Tag Archives: America

TURNING AROUND IN A DRASTIC MANNER

Posted on by

2

In America, God, the real god, dies every minute –
Killed from opposing directions –
First, by those believing they no longer need God
Because they’re so smart and ambitious –
And, second, by those who worship an older, passé God
Who, since he’s obviously no longer as effective for them, get furious –
And want (and actually try) to pull down the temple on their own heads.

The first are Ivy Leaguers
The second small town Evangelicals.

America traditionally has been an open-hearted kind of place –
And Ivy Leaguers and small-town Evangelicals agree about this
But they’ve been looking in opposite directions – and for now can’t see one another –
And, presently, don’t even want to!

Our Founders designed an America open to the skies –
A free land where people could be themselves –
But freedom, alone, can’t do everything.

Americans also have to be inspired collectively to acquire the best human qualities –
While expressing a spirit of openness in their lives –
Along with an authentic concern for the “beaten down.”

America does make mistakes – really big mistakes –
But, usually, eventually, turns around after admitting them.


Yes, America can turn around – sometimes, even in a drastic manner!

CHRISTIAN CAPITALISM

Posted on by

0

Poets of “the spirit,” to some, may appear un-American
Because “America” stands for a boyish “toughness” –
For men pursuing women with showers of strength
And women carrying out the role of store-window mannequins of beauty.

However, the spirit, in essence, is beautiful by itself!
Which is why it’s so unknown in all 50 states –
After all, people didn’t come here for beauty
They came for money
And, for some at least, there’s been plenty of that.

There’s a surplus of energy banging around in the good ol’ U.S. of A. –
Lots of striving to make “big house” dreams come true
Culminating in hierarchies of unequals – originally imported from the Old World
But, more recently, branded “Christian Capitalism”
Worshipped by cold and intolerant Evangelical hearts
Without the necessity of any spiritual foundation whatsoever.

It’s a mystery why beauty never became more important in America –
Perhaps it’s our dedication to “first things first”
Or that we simply never got around to fully appreciating it.

Treating “beauty” in this way, however –
Imagine how unlikely we’re ever going to view “love” or “truth” –
Much less “God” in a serious manner either.

THE GODS ARE GONE

Posted on by

0

The gods have gone – really gone –
Since America’s most outspoken religious citizens
Recently have mindlessly been losing their souls.

When the loudest voices, formerly closely allied with God,
Have turned, instead, to madly cheering for a clown –
When Jesus has, against his will, been turned into a “magic name”
To bash political and cultural opponents with –
We’re not only “close to the end” – we’re there –
At the end!

When America has steadily been turning toward crueler types of entertainment
Played out in half-hearted performances –
And when crimes are automatically glossed over and forgotten
Then, the monster clown appears
Who’s capable of despising us all –
As well as being supremely talented at mocking “the good.”

Each finger of this king clown
Is a sycophant
Whose babble makes no sense –
While, out in the audience, they’re furiously nodding their heads –
Keeping time to all this staged incoherence.

That’s why we’re driving off a cliff
A trillion miles per hour –
Because there’s no stopping the present horror from turning into a terrible death scene –
Heads piling through the windshield.

The “signs of our times” are all the cruel non-human automatic weapons
Entering schools and killing our children with despair –
Bang bang,  Bang bang –
Take that, Jesus.

TIME TO SLOW DOWN

Posted on by

0

When the world moves forward
Faster than ordinary lives are used to

Anger may grow – with people starting to look for someone or something to blame –

That’s the nature of the world –
Which just keeps on turning

One day America is 80% white
And then, a few years later, 49% –
Who’s to blame?

One day the world sings along with Perry Como
And then, a few years later, is “down” with black rapper syncopation –
What’s the remedy?

Getting angry does no good – since, in that case, one only ends up hating oneself –
Getting stupid doesn’t work either.

When change is too massive –
People sometimes call on a clown king to enter the world’s arena –
And wreck everything in sight.

Eventually, calm returns and the broken pottery gets swept up –
The clown king turning back into its constituent rotten vegetables – and disappearing –
Life returning to normal.

I worry most when the world begins moving too fast
For regular human beings to keep up –

Perhaps, now, it might be good to slow things down –
Just a bit.

 

OBELISKS AS “SUNBEAMS”

Posted on by

0

Fashioned out of stone, symbolically they’re meant to represent “sunlight” –
Because without light, there’s no life.

In 1848, the Masons, to honor Washington, laid the cornerstone
Of the world’s tallest Egyptian style obelisk –
A giant “sunbeam” set down on the broad lawn of the Nation’s Capital
That wasn’t completed until after the Civil War.

Not many people know the Washington Monument symbolizes a “sunbeam.”

Some think it might represent a stone “penis”
Erected in honor of generations of hard-nosed Southern white men,
Others think it might be a stone “compass” used to measure national power.

Perhaps, though, it should have been painted bright yellow
So its original message of light and life would have been clearer.

Or, later on, red
To remind its citizens of all the innocent blood Americans have historically shed.

Or royal purple
To express the awesome power inherent in a long run of Western Empires –
One of which America currently oversees –
But has recently, thanks to the current President, been losing at the speed of light.

Today, America is in danger of becoming increasingly senescent –
Really, just an empire of aging white men –
Whose deepest, longest held desire has been to ignore all the free independent young women
Who still care about this country.

 

 

GODS COME AND GO

Posted on by

0

Like the wind –
Like passing thoughts –
Like faint memories of the future.

From the beginning, people were fearful of being alone.

Before people made anything, before planting fields of wheat,
Before brewing beer and having fun, and before establishing permanent places to live –
They created “Gods”
And placed them high up on a shelf – served by priests –
Who then required reciprocal services, in turn, from everyone else.

When a God dies – the city also dies along with all the surrounding countryside –
Then, finally, the people’s very identity starts dying –
Because they believed in the wrong thing –
Because they didn’t understand that freedom comes before “God” –
Because they didn’t appreciate that God actually is freedom!

No person possessing an ego will ever see the real God
Because the ego is blind to itself – and to everything else as well.

No person lacking freedom will experience joy either –
Because joy thrives only in a world of unlimited freedom.

Historically, archaeologists have discovered Gods living inside other Gods
Like Russian nesting dolls –
There are also ladders inside our souls that go nowhere –
Because where there’s no spiritual orientation there can be no freedom either.

People have forgotten their love of God
So no longer remember what the opposite of despair looks like –
Instead, they’ve ended up inside materialistic media mirrors
And a desire, mainly, for morning to night entertainment.

This is how America ends.

PEACHES ARE “PERSIANS”

Posted on by

0

In the West, people thought peaches came from the East –
From Persia (actually, originally, from China).

In Persia, peaches were “perse,” which became “peche” in France,
And then “peach” by the time they reached England.
Westerners believed they were eating fruit called “Persians.”

Persians themselves love their peaches, along with their poets.
They eat peaches while, gloriously, memorizing poems –
Which are usually all about God.

In the West, poets rarely write about God anymore
And few people bother memorizing poems either.

Given that, which country – America or Iran –
Do you now think is truly civilized?

WE HAD IT ALL – SO WHERE DID IT ALL GO?

Posted on by

3

In the ‘50’s, America had recently finished WWII – fairly unscathed –
And then, without much thought, dove into a deep, largely innocent, materialism –
At country club “blue pools,”
Bigger houses, cars with sharp fins, longer vacations, sometimes even to foreign countries,
Along with a lot of golf, art, alcohol, and sports –
We had it all.

‘50’s novelists commonly wrote about Americans’ inner emptiness
While 50’s churches filled to overflowing with families worshipping a unique conformist “American religion.”

This country has been like a giant pendulum – erratically swinging between left and right –
And between puritan intensity and a “there’s no tomorrow” type of indulgence.

We created an American-persona “God” to serve in those American churches
Relying, however, upon the strength of our military-industrial complex to “save” us –
If needed –
Instantly self-forgetting and self-forgiving anything, historically, we’ve done to others.

No one reads those 50’s novels anymore – they’re too sterile –
True – but depressingly flat.

Nowadays, Americans no longer strive so much for material things –
In part because, for the most part, they’re relatively less affluent than back then,
But still want to understand where all their American “greatness” has gone.

Occasionally, a few Americans have even started musing about the possibility
Of, one day, becoming inwardly wealthy – maybe for the first time.

What a thought!

FROM TOP TO BOTTOM

Posted on by

1

I propose founding a new religion – for the “Nones” –
One that believes in “Nothing but God”
And has the kind of spiritual freedom people need –
That is, it’ll be democratic – without any prescribed theology –
Each person having an equal right to love God in their own way.

It’ll work best in cultures that value freedom –
And which have done the necessary work to root out social structures inhibiting it.

Today, however, there are many societies that “talk” about freedom
But which, from their beginnings, were structured to take it away –

So, I believe that everything related to freedom – especially in America –
Needs to be thought through again – “from scratch.”

Without freedom, a religion’s “God,” of necessity, ends up deformed –
Unfortunately, along with its followers.

To be clear, I’m not talking about the kind of freedom that can be used to undermine God –
I’m talking about the freedom to be a “child of God.”

Historically, there’s been a lot of good work accomplished on freedom –
It’s just that too many contemporary religions and secular institutions,
Visibly and invisibly,
Are still abrogating it – taking it away by force or trickery.

We need to be much clearer in our hearts and heads
To become more conscious about what truly helps us be free and what doesn’t –

From top to bottom –
We need a life of spiritual freedom –

The kind that, for now, pretty much only God enjoys!

FINDING GOD IN AMERICA

Posted on by

0

Where can God be found, now, in America?

Certainly not in suburban shopping malls –
Or, out there, stuck in a traffic jam –
And never, ever on cable TV – that’s for sure!

What about in the Friday Night prayers of h.s. football coaches?
Or as reflected in the back-lit jowls of Southern Baptist preachers?

No, I don’t think so.

Since we live in a democratic country,
Might there not be virtually millions of so-called “American Gods” –
Or are they all just egos search-lighting the empty night skies?

We do have a “National Religion” though – a Judeo-Christian composite one –
But it’s been used, largely, to justify wars and our greatest historical crimes.

If, however, we’re unable to find God here in America – at all –
Then we probably won’t be able to find any meaning either –
And, if we can’t find meaning,
We’ll probably end up lost out in the dusty fields of a digital world.

Even though we always faithfully celebrate our birthdays,
Unfortunately, we never take time to reflect on our fast-approaching deathday –
Because, patriotically, we refuse to recognize its existence.

If, however, you can’t think about death,
You’ll probably never encounter God either,
Because, after all, that’s where “the God we know” originally came from –

Life always comes out of non-life,
Doesn’t it?