Let us sneak away from the world for a moment, a day, an hour, somewhere far off.
Could we stay where no worries can touch us? We could live the old cliché where everything drifts away-- no jagged scars to light the sky above ink black mountains, or loud drums of scary thunder, no driving rain and golf ball hail to bring to mind the old woman with leathered skin horribly bent and twisted at the waist, pushing a makeshift cart down the street from Walmart ----
Here I am warm, safe. Scared and worried, yes-- about possible broken windows or a leak in the roof while a poor, bent soul has no windows to break, and no roof to leak.
Now, in my safe, warm privilege, after having driven by her earlier today, I wonder if she is safe or being stoned by such hail. Some may say, “Her choices led her there…” “She should have found a way…” “If life gave her lemons….”
How can anyone make anything when life hands you dirt on top of nothing? Sometimes people have no luck, but I did as a once homeless teen.
And what am I, who can now some fifty years later, seek escape from the worries of how a roof and windows will fare in this storm, when such as she exists?
Times of shattered glass herald the approaching dark Crone of a world war.
At night, soldiers come children cry out, glass shards of fear crushed into their skin
If we do nothing-- slaves we become, breathing out blood drops of a dream, emptied of promise held within springtime blossoms of “a more perfect union”
The imbued promise of humanity dies, consumed with the cancer of fear. A swan song of church bells, calls to prayers drift on the winds. As humanity prays Salat al-Janazah, The Mourner’s Kaddish, El Malei Rachamim, A Prayer of Eternal Rest, Or Psalm 23– take your pick— While meditations for enlightenment circle the drain of wishes for the humane to be found within what humanity was created to be— Now only found in one minute sound bites of feel-good stories at the end of the evening news to give us hope for a brighter tomorrow, leaving a cloying aftertaste of baby food custard in the tiny souls we have left ourselves. Though drops of water possess the power to eventually wear away stone, these drops of feel-good stories can never fill the promise we never made reality-- the potential we were given and squandered. We fed the isotopes of our hate our selfishness our greed our self-aggrandizement until morbidly obese with evil that overtook our planet our souls our societies, and we became not the sweet dream any God saw in us but the nightmare now plaguing that God.
The captain of industry gleefully looks to history As a populous forgets all the tales of prophecy While writhing in the seduction of blame and lies.
Thus, all the best in humanity is left behind. Firing squads, internment camps, and torture now promised. Yes, the captain says to let the horsemen ride.
The angry populous forgets The path of anger makes the “world blind.” Yes, the captain says to let the horsemen ride.
The sun dons a robe of sackcloth, grieving. The ocean’s rasping last breath, As the moon’s face rained blood tears, Turning rivers red.
Yes, the captain bellowed, “Let the horsemen ride.”
Nonsense things of twisted rhetoric
hang around the neck of a nation.
Words braided into twisted doctrines
of red and black and white.
Hatred fought so long ago
blended into now
with a new pandemic
in the wake
of aberrant dreams.
Here where truth once
swayed and danced,
offering humanity
a grand romance
of belief in a thing
the world had never seen--
Golden rules made real.
We knew our daughters and sons
would serve as the sacrificial lambs
to keep our rules golden
for all generations to be free.
Though freedom be washed
in the blood of our lambs,
we still believed
in the grand romance--
And oh, how we did dance
For over two hundred years.
Then the roped nonsense came,
tarnished the shine of our romance,
interrupted the rhythm of our dance.
The twisted rhetoric strangled us
as a new sickness spread.
No ease given; no treatment sought.
Pockets lined with gold
more important than golden lives.
Hatred and apathy listened
to the new prophet,
who said they were right--
Everything wrong was
the fault of others:
The poor in spirit are just lazy.
Those who mourn make excuses.
The meek are just weak.
Those wanting righteousness want it all free.
The pure in heart want to give your gold away.
The peacemakers don’t want us to be strong.
Then the new prophet claimed he was the persecuted one,
promising vengeance for his own sake.
His apostles believed his sermons,
proclaiming him their chosen one.
Order is all,
He said.
Law is all,
He said.
He would teach them
by putting all people
in their rightful place.
Justice lay raped,
bloody, raw,
beaten and gassed,
in the streets
as his disciples cheered
while the petty false prophet smirked,
holding a Holy book.
Re-forge the chain of Liberty’s shackle,
he ordered.
Then Truth
stopped swaying,
stopped dancing,
offered us nothing,
flames of romance dying.
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