Worshippers chanting,
The pastor praising God's cure.
From the back pew: coughs.
Showing posts with label Power. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Power. Show all posts
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Friday, November 24, 2017
Sunday, July 16, 2017
Insect
Today
I killed
A cockroach.
A subject we are loathe
To broach:
Is God the sidewalk
Or the shoe?
Is faith in an unseen future
The glue
That binds the suture
Tight,
That joins all things
In futile fight
For survival?
The image, primal,
Of the crushed insect -
I shall remember but soon forget.
We kill the small and worthless
Without regret.
I killed
A cockroach.
A subject we are loathe
To broach:
Is God the sidewalk
Or the shoe?
Is faith in an unseen future
The glue
That binds the suture
Tight,
That joins all things
In futile fight
For survival?
The image, primal,
Of the crushed insect -
I shall remember but soon forget.
We kill the small and worthless
Without regret.
Friday, November 11, 2016
The Morning After
I woke up at 4:00 am today, unable unable to sleep. Rain fell outside. Was God crying? Or urinating on us all? How could a compassionate, just God sanction this election? Most Christian Evangelicals voted for Trump, a complete betrayal of their religious beliefs. In their hypocritical hearts, they know Trump's religious gestures are mere theater. Never has it been more tempting to boldly proclaim the virtue of atheism.
A panic attack kept me awake. Vaguely, I recall the fear constrict my chest and knew instinctively that it was the same fear Trump's supporters felt. They surrendered to this animalistic drive, irrational by nature, at the polls yesterday. It was an epiphany: understanding this fear was a key to penetrating the dark, unspeakable mystery of our national political climate. How each of us responds to this fear individually will affect the course of our country, and in turn, the world.
I dressed for work as if for a funeral, all in gray - gray suit, gray tie, gray shirt - gray like the cloudy day that was dawning and still I moved about as if in a bad dream, slowly. To deny reality is human. Uneducated racists do not have a monopoly on denial. But my clock kept ticking. Because I could accept the possibility that I would be late for work, I admitted I was awake. I had lived through what history will record as our worst election for all its resemblance to 1932 Germany.
Stepping outside, the fear subsided but still lingered. It cast a small shadow in me, like the shadow of leaves on pavement after the rain. What I did with this fear was my own burden. So I secured the fear, until I could regain my reason, by using a talisman.
I dressed in mourning because something died last night, a grand experiment on tolerance unique in history. But I placed a small, white handkerchief in my breast jacket pocket. The Christians - the authentic ones - have a story about Jesus who survived death and will one day return. Only their hope sustains that story. The thin, white line in my breast pocket was my own talisman of hope. Perhaps America will return from death some day. And perhaps how we vanquish the animal fear will usher the resurrection. But for today I just need to touch the white fabric often, to navigate the sadness until I can again think.
A panic attack kept me awake. Vaguely, I recall the fear constrict my chest and knew instinctively that it was the same fear Trump's supporters felt. They surrendered to this animalistic drive, irrational by nature, at the polls yesterday. It was an epiphany: understanding this fear was a key to penetrating the dark, unspeakable mystery of our national political climate. How each of us responds to this fear individually will affect the course of our country, and in turn, the world.
I dressed for work as if for a funeral, all in gray - gray suit, gray tie, gray shirt - gray like the cloudy day that was dawning and still I moved about as if in a bad dream, slowly. To deny reality is human. Uneducated racists do not have a monopoly on denial. But my clock kept ticking. Because I could accept the possibility that I would be late for work, I admitted I was awake. I had lived through what history will record as our worst election for all its resemblance to 1932 Germany.
Stepping outside, the fear subsided but still lingered. It cast a small shadow in me, like the shadow of leaves on pavement after the rain. What I did with this fear was my own burden. So I secured the fear, until I could regain my reason, by using a talisman.
I dressed in mourning because something died last night, a grand experiment on tolerance unique in history. But I placed a small, white handkerchief in my breast jacket pocket. The Christians - the authentic ones - have a story about Jesus who survived death and will one day return. Only their hope sustains that story. The thin, white line in my breast pocket was my own talisman of hope. Perhaps America will return from death some day. And perhaps how we vanquish the animal fear will usher the resurrection. But for today I just need to touch the white fabric often, to navigate the sadness until I can again think.
Saturday, July 4, 2015
Self-Evident
In
the course of human events,
A crumpled page in a drawer was found,
Such words that boldly astound,
And history's course would have bent,
If by them we had been bound:
“We hold these truths
To be self-evident,
That all men are created equal,
That they are endowed by their Creator
With certain unalienable Rights,
That among these are Life, Liberty
And the pursuit of Property.
“But for the Claim of Property,
History would show no Thieves,
Their daggers held in centuries’ sleeves -
The Governments among Men.
The respectability they lend
To the long train of usurpation
Should lead to question the Creation
Of this Sovereign over Men.
“Self-evident then is the truth
That to happily pursue their Property
Men must have unfettered Liberty
That very end of all Government -
Of the Crown and of the Colony,
Excepting Nature, by Heaven sent.”
Was it Jefferson, Adams, or Franklin
Who tossed those drafted ramblings?
By the fortunate strokes of a pen
We were saved from a land where all men,
To accumulate endless property,
Take the life and liberty of others
While Government idly does nothing,
Having long ago, by declaration,
Been quietly strangled and smothered.
A crumpled page in a drawer was found,
Such words that boldly astound,
And history's course would have bent,
If by them we had been bound:
“We hold these truths
To be self-evident,
That all men are created equal,
That they are endowed by their Creator
With certain unalienable Rights,
That among these are Life, Liberty
And the pursuit of Property.
“But for the Claim of Property,
History would show no Thieves,
Their daggers held in centuries’ sleeves -
The Governments among Men.
The respectability they lend
To the long train of usurpation
Should lead to question the Creation
Of this Sovereign over Men.
“Self-evident then is the truth
That to happily pursue their Property
Men must have unfettered Liberty
That very end of all Government -
Of the Crown and of the Colony,
Excepting Nature, by Heaven sent.”
Was it Jefferson, Adams, or Franklin
Who tossed those drafted ramblings?
By the fortunate strokes of a pen
We were saved from a land where all men,
To accumulate endless property,
Take the life and liberty of others
While Government idly does nothing,
Having long ago, by declaration,
Been quietly strangled and smothered.
Sunday, January 18, 2015
World of Law
We
set up laws
to obey the king upon the throne
and to turn the country into home,
a place where people would greet
each other passing on the street,
not kill each other over scraps of meat.
But laws did not suffice.
For such is mankind’s vice:
we ignore the law, respect the price
of the devilish things that do entice
our monstrous greed to play at dice
with children’s lives
and ancient forest woodland,
the ocean tides,
the dying crops on the drying land.
Laws would not have slowed the fire
that every soul does char and burn
if the king had not in turn
revealed in tales a land of fire
reserved for murderers, thieves and liars.
Hell is the ultimate prison, ultimate end,
the king would say,
and death is here eagerly willing to send
the disobedient to torments vile and eternal,
to die endlessly in suffering infernal.
Still the threat of hell has failed to stop
those greedy few who laugh and mock
the hellish stories as children’s stock,
those bloated beasts with hearts of rock,
who chew upon the people’s bones
and sit atop the world’s gold thrones.
to obey the king upon the throne
and to turn the country into home,
a place where people would greet
each other passing on the street,
not kill each other over scraps of meat.
But laws did not suffice.
For such is mankind’s vice:
we ignore the law, respect the price
of the devilish things that do entice
our monstrous greed to play at dice
with children’s lives
and ancient forest woodland,
the ocean tides,
the dying crops on the drying land.
Laws would not have slowed the fire
that every soul does char and burn
if the king had not in turn
revealed in tales a land of fire
reserved for murderers, thieves and liars.
Hell is the ultimate prison, ultimate end,
the king would say,
and death is here eagerly willing to send
the disobedient to torments vile and eternal,
to die endlessly in suffering infernal.
Still the threat of hell has failed to stop
those greedy few who laugh and mock
the hellish stories as children’s stock,
those bloated beasts with hearts of rock,
who chew upon the people’s bones
and sit atop the world’s gold thrones.
Friday, July 4, 2014
Founder's House
A flag hung from the brick façade
Of a stately and elegant house,
The street lined with old rich homes
And ancient, shady trees.
Inscribed were the words:
"Descendants of Valley Forge,
Soldiers in George Washington's army,"
Undulating in a hot summer breeze.
Around the corner, down the street, some distance away,
A posted sign was met with casual glances each day
From an American public who, with faces pink and red,
Between wiping sweat and heaving, read:
"On this spot, until 1889, lay the house,
Richly appointed, grand, and fine,
Of So-and-So,
An enlightened man of his time,
A Founder of this great Nation,
Whose achievements in Government
And Industry were sundry and sublime."
The plot of ground was flat and empty,
A wide square paved in red brick,
With tufts of grass in places thick,
And a thin tree growing like a lonely stick.
An old, tired beggar sat beneath the tree,
Taking from the sun a brief reprieve,
Descendant, too, of Valley Forge,
Though no one would believe.
That night the beggar walked to the river and saw,
With hunger and awe, the fireworks light the evening sky,
Blotting out the stars, the very stars the Founders saw,
Their precious source of light, as they sweat in all their splendor
On those steaming summer nights.
Of a stately and elegant house,
The street lined with old rich homes
And ancient, shady trees.
Inscribed were the words:
"Descendants of Valley Forge,
Soldiers in George Washington's army,"
Undulating in a hot summer breeze.
Around the corner, down the street, some distance away,
A posted sign was met with casual glances each day
From an American public who, with faces pink and red,
Between wiping sweat and heaving, read:
"On this spot, until 1889, lay the house,
Richly appointed, grand, and fine,
Of So-and-So,
An enlightened man of his time,
A Founder of this great Nation,
Whose achievements in Government
And Industry were sundry and sublime."
The plot of ground was flat and empty,
A wide square paved in red brick,
With tufts of grass in places thick,
And a thin tree growing like a lonely stick.
An old, tired beggar sat beneath the tree,
Taking from the sun a brief reprieve,
Descendant, too, of Valley Forge,
Though no one would believe.
That night the beggar walked to the river and saw,
With hunger and awe, the fireworks light the evening sky,
Blotting out the stars, the very stars the Founders saw,
Their precious source of light, as they sweat in all their splendor
On those steaming summer nights.
Saturday, January 18, 2014
New Year
When the traces of frost are gone,
In the light of a new year's dawn,
From my dusty window pane,
And the morning still is broken
By the ice from branches falling,
As if the earth itself were calling,
The briefest answer spoken,
To my silent, doubtful prayer:
The old year another layer
In the fallow fields of hope -
Whence the strength to note
If the day to mind can bring
The seeds of a brilliant spring:
A new way to see,
A new way to hear,
A new way to pull the plough
Through the fear
And bring a blossom of hope
To the fledgling year.
Of the crystal branches
Lay the answer clear:
Like the branches guiding flowers,
The mind holds silent power
To lead its thoughts to joy
Or to pathways of despair.
Therefore, have a care
And seek the three-fold path
For every tender thought:
Is it needed?
Is it kind?
Is it true?
If this counsel then were heeded,
Tomorrow we may find
The world each day is new.
In the light of a new year's dawn,
From my dusty window pane,
And the morning still is broken
By the ice from branches falling,
As if the earth itself were calling,
The briefest answer spoken,
To my silent, doubtful prayer:
The old year another layer
In the fallow fields of hope -
Whence the strength to note
If the day to mind can bring
The seeds of a brilliant spring:
A new way to see,
A new way to hear,
A new way to pull the plough
Through the fear
And bring a blossom of hope
To the fledgling year.
Of the crystal branches
Lay the answer clear:
Like the branches guiding flowers,
The mind holds silent power
To lead its thoughts to joy
Or to pathways of despair.
Therefore, have a care
And seek the three-fold path
For every tender thought:
Is it needed?
Is it kind?
Is it true?
If this counsel then were heeded,
Tomorrow we may find
The world each day is new.
Saturday, December 7, 2013
December 7, 1941
A day that will live in infamy
Drowns in the ocean of oblivion
That is our collective abandon of history.
Old photographs of human misery
Fail to move a generation
That never grieved and never learned
What their parents failed to teach -
The ships in Pearl Harbor burn
In old and musty newspapers,
The human cries forever beyond reach.
Seventy-two years
Have dried all the tears
A nation had once learned to shed.
The years since then
Have filled us with dread:
The screams of the war planes
In truth never ended;
While history remained unattended
Days of infamy for years descended -
We all are the Pearl Harbor dead.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Laptop
The words appeared,
noiseless, on the screen:
“We are witnessing
transitions
from social-welfare states
to social-control states
around the world.
“We are witnessing a
global crisis,
unprecedented in its
magnitude,
ecological degradation
and social deterioration.
“Unprecedented
in the sheer scale
of violence.”
The words waited, quietly,
while I drained a glass of
pinot grigio.
The hydrangea bushes
nodded softly in a late
summer air,
a bee hovering without
sound across petals.
A long row
of men and women
walked past the sidewalk
café
in sharp suits, carrying
laptop cases.
Unprecedented
in the sheer scale
of silence.
Friday, June 28, 2013
Commencement
Embarking now upon your lives,
As if setting sail on ships
To cross the known and unknown seas,
Recall that with each passing day
You move beneath the endless skies.
Up above the world so high,
Beyond your earthbound, narrow sight,
Fly colossal, fiery stars
That burst with unimagined might.
In the infinite sea of space,
Light years and ages away,
Conflagration scars the face,
Of worlds so monstrous in size
That ours is like a grain of sand.
These worlds the stars do thrash and break
Like hapless, brittle, fragile eggs.
Then they, too, tremble, roar, and shake -
Their final cries the eons take.
What care the stars for your accomplishments?
What care the stars for your sad failing?
They are blind to your emoluments
As they are deaf to your sick wailing.
Thus, if you cannot even once
Impress the closest living star,
Seek no man living near or far
To flatter with your learning.
For if you took one instant to inspect
The make and rudder of your ships
You'll find those ships, like all the world,
Are hapless, fragile, brittle eggs.
Therefore, have a care for how you tread.
Live your days in awe of nature,
Though free of dread.
Brilliant, young, you are still creatures -
Alive like stars and one day dead.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Love and Power
The
love of power is not cognizable.
Love knows nothing of power.
And power cares nothing for love.
Confounding fool and sage alike,
Avarice wears a cloak of love,
Seizing power like a cunning raven,
In the guise of a tender dove.
So mad with power -
It will take the love of martyrs
To bring his kingdom down.
Love knows nothing of power.
And power cares nothing for love.
Confounding fool and sage alike,
Avarice wears a cloak of love,
Seizing power like a cunning raven,
In the guise of a tender dove.
The
beloved king will not disown his crown.
In
time the tyrant,So mad with power -
It will take the love of martyrs
To bring his kingdom down.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Horror
Strange
that our Election Day
Is scarcely but a week away
From Halloween.
Ever so close
To the Day of the Dead.
Are monsters from our mental graves.
We vote for vampires of tomorrow,
Without thought to future sorrow.
But few can stare into the eyes
Of a horror more primeval.
With greedy eye and hungry tooth,
That tears at flesh
And rends the truth,
That creature with an empty mind
And shrunken heart
Who casts his ballot in the dark -
Is that voter who,
Without knowledge,
Without courage,
In that final hour
Bestows the leader’s power.
Is scarcely but a week away
From Halloween.
Strange,
too, it seems
That
we elect our nation’s headEver so close
To the Day of the Dead.
But
stranger still we do not see
The
leaders we select, the knaves,Are monsters from our mental graves.
We
vote for ghosts of yesterday.
We
vote for zombies of today. We vote for vampires of tomorrow,
Without thought to future sorrow.
Indeed
the choice has often been
The
lesser of two evils. But few can stare into the eyes
Of a horror more primeval.
The
beast that shambles
To
the voting booth,With greedy eye and hungry tooth,
That tears at flesh
And rends the truth,
That creature with an empty mind
And shrunken heart
Who casts his ballot in the dark -
More
terrible and stark
Than
a rapacious leaderIs that voter who,
Without knowledge,
Without courage,
In that final hour
Bestows the leader’s power.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Golden Worm
The Iniquities of the Age,
And the Barbarity of Yore
All sprout the same black gore.
The avarice that piled coins high
At the point of bloodied blade
Today sees sums in bank accounts
Rise in high surreal amounts.
How to explain the riches of today
If not as a parade of terror,
Oppression, destruction,
And pain
That makes our evil plain?
Across the world and in plain sight,
A testament to greed's blind might,
Spreads the wreckage of the poor,
The hapless living near the lure
Of the beast of gold in sundry forms,
A monster feeding worms.
Burning towns, piles of corpses,
And bullet-ridden cattle,
The cries of women raped,
And wailing children
End another wicked battle.
Petroleum, uranium,
Gold, silver, iron ore,
Futures and stocks, too -
All produced by the same gore.
The malice that in ancient times
Raised marauding armies,
And the contempt that in our time
Loosed financial ruin -
The mythic despot and the banker
Share that timeless heartbeat,
The drum that beats the dirge
Of the planet's strongest scourge.
And the Barbarity of Yore
All sprout the same black gore.
The avarice that piled coins high
At the point of bloodied blade
Today sees sums in bank accounts
Rise in high surreal amounts.
How to explain the riches of today
If not as a parade of terror,
Oppression, destruction,
And pain
That makes our evil plain?
Across the world and in plain sight,
A testament to greed's blind might,
Spreads the wreckage of the poor,
The hapless living near the lure
Of the beast of gold in sundry forms,
A monster feeding worms.
Burning towns, piles of corpses,
And bullet-ridden cattle,
The cries of women raped,
And wailing children
End another wicked battle.
Petroleum, uranium,
Gold, silver, iron ore,
Futures and stocks, too -
All produced by the same gore.
The malice that in ancient times
Raised marauding armies,
And the contempt that in our time
Loosed financial ruin -
The mythic despot and the banker
Share that timeless heartbeat,
The drum that beats the dirge
Of the planet's strongest scourge.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Kentucky Derby
Let us be thankful to the gods
For the bacchanalia,
For the fruits and for the wine.
So went the refrain in ancient times.
But the Lord was present in those days,
In the faces of fledgling Christians
Thrown naked into the arenas
Holding starving lions.
From those anguished faces
Wringing shackled hands
The Lord’s message rang out:
Repent! For the end is near!
But who would want to hear?
The thought of ending the party!
Really! Bring on the thrills!
The transmogrification of the Lord continued:
As a bull in a Spanish arena,
Pricked by a starving bullfighter;
As a horse in the Kentucky Derby,
Goaded by a starving jockey;
As a football player in the Super Bowl,
Cheered by a starving public.
In the lands of endless bounty,
From Rome to present day,
The rich starve in every country,
While the poor are toys for play.
All are racing to the finish,
For what prize no one can say.
In the crowd’s roar after victory,
The horse’s groans are swept away.
For the bacchanalia,
For the fruits and for the wine.
So went the refrain in ancient times.
But the Lord was present in those days,
In the faces of fledgling Christians
Thrown naked into the arenas
Holding starving lions.
From those anguished faces
Wringing shackled hands
The Lord’s message rang out:
Repent! For the end is near!
But who would want to hear?
The thought of ending the party!
Really! Bring on the thrills!
The transmogrification of the Lord continued:
As a bull in a Spanish arena,
Pricked by a starving bullfighter;
As a horse in the Kentucky Derby,
Goaded by a starving jockey;
As a football player in the Super Bowl,
Cheered by a starving public.
In the lands of endless bounty,
From Rome to present day,
The rich starve in every country,
While the poor are toys for play.
All are racing to the finish,
For what prize no one can say.
In the crowd’s roar after victory,
The horse’s groans are swept away.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)