New Poem: "The Forbidden Fruit of Life"

 

The Forbidden Fruit of Life

 

I listened with rapt attention to an honest

man of the mind talking to a clever journalist

(who makes an obscene living interviewing

people like him) about his book On Consolation:

Finding Solace in Dark Times, and we do live

in dark times with this global pandemic that

has stretched society beyond its limits; but it

was on a personal level that this honest man

of the mind stressed his historical claim that

finding consolation for life’s unbearable suffering

was relative to one’s personal paradigm. As irony

would have it however, this honest man of the

mind had yet to explore the perilous paradigm

of who we are not, and not until he firmly grasps

the nettle of man’s dual nature will this honest

man of the mind console his grieving soul

with the forbidden fruit of life.