Here it is again, the series on The Ten Commandments...

This series of revised poems on The Ten Commandments shows I am working on the great words of God. (Note that all three words, "The Ten Commandments" are capitalized. That was a problem with the first version. They were like The Ten Commandments themselves, didactic and no nonesense. I don't know if I've been able to get away from that, for God lays these down without much wiggle room.)

This is the Tenth Commandment, the one about coveting with a note about King David and the trouble he was into in wanting someone else's wife. God is strict with David, whom he loved and favored. His actions and predicament show how easily man falls prey to his weaknesses.

The Tenth Commandment: Coveting

by Peter Menkin


The other has it.

We want his wife, as David did his neighbor's.

We want his house, so big. Ours is not enough.

As the man with the field he coveted.


Driven by desires --misplaced,

man covets:

neighbor's wife, his servant, his maid, his ox, his ass.


You shall not covet,

the Tenth Commandment says,

for it makes ill of man.


We fall. Uphold us.