Worn Genes

Taught by example
Beginning with Eve
Linked to a race
Trained to deceive

Didn’t see it through
Shown to the gate
Add shame to our list
Another linear trait

Bound by tainted blood
Trapped in ancestral skin
Marrow intrudes the bone
Mixed with original sin

The pure bloods of blue
Related to their dead
With practiced accents
Say they’re well bred

For they are the same
As beggars in filth
Ingenerated from sinners
We are carriers of guilt

Beneficiaries of conflict
Turmoil is our matriarch
Born from a long line
Of unsterile stock

Weaned off hope
With paranoiac views
Bid on forgiveness
With signed IOU’s

Over a medieval bonfire
We warmed our hands
During the rush
Reaped gold from pans

No matter the era
Or name of the tribe
We’re lost descendants of
The infamous bribe

Inherited their nightmares
In our pre-made beds
It all adds up, when
They count the heads

Can hear the serpent hiss
Through pleading cries
We shall be in Limbo
When we wipe our eyes

A visual artist for over twenty years, with juried and international exhibitions including solo shows in galleries, museums and other venues, receiving many awards and honors. Also, Teresa has been perusing her other love, writing. She is a published poet, including Skyline Magazine, Hudson Review, Poetry Shelter, The Horror Zine, Twice the Terror: The Horror Zine Anthology and Death Head Grin. Inside her world of make believe, she paints and writes what she knows to be true. Bound by the creative force, she leaves reality entirely up to you.

Find more by Teresa Ann Frazee in the Author Index.

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