TRIFECTA WRITING CHALLENGE

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WRETCHED

‘3: being or appearing mean, miserable, or contemptible <dressed in wretched old clothes>’ 

Wretched are the truly mean:
With avarice consulting
Means they as sorry sights are seen,
Contempt for them resulting;
No means can save them from distaste,
The means mean gain a total waste,
And so, demeaned, retreat in haste,
By no means worth insulting. 

Wretched is as wretched does
There can be no denying,
Turn to drugs to get a ‘buzz’?
The fates one is defying;
Though filled with fame, then he or she
Is wretched as a wretch can be,
And no true happiness will see –
Such should deserve decrying. 

Wretches worse can walk the earth,
Than those in rags and tatters.
An impression of their worth
Is what most truly matters;
When one will harm no man nor beast –
Nor woman, in the very least! –
No mind if clothes are torn and creased,
The wretch-illusion – shatters! 

(At 141 words, more than 33 and comfortably less than 333.) 

Colonialist February 2012 (Letterdash/WordPress)