The Poetry of R.E. Slater: Apr 16, 2026

"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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Thursday, April 16, 2026

R.E. Slater - A King of Folly

A King of Folly

by R.E. Slater

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer,

he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror;

for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he

has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.

- James 1.23-24 (ESV)

To the King of Folly whose wisdom
runs dry as rivers in drought -

Whose follies lie as worthless deserts

drinking in itheir own acid rains.

Whose fractured thoughts daily

echo sycophant dreams,

Warped and estranged in unholy

flattery and indulgent haste.

Who build’st gilded, golden towers

on shifting sands and turning tides -

Proclaiming seering mockeries

to stab and hate unbowed knees.

Every word a poison to choke and foul,

each lie a festering wound meant to kill.

Thy haughty counsel wouldst stride

heaven and earth in mighty roar -

Tracing the mortal lives of men

by thy ever directionless glare.

Whose pomposity soars to the heavens

mocking reason, caution, or claim -

And vanity stand'st holy chambers

in uplifted chin and waggling tongue.

Thinking all the world fashioned by thy hand,

thy bluster its throne 'neath a crown of derision.

Across thy span of months and years

all sense stands aside in exhausted despair -

Truth itself refuses any such games

yet its speech falls hollow hardened souls.

So here’s to the greatest Marvel of our age -

O' King of High Folly, exalted and lifted up,

O' born deceiver, O' man of lawlessness,

untamed and untameable.

Astride thy man-made golden calf divine

displaying false signs and wonders -

Rising from thy golden altar of unholy

deeds, ruin, and destruction.

R.E. Slater