Jesus’ parables.
Our notion of right and wrong
Stem from Him, and Him alone.
In the West, we, even believing we do not,
Follow His command.
Even in rebellion, our rebellion
Is because of something He said.
Our hatred of Gays our hatred of “Cisgenders”
It comes from Christ’s teachings Who said
“Be Kind.”
Everyone has taken a foothold on that
Christian and Atheist alike.
Only Christians seem to satisfy it
And behave the way Christ taught…
Much to the Atheist’s despair.
Goethe, of course.
All of our conspiracy theories,
All of our fascination with the Occult…
Hawthorn, Twain and Freemasonry
The idea of selling a soul
To obtain the prize in life.
How we all think about it,
Ruminate on it,
Believe it to be the case
That Satan does, in fact
Steal souls, and that there is no way around it.
All of our celebrities are either gods
Or they are abominations.
They are either objects of ridicule
Baals to be thrown down.
Or they are the very idol we follow…
With regard, the religion of the West
Is to sell out, or sell to naught.
Of course, Milton’s Paradise Lost
Permeates our culture.
The most British thing
Is how we all secretly
Empathize with Satan—
Not me, I use the Royal We,—
Though I am not Royal
I do have to live with everyone else’s mistakes—
How we cannot at all understand
But rather are bemused by wisdom
And will even sympathize with the devil.
Completely missing the crux of the great work
That Satan was a murderer
Whose sole mission is to destroy us
And convince us with wisdom it is moral to do.
But, still, Westerners never read Paradise Lost;
We’re still convinced we can make an argument
To prove God exists… therefore we forget
That God is good, and that’s why we worship Him.
Satan, through persuasion, has made the most foul crimes acceptable.
So when Americans do read Milton, they get persuaded by Beelzebub.
I do know he made most convincing argument.
A fifth is Thus Spake Zarathustra.
We are all preoccupied with power.
With fortune. With our will’s strength
Over all of the opponents’—
Those opponents the very people we know.
Over the psychopathic tendency
To not give a care about
Others, but rather our lives were solely
About exploiting those weaker than us.
Then… on the flip…
I’ve heard Nietzsche called the Philosopher of Joy.
What joy is there in declaring God is dead
When He merely died?
Precisely, the American wants their life here…
In the process they lose it.
They forget Christ made us hope in the afterlife
So our lives here would be filled with less suffering.
As all the atheist did was bash kindhearted theologians
While trying to repress the urge of the conscience.
Afterward it is Grimm Fairy Tales.
Disney… of course. But need I go to the whole principle
Of Grimm Fairy Tales
Which is the power of the will
And the power of choice.
How our entire society is obsessed with choices
And volition…
Much like the Grimms were when writing the tales.
For we are a culture obsessed with choice
With conquering evils with vengeance and force.
Wanting to overthrow and destroy
All evil in the world,
To bring swift rebuke to the criminal
And to live autonomous through the will.
But we forget that the path is chosen
By character—so, we conversely
Pretend like we never believed in Fairy Tales
Because most of us find we are the actual villains in the stories.
And as a sixth,
I have to confess,
Is Harry Potter.
Just the casuistry
Of the populace to believe
Rowling didn’t want her books interpreted.
She didn’t want them taught in schools…
Therefore, Voldemort is not Hitler
Because to our minds Voldemort doesn’t need to be understood.
The defiance of a meaning,
The Postmodern frack fest
That is Harry Potter,
Where the Audience got to make up the story
While Rowling wrote it.
Neither nor really understanding
One another…
For Harry Potter itself is not influential.
Just the casuistry it created.
And it wasn’t the author’s fault.
It was the populace not understanding what they read.
Rather, they defied Rowling to make a point.
But one snuck in there, nonetheless.
B. K. Neifert 