There’s a monk by the name of St. Francis
Who strolls in the forest and prances
       While whispering words
       To the mammals and birds
Who religiously fall into trances

The monk sat in his temple
Swathed in his saffron robe
While incense wafted through the air
Somewhere a gong could be heard, in the distance
Pristine, austere, noble
With all the trappings of wisdom
With the aura of enlightenment
With the odor of sanctity
With the nobility of humility
And the pilgrim asked him, are you poor?
“No,” said the monk
“For I desire nothing,
Cling to nothing
Long for nothing,
And so I am free,
Even rich
As though I possessed
The whole world.”

Francis sat in the dust
Covered in a beggar’s rags
While the scent of sewage lingered near
The coughing of the poor was heard, all round
*****, abject, neglected
With all the trappings of homelessness
With the aura of his friends, the sick
With the odor of his brothers, the abandoned
Having forsaken nobility for humility
And the pilgrim asked him, are you poor?
“No,” smiled Francis
“For I have found Him whom I desire,
I have cleaved fast to Him,
I am filled by Him,
And so I am free,
Even rich
For I do not need the world
When I embrace its Master.”

Just when I thought there wasn’t room enough
for another thought or poetry in my head,*

Up came this documentary poem
The Wednesday of May 24 was the day
President Trump meets with the pope Francis
at the Vatican: smiles and pleasantries aside
Who’s coming up with these lies?
Who have ties
with Russia and Putin?
We the outsiders are still unclear
about another golden buzzer:
But under a crystalline blue sky is where
Pope Francis and the President meet
Here I tipped my pen to
MARK LANDLER and JASON HOROWITZ
Reporting….
The fraught silence in political history

He was a man of many ideas
He brightened up even those in their darkest of times
By shining his whimsical offtimes and sometimes "outrageous ideas"
Now that he is gone, the "out" in the word describing his ideas
Now seem "in" and "new seas"
To try and sail partial paths of some of his intellectual "ideas"
To honor a "never ending" flame
By not allowing society's air blowing
To put my life's flame out.
In utter disbelief that he is now gone.
I know he is up above me and watching me.
"To see if I can make it?!" I shout
"That I can. For your honor, even more!"
I'll achieve my successes and let go of my crazy doubts.
"If you can make it this far, I shall go even further."
In your honor, my friend and spiritual brother, "to  victory and to the beyond"
"Thank you for entering my world...."
For one never sees another's true beauty until they pass.
Not this student.
All along, I have been the one who listened in class.

Why is he Vaticanizing
when he could be catechizing ?
This silly man with a funny hat
this doddering puppet
with his dead Jesus on a stick
this irrelevant vestigial *****
this geriatric Marxist-Lite
outdated Liberationist
terminal Global Warmist;

no wonder the World
heeds his incoherent discourse.
No wonder they
listen to him
but hate the Truth.