Credo
I believe that the best alternative
to suicide is the play of light and
shadow on sycamores in October,
that peace, while elusive, can be
found in the rubble of war, and that
life can be flabbergasting—how
did cruelty become a political virtue
and kindness an attribute of ridicule?
I believe that hope is something best
exhibited in the eyes of a ten-year-old
boy at the ballpark, and that driving
while digging into my pockets to find
change for the crack-thin man on the
corner enacts the toil of charity.
I believe that loving a drunken father
and a bat-shit crazy mother can both
destroy and create a soul, and that
a heart is more than a pump.
It is my belief that petting a puppy’s
tummy makes going to heaven unnecessary.
I believe that there is but one true sentence:
Thou shalt not kill.
I believe that Chopin’s nocturns construct
a canopy of calm that shelters the universe.
I believe that my last breath will be enough.
Charles W. Brice
Charlie Brice won the 2020 Field Guide Poetry Magazine Poetry Contest and placed third in the 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize. His tenth poetry collection is A Brief History of the Sixties (Alien Buddha Press, 2026). His poetry has been nominated for Best of Net and the Pushcart Prizes.