Whatever Happened to Ethical Morality?
Mario William Vitale



As a Catholic, it bothers me to see. An ever increasing judgmental spirit among parishoners. We have become lax toward the sacraments & scriptures. Instead, we have imposed a new breed of highly sophisticated intellectuals who know it all. Yet who are they fooling? By reading the scriptures, not God? For God is not some man that he should lie. Nor the son of man that he should change his mind.

Further, we have endorsed abortion on demand. Do we think it nothing to **** the unborn in their mother’s womb all for the sake of convenience? No one questions anymore & no one has a voice until now. Am I that voice crying out in the wilderness? As long as God hears that’s quite all right with me.

What happened to ethical morality? We have embraced a culture of death. Relied on war zones we call schools. We elect politicians that embrace death in their mothers womb. Sadly, this is the current state that we are facing as a nation. It’s time to stand up and be heard before it’s too late!

fine Furhman's Funeral Home
used the best alchemy money could
buy, to keep her flesh fresh

and a master seamstress
sewed her wicked wounds so not
a single soul could see

she was stabbed forty times
from her rubicund cheeks to her
pedicured toes

Furhman's was the best, above
the mediocre rest, in gifting mourners
with a pleasant view

when I got their bill in the mail
it had an itemized list, which included
a charge I had to contest

not because of penury or pettiness
for I am a wealthy weeping father, but
I couldn't see spending a red dime

for crimson polish they painted
on dead toes, slid in slick hose, and
hid in patent leather shoes

my wife said write a check for the
full amount, crying this was not about
what we the living could yet see

Baton Rouge, April, 1989

What will I miss the most, I thought,
Now that she’s not around,
I walked back slowly to the Port
With my face turned to the ground,
Would I miss the incessant chatter that
Would drive St. Peter mad?
Or sit with a sigh of pure relief
At the absence of it… Sad!

And what of the silly songs she sang
When I often used to curse,
Telling her that she’d got it wrong,
Forgotten the second verse,
For then she would just ignore me
And go out and feed the birds,
Singing the same old song again
But making up the words.

I’d ask her to wear the blue dress
So she’d go and wear the green,
The one that had such a diving top
That her cleavage was obscene,
She’d only do it to thwart we when
We’d visit with my kin,
Annoying my strait-laced mother,
‘How on earth do you keep them in?’

She was just the size of a hobbit, or
A tiny little sprite,
Would lie with her back towards me
When we cuddled up at night,
Those were the things that I would miss
I thought, with just a tear,
Why did she have to leave me at
The turning of the year?

Christmas never would be the same,
She’d decorate the tree,
Getting the lights a-blinking which
Was more than they did for me,
I entered the door at home, and listened,
Nary a single sound,
And never would be again, now she
Was planted in the ground.

David Lewis Paget

I see black ones, white ones,
tall ones, short ones

the stops have no benches;
only signs, saying:

we stop here, to ****** you peasants
from the mean streets

some lean on the poles, weary
of waiting for their ride

or the winning lottery ticket
they dream of buying

others hunker, if their knees
still allow such a stance

or by chance, pride doesn't
keep them upright

the last one I saw was curled
in fetal repose

dead or just resting, preparing
for a new beginning?

I will never know, for I didn't
stop, at the bus stop

but I'm with them, traveling hope's
haggard, hapless highway

he shoulders shame
carrying the weight of the dead,
slung over him

partnering with gravity,
these memory moguls slow him down
though he keeps trudging

when one drops, another
takes his place -- first his father, then
a brother, stillborn

not half the weight of a stone,
yet his carcass bends his back
like any full grown beast

for he did not weep
with his mother when its blue soul
was yanked from her womb

nor did he shed a tear
when his father's heart gave out
a billion beats too soon

when he forgets his sins as son  
he recalls another one--the boy he
slew on a brown river's bank;

floating still in the Mekong, riddled
with the rifle's rabid rounds, he often catches
a ride in memory's stream

leading a relay team of shame shifters
he carries with him every step, though
the world sees him walk alone

Ungraded roads have many holes,
Gravel, and running ditches.
Before a rain, they seem more wide than narrow.
Long but terminal.
These roads I'm led to roam,
Not straight, but bending to travel.

Signs warn of deer or bumps,
With a bridge dead ahead.
Chances are, it's a single lane,
And timing dictates crossing.

My spinning wheels clear the ruts,
But soon they fill again,
As if I never passed.

Peer pressures a *****
But I don't care what you think
So you can't pressure me
I don't drink
Or smoke
So you can pass the **** past me
As you choke on the smoke
Until your eyes tear
Oh dear
If getting high is fly
I'll stay grounded
And you can sip on your drink
Until you're on the brink
Of forgetting your name
And in the morning feeling ashamed
Because you text me uncontrollably
Saying you love me
Asking did I still love you
Only to admit
What you said was an accident
And that really wasn't you
You didn't mean it
You're sorry
But that isn't true
Because when you drink
It's something you always do

He is an unpopular character this old man
Who sits and draw cartoon character
in memories of the dearly departed.

He said that he felt like crying,
but he wasn’t going to cry
Because if he did,
he might not like the taste of his tears
Those loose cells in the tears
is mostly of his mother and father.

He resented  them for not aborting him
He wishes that he was never was born.
Due to the facts that all his life he was scorned

He was in and out of intuition
Always in a state of confusion
Month too months he never saw the sun
He never felt the rain upon his face,
Only long session with the nurses and the
Physiatrist who thought of him as a disgrace

He recalled taking the train for the first time at age fifteen
And that didn’t turn out as expected,
He wets his pant, so he sat in his seat and slaps his head furiously
He was spanked by the nuns, ridiculed by Sister Margaret the head hunter,
Got a huge ****** thermometer roughly up his **** by a ******* dude
Suffered daily due to his severe autism behaviors

He is an unpopular character this old man
Who sits and draw cartoon character
of all his childhood abusers: