I’d be a hypocrite
If I said I did not say a swear word or two every week.
It is something I want finished.
It is a part of me I had under wraps
But has welled up in my soul recently
Because I allowed it to.
I said “S***” in a poem
And began, slowly, to say words.
That poem was about a genocide,
But rather than go back and change it…
For it is said…
What I will suggest every Christian do
Is not swear.
It is an ugly thing.
Every time I do it—
Since it is fresh on my mind—
There is an ugly welling up in me
And then a release with that dirty word.
We ought not allow such dirt well from our mouths
To come from our soul
And to be made apparent to someone else.
We are to have self control.
For every time I swear
It is like an ugly thing is welling inside of me…
An ugly, hideous, rotten thing.
And if I express it that one time
It will well in me twice again.
Hideous, ugly, rotten…
Even if I say “Faggot.”
Whatever word—
Define a cuss word, I shall try to do it—
Wells in the soul like a boiling pot of water
And whatever boils the water over,
Onto the burner, and makes a great mess
That is a cuss word.
If there is an ugly feeling in you
And it cannot be expressed except with a cuss word
That feeling is sin.
If it has to be expressed with cuss words,
Don’t—I am being a hypocrite,
But let me be one because I know what it is.
I feel it deep in my soul that every time I swear,
Say “Bitch,” “Fuck,” “Shit” or “Piss”,
I leave them naked for you,
Every time I say them, there is an ugly feeling.
One time I told a man, “Suck on your mother’s breasts.”
That was a cuss word.
Because it welled such an ugly feeling from my soul,
And every oath said, every imprecation,
Though even without intent,
Has the odor of that evil thought and feeling.
It is unclean, and unsavory speech.
We should, and do pray for me,
Cut it out of our hearts
And go to church
And read our Bible.
B. K. Neifert 