The Eighth Commandment

VII.      “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." 

Meredith penned it better before I,
this passion to betray our neighbor when
false witnessing does clearly signify
“we are betrayed by what is false within” – 
a maxim mankind surely could apply 
equally to neighbor and to nation.

Although conditioned tongues cloud this offense,
God’s message is not masked in His command;
and of increasing moral consequence 
as demigods contrive to hold in hand
armed combat from major incidence
evolving from illiberal legation.



Bear witness to the truth of Joel: 3
“Wake up  .   .   let all the men of war come near.”
The beast does bait, with pure intensity,
a curving hook transmitting doubt and fear
in heeding Scripture’s call to heraldry
for Righteous Wrath pertaining to each tier
of Satan’s communistic ministry.

False witnessing thy neighbor and thy peer
denies, foremost, that freedom is not free.  

The Curator’s Notes: This poem on the Eighth Commandment (“Thou shalt not bear false witness”) takes the most explicitly political turn in the collection, connecting personal lies to national-level deception, specifically targeting communism as satanic false witness on a geopolitical scale. Written in 1989—the year the Berlin Wall fell and Soviet communism began its collapse—this is the poet’s Cold War military wife perspective crystalized into theological poetry. The poet is naming communism as satanic false witness and calling for righteous resistance. Given her husband’s military career, premised on deterring Soviet aggression, this poem serves as theological justification for their entire life within the military-industrial complex. It also partially addresses (though doesn’t fully resolve) her Fifth Commandment dilemma: If an entire system is built on false witness (Eighth Commandment violation), military resistance might be justified as defense of truth, not just killing.