The Beat of the Drum


The laconic mood that some call zeitgeist
Has put us under the spell of a music called funk.

Resistere, Resistere, Resistere

Said an Italian Judge three times.
The meaning is clear enough in English
Unlike the double meaning of the word free
In the way it is used nowadays,
Alluding to the paradox of intent
Between the spiritual state and the cost.

"Love is free on the free love freeway"*
It's a loaded line, as it were,
As it contrasts liberty and affordability.

Since the magistrate is a serious man
We deduce the calibre of that we must resist,
in the qualities of negative growth such as:
Imprudence, Infirmity, Intemperance, Injustice.

"Lead us not to temptation but deliver us from evil"

One thinks something got lost in the translation.
In Italian the saying goes:

Non ci indurre in tentazione ma liberarci dal male
(Not us induce into temptation but free us from the evil)

Jesus showed the disciples the etiquette of prayer; 
in a private setting, a chapel made for one,
So that our Lord would be moved by the passion
In the solitude asking, in essence, for strength.

Strength compels abounding in the resistere.
"Give us today our daily bread"
From which we distil the carbohydrate,
In digesting the intelligence of wheat,
From the servile fibres of nature's will
Even as the beat of the tom tom drum alternates:

cause n' effect cause n' effect cause n' effect

Rome, 12 5 2008

*From a song in the Ricky Gervais BBC Television series "The Office"