Could be Your Mouth

 

 

Trying to get ahead?

Struggling for some success?

Are your efforts futile?

Are you suffering from stress?

 

Are you blaming others?

Do you think everyone's a louse?

Perhaps, you need to consider

The fault may be your mouth.

 

It keeps getting in the way

Though you don’t even realize it,

And your nagging, persistent flapping

Keeps you in the ditch.

 

 

The one who guards his mouth

Protects his life

But he that opens wide his lips

Invites his own strife.

 

From the mouth of the wisest man;

Solomon was his name,

His request for wisdom and understanding

Was granted when he began to reign.

 

The ruling of God’s chosen people

Was a very steep ladder to climb,

Before Solomon could put his mouth in gear

God had to prepare his mind.

Watch your mouth, my brother

And guard your mouth, my sister,

Foot-in-the-mouth disease

Can leave you with lifelong blisters.

 

 

Proverbs 21:23

 

“Whoso keeps his mouth and tongue

Keeps his soul from trouble.”

Another critical piece of advice

To help throughout life’s struggle.

 

Life is a ladder we are climbing

Whose rungs are regularly spaced,

Our mouth can get between the rungs

And give us a very bad taste.

 

The taste of defeat and failure

The taste of futility and despair,

The taste of putting in seeming effort

But getting absolutely nowhere.

 

Upon honest introspection

You may come upon the cause,

If your mouth gets tangled in the rungs

It’s time to put it on pause.

 

 

It’s time that I close mine too

Before it starts getting in the way,

With that I conclude this poem

And wish you all a blessed day.

 

Stewart Russell © July 2020