answer this, but it still has even greater mysteries. 
Why is math more precious than language arts these days? 
If people read more poetry, wouldn't they have less time for idle minds? 
Why do Literary Critics snob at the greatest letters? 
Why does everyone have a different opinion, and why are they often wrong? 
Why can't people relate to the real world? 
Why is beauty not patronized in the arts? 
Why is truth so self evident, yet everyone pretends it not to be so? 
Why are we born knowing the way, and how do we stray from that path so quickly? 
Why are Tao and Logos so similar? 
Why are the sages always affirming what the Bible says? 
If the Roman Church burned all the books, why were they so careful to preserve them? 
If the Library of Alexandria wasn't burned, would we have any more noteworthy classics still being read today? Likely, I deem it not. 
Why do the stars tell the story of Jesus? 
Why is there so much proof that Jesus is the Christ, yet everyone pretends like it isn't there? 
More importantly, do people know the proof that Jesus is the Christ, and maybe they aren't pretending? 
Will God damn someone for ignorance? 
This I don't know. 
Why is racism a worst crime than theft these days? 
If Racism were a three, cussing would be a two, and homosexuality would be a ten; yet, we have it all backward. 
Why is adultery considered noble, when it obviously hurts so many people? 
Why is Homosexuality considered noble, when no society can function justly which accepts it? 
Those and many like it are the questions I ask. 
Questions for poets. 

Evidence

When I look into a baby’s eye,
When I see coefficients can be used to find the area of any quadrilateral,
When I look into the moon against a blue sky,
When I see Pi is a circle’s circumference if the diameter is one,
When I see lines, arranged, follow certain rules when taking shapes,
When I see a sentence can always be understood, regardless of syntax,
When I see moral philosophers discovering the very principles Christ taught,
When I see ancient myths of resurrections,
When I see miracles described by Plutarch,
When I see the ramifications of bad philosophies on the world,
When I see the effects bad behaviors have on societies,
When I see Christ prophesied in the Old Testament,
When I see genuine human kindness, oh how rare it’s become!,
When I see the stars and Niagara falls with the feelings they arouse,
When I see genuine romantic love that will persist,
When I remember peace,
When I watch a movie, and the good men kill evil ones,
When I see people who want to love themselves are the most selfish,
When I see falsehoods spring up into popular ideology, and they warp society into melancholia,
When I see nobody is happy, but I remember a time when they were,
When I felt the love of my family, my grandmother, my grandfather, my aunts and uncles,
When I see morals are certain because behaviors have consequences,
When I see selfishness hurts people, and twists all of society into a deep sadness,
When I see lustful people are vexed all the time, and filled with anxiety and bitterness,
When I see prideful people are loved for a short time, but it’s only because everyone has too much pride,
When I see science calls evil things good and good things evil---I say to myself, "That can’t be right",
When I see rainbows, saw cicadas in 1996, see the diamond of life within an Animal’s mien,
When I remember being a baby, and not being an Atheist, but rather I talked directly to God,
When I see beauty is symmetrical and beauty is health,
When I see the colors of wildflowers and the bees pollenating them; 
What caused the bee to fly and need plant nectar?,
What caused the beginning of the world?,
What reason do we grow colder the further we drift from Christ?,
What reason do the men claim there is no God, when their very breath is the evidence?,
What reason do we believe our consciences cannot perceive the real world?,
What reason do we pervert our nature to cause ourselves suffering, but then lie to and say we do not suffer?,
What reason do we say "Morals are universal," when the only moral men agree upon is "Thou Shalt not Kill?,
How long will it be when even that moral is no more?,
How many times must we witness a miracle, before we can stop rationalizing to ourselves that there is no God?,
How many beloved Christians have to die for the faith?,
Why did St. Paul and the other Apostles die for Jesus?,
Why is it said that Christ never existed, when His birth and death records are so stored in the Vatican?,
Why does Christ’s death record say "He who claimed to be the Son of God," if not for Roman Conspiracy?,
Why did Rome spread a rumor and say the Apostles overwhelmed Centurions?
Why need this lie if He did not exist? ,
Why need this lie if He did not raise from the dead?,
Why are so many in self deceit and unhappy, when they can loose themselves from the bonds of Sin?,
Why are there righteous men who suffer, if not because Christ had said it?,
Why are there evil men who prosper, if not because Christ had said it?,
Why do we all know right from wrong, until we start claiming that neither can be truly understood?,
Why do we claim there is nothing certain, when there are many certain things?,
Why do we claim reason is subjective, if not only because we ourselves cannot understand?,
If we cannot understand something as simple as the meaning of a sentence, then how can we claim there is no God?,
That is the evidence I see, and there is much more.

The Mercy Dog

How strange is the war
Which trepanned the heads of men, women, children.
The mercy dog wanders the battlefield of the Somme;
There he lays dying in no man's land.

It is a strange thing, to contemplate.
The dog, the brown of a German's hair,
A hound shaped body, or a mastiff's,
And its red cross upon its shoulder.
It wanders, sniffs out blood
For men---this is the strange thing
See how strange it is
That a man lays dying from the wound
He took from another man---
Why do these men kill?




For Kings, Queens, Democracies,
Autocracies, Panopolies arrayed in rows
Firing mustard gas, its licking smoke
Maddening Prufrock, who probably should have died.

Yet, this man lies dying on the battlefield,
An Irishman, taking a wound in the head.
The mercy dog comes to him,
Lays down, as a bloody hand scratches behind its ear.
Soon, the fingers draw lifeless white,
And they stiffen.
The dog moves to the next body.

How strange it is, that men do this thing.
It is an alien thing that armies move across frontiers 
And the obdurate faces of men having raped, murdered, stolen, killed,
They stand in their glimmering rows.
Afterward, their friends are lying dead upon battlements
And the Mercy Dogs, the Chestnut Mastiffs,
Wander to the wounded, wagging its tail
And what a wonder it is, to lie dying on the battlefield
To see life will leave you listless, to where will you go?
Heaven? Hell? You have fought in war;
The mercurial ichor drips from 
The heathen gods you have slain.

The dog lays beside you, or it takes your cloth
To retrieve it to the medics, and lead them to your wounded corpse.
It is strange, know how strange it is,
That the man lies there, having been hurt by his fellow man;
He dreams of his Beautiful Redhead
The one he never had
The one he never made love to
The one... it was made his God.
Will he have her in the afterlife?

The dog licks the wounds of the dying man,
Its antiseptic tongue licking away the soreness by its breath
And where does the soul of those slain go
On the battlefield?
Young virgins, only twenty years old
Who have shed blood before the virginal flower?

"I do not want any kingdoms
"Or strange worlds vast...
"Simply, my only desire
"Was to have her naked body in my arms,
"And yet, I die never having shared in her warmth;
"I know not amatory's sting,
"And I die."

Neifert, B. K. “The Mercy Dog.” 2022.

©2022 B. K. Neifert
All Rights Reserved

The frost makes firm the icy lake,
The samara twigs do break off;
The deer and rabbit prints of late
In the snow are made by paws.
The blackbirds sing their songs
And the bear do sleep at ease.
Love is burrowed in the fields
Where some creatures there do sleep.
The insects are all in the ground
And in peace, the trees art bare, surround.

No great thing disturbs me now
As winter is in her hoary home.
The furnace burns, and makes a fire
Keep it stoked at perfect coals.
Great harrowing war echoes there
And great sorrows the people have;
They are actors in great halls
And I feel that I am mad.
For I cannot but see them all.

Their faces are so stiff;
Pleasures are also dried.
I walk along the silvery path
And say, "LORD make me ever wise."
I cry to Him for pleasures true
As the lake whoops so divine.
The foolish of this world do skate
Upon thin ice to see.
That they are fools, but I, but I,
Am the fool of fools indeed.

For Trumpets blast in silence,
And the greatest are made small.
Petulant sinners are so dense
And the leaves do blossom wrong.
In the dead of winter, I at a green leaf pause.
"Why did they not listen? And why were they all false?"
Yet, the rabbit tracks and deer like hooves
Make a satyr print, I find.
The brother deer do lick the ice
And the squirrels there do pine.

And as I walk through this brave new world
I say, "It is not mine and never were."
For the great man wants to steal the prize
And the doctor wants there to be no cure.
Men say "Fascist" in the night,
But both sides are so obscure.
I wish this song were just 'bout winter
But, like Orwell I must be weird.
So, the whooping lake, no preternatural song;
I know 'tis not ghosts and choks.

©2026 B. K. Neifert
All Rights Reserved

February's Fay came on January 17th,
2026, this year. I saw a leaf bud already
On a neighbor's sickly tree. The temperature
Is 39 degrees, with a few days below 30. 
Orion is where he should be.
And so is Goliath. I am wondering...
Why did our elites suddenly discredit it?
I saw those leaves on the sickly tree
Sprout in November. Very strange winter
We're having. Very strange weather.
Also, the Samara twigs are still hanging
On the trees, and some of the leaves
Haven't fallen yet on many of them.