Close Enough

1. Dogwood and Matzah Bread

The Matzah's holes and chars are like our Christ's
Wounds and bruises. It breaks, like Christ's body.
The dogwood's flowers, like a ray of sun
Had told me today, are wilted on its
Four petals, for "Christ was crucified on
Dogwood." Though not true, in either case, twain,
They are beautiful little thoughts which prove
Christ in their own, strange; fascinating ways.
That the Hawkish prudishness which doubts this
And must take every metaphor for a
Holy Writ, getting offended at lore
Which is beautiful, expounds upon man's 
Linear thinking. Not even complex 
Equations solve so prudishly---why does
It have to be literal? Christ was hanged
On an olive tree, yet the dark wrinkles
Of the Dogwood's bloom can remind us of
Those four wounds Christ took in his hands and feet.

Same is the skeptic's who say Christ could not 
Have been crucified, for scripture did not
Mention ropes. That is another kind of 
Prudishness. Everyone knew how men were 
Crucified. Rather, both kinds of rigid
Thinking are epitomes of stupid.
Maybe things of literary merit
Need not be exact, but remind us that
It did, indeed, happen once in history? 

2. Old Atheists

There is nothing so handsome
As the look of confidence on an old Atheist's sneering face,

Just as there is nothing so serene
As the look of satisfaction on an old Christian's. 

Both men have uncovered many truths
Yet the first is bitter while the second breathes a second breath.

3. Modern Music

Modern music is tinged with sadness.
Every breath is big, epic... yet melancholy.

Yet the older music, at its saddest
Was still a celebratory feast.

4. The Perfume of the Wild Flowers

The perfume of the wildflowers
Carries with the scent of the woods.
My lover's musk is like that of this breeze.
The April mowings brim in the warmer
Zephyrs of the sun's bath and periwinkle flood
Of sky; 

My lover, you are more pleasant than these.

5. Major Third

The minute I am vulnerable
In a poem,
I just want to delete the son of a gun.
I feel a tight pull somewhere outside my chest.
It is my spirit breaking...

Don't make me have to do this
To earn my bread.
I am distant---
My prophecy erring
For the same reason Jonah's did.

I want to keep my reader away.
I don't want them attuned to my heart.
I don't want them knowing where I hurt.
I want to talk about lofty things.
I want to speculate on things far away.

I don't want to talk about feelings
If there is nothing good to feel.
I don't want to sing songs like this.

They're popular...
Everyone loves them.
Everyone loves to hear the heartache
Everyone wants to see the vulnerabilities.

Don't you understand I'd rather talk politics
And religion
And philosophy
And art
And science
And math
And sociology
And psychology
And history
And mythology
And nature

And not talk about my feelings?
I'd rather not talk about my feelings.
An autobiography of life
Is not something I want to write.

Everyone wants an autobiography.
My life's too painful to write it.
Save in fables.

6. I–V–vi–IV

I walk with you through the valley
Walk with me one step more.
I saved you once, my daddy,
Don't make living into a dark chore.

Believe in my songs and future
Believe in my fortune and gift.
Don't throw me away with the soothers
Don't hate me or cause a rift.

I want to see my future
I want the good things of this world.
I have always been a straight shooter
And you an ever shining pearl.

I don't want great fame
Or money or vice.
I don't want my name
To be flashing with lights.

But, God gave me a talent
That you said not to burry.
So, don't think I'm a rapscallion 
For not wanting to worry

About my work which I have made.
This work I am called to, see;
Come what will or what may.

7. Karma Doesn't Exist

Karma is just the social opinion
Others have of you.
It is unforgiving,
Unjust, biased
Without mercy toward completely innocent people---
It justifies a serial killer and makes him feel no shame.
It constantly breaks and destroys an innocent man.
Do untouchables do untouchable things?
Did Genghis Kahn suffer anything?
What about the other countless dictators
And Mass Murderers in Asia and Africa?
Did Stalin receive Karma?
Did Mao? People still love him to this day.
He starved, slaughtered and imprisoned almost five-hundred million people.
Yet, his Karma is so good,
For half the world sings his praise.

Karma is a cur.
Because it has no justice
And no mercy.
It's as much a backward fable as the Koran.

8. God is Going to Bless Me

God is going to bless me
This I know is true.
For when I stand for Jesus
All things I fear will cool;
The fires of hell surround me
But Christ my compass reigns.
In Him I am a man freed
From sin's bondage and its chains.

***

"Let me never turn again..." 
T. S. Eliot in "Ash Wednesday"

***

"Evil is ancient, just like good."
B. K. Neifert

***

9. The Daughter of Zion

I, Christ's bride, wish to know the LORD.
I, rejected by my wife of youth, wish to be married
To the Land of Zion. I wish to call Zion 
"Beulah." I, a son of Zion, wish to be married to her,
I wish to cling, and become a nation.
I, a meek man, wish to become a clan.
I wish to Kiss the Son, so He is not angry with me.
LORD, answer me.

LORD, peer into the lattice for me;
Let thy hands drip with myrrh.
A Thousand Talents are yours, Solomon,
Let leave the LORD and I to lean one upon another, 
While coming up from the wildernesses.

10. Falsely Called

Our modern age
Looks upon every truth
And claims it is a lie.
Then, with the truth cast aside,
It invents a falsehood, saying it is science.

11. So You Want to be a Christian?

Do not be a Christian, and sin.
Do not come to Jesus, if sin
Is the thing you love above all.
Get your short life, and fill it good;
Suffer eternity in hell.

For if you will say you are a Christian
And choose to keep on sinning, you shall heap
Up evil upon yourself, and also 
Those you love. For you shall say, "Come this way!"
But it is a slippery slope, which will
Break you. And it will kill those you do love.
For they shall be led by you, believing
They have good from heaven, yet in their sins
Remain they dead to heavenly abodes.

Rather, heap up for yourselves heavenly 
Treasure, by living righteously and true.
Even if you are an offence to your
Brother, at least you live with blessings true.
You show them the path, and, yes, it is hard.
You wrestle with God like Jacob, to wounds
Yet, you cling even though your hip is touched
And you are wounded, broken, bruised--- you cling.
And those who are undaunted by your life
Will follow in your footsteps, those behind Christ's.

12. Why We Need Jesus

Man had learned what sin is
When he ate from the Tree of Knowledge.
From that point onward, man was cursed
Because not only could he sin,
He knowingly could now justify his sin.
And with that, man would have no way
To save himself, for he would be corrupt
By way of having knowledge of sin.

So, God repented of making man;
He was sorry for having created us.
Therefore, He gave us a way out
Of our miserable state, that on acceptance
We should be empowered to live a life
Worthy of Him. Through choosing the sprout
Of David, we would have redemption through Christ.

For man, having no choice but to sin---
For sin is compulsory in this world---
Need have a way to be forgiven
And therefore not suffer for his knowingly committing it.
Not only for his knowing it, 
But for his justification of it.

For by biting the fruit,
We now could rationalize our sin
And make it right in our own eyes.
That is the knowledge of judgment.
And that is a sin worthy of eternal damnation
To say, "I have done no wrong,
"But rather, whomever I hurt, I am in the right."

13. Joshua's Alter

Kosher bones, ashes, it's a sacrificial alter.
It is built exactly as Joshua said it was.
It has a ramp, therefore, is not a pagan alter.
It has scarab Beetles, explaining the Egyptian
Tie. Ironically, those same beetles are found throughout
All of Israel. T'was dated 1200BC,
Predating Josiah or Persian restoration;
Actually built at the exact time Joshua lived.
It is built exactly where Joshua said it was.
A tablet was found, made of lead, for permanence,
With three letters of the Tetragrammaton written 
In the proto-Hebrew alphabet. True evidence.
The lead tablet has curses written on it, just like
The Bible says. Joshua said, "Choose this day whom you serve."
For, by passing the mount Hubaal, one chooses the LORD
And leaves sin behind them, at the alter, once for all.
There is also evidence of Jeremiah, and 
Hezekiah having lived in Israel, as well.

What does it prove? That Israel was a people. Long
Before Josiah, long before Cyrus the Great, and
It proves Israel has been a people, forgotten
Once, as Hosea said, but now remembered and found.

14. Falsely Called Science

I

While reading my commentary on Milton
The thought entered into my head---
Creation Science is the thing falsely called.
Which, men professing, have strayed from the faith.

Do we not believe in an omnipotent God?
It was said by one, "Wouldn't God be a liar
"If he created the Earth in six days, but made
"It look like six billion years?" To which, I had no answer.
I still believed in God---yet, I'm not foolish enough
To gamble my life against science. Science seems will win
That bout, unless the Earth is flat, and all science is magic.

God is real because Nietzsche is right;---
By being right, we can plainly observe he is wrong.
Good and Evil are inherent, and easily observed.
Therefore, I say, "God merely died---
"He's as much alive today as any of us living."

II

Yet, now that we have trusted science and not God
Had not science become something of a god?
Need men a deity as cruel and ruthless?
One which gives no justice, save man's faulty laws?
One which confuses man from wo, and causes sodomy
To be praised higher than conception?
Science which calls human life a sin?
Science which says of a baby, "It should die
"If it will suffer long in this life."

There is nothing worse than the dual edged sword.
At first, science claimed, "There is not a god,"
To which, science then ceased to be science.
It claimed, "A man is a woman if he so believes."
Why? If I believe I can fly, and throw myself off a cliff
Will I not fall like any other man? If I walk on water
Will I not sink? To answer this question,
One stops believing in science, and starts believing in magic.
One starts believing in faith. My remark to one who crosses
The bridge from natural to supernatural is,
"Will science then moot itself in the future
"And bring us back to a pitiful dark age?"

Therefore, let the damned fly and walk on water;---
Let the innocent walk on water and fly to prove their faith.
What difference does it make? If we make all things possible
By means of magic, science no longer means anything.
If I walked on water, and a sinner could walk on water,
Then Jesus' miracle is moot. Is it not?
And science with it. Therefore, let me live by what truly is science
So when a healing comes, I can attest that it was not I,
But Jesus living within me. And man can remain amazed
That the physics which he rightly knows to be Law
Was violated in the name of good. Not evil.

15. Something Christians Ought not Say

Do not say, "Satan is the god of this world."
If I had twenty dollars for every time a pastor said this
I'd be well compensated. For, do pastors know what they say?
Paul had said it first, and being who he is
He must have meant to bring shock to his readers.
The same way I will say things to subvert common wisdom.
But, Satan is not the god of this world.
If he is, then he has lordship over you.
Why make him your head? Unless it is to throw you into hell?
Rather, Christ is the God of this world.
Satan is but a prince who suzerains,
And is in rebellion against his dominion.
Do we call the prince a god?
In those states which do, they are worshipping Baalim.
Do you wish to worship a Baalim?
Also, when Paul said, "Satan was the God of this world,"
He also said, "As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.."
Do we then say, "Paul is a Gnostic!"
Paul was not a gnostic, but subverted the expectation if his reader.
Just as I am not an atheist, but use common atheistic wisdom
To subvert my reader. 
Just as Paul says "Satan is the god of this world,"
He does not mean literally, but that Satan is the god the world worships
And not our Creator. 
Cease saying it, lest you make Satan your god, and incur wrath on yourself.

***

"For if you love your neighboring kingdom as your own, 
you will have less occasion to do them injustice
and thereby have less war." ---
Mo Tzu from the Mozi

***

"There is no absolute wisdom in this life;
things that ought not be, often are,
and things that ought be, often aren't.
Rather, hold onto your faith and let go of all illusions." ---
B. K. Neifert

16. Poetry

An engineer is a poet of sorts,
Precisely ordering her concepts
Through strings of operations.

A poet is an engineer of words
Laying down an idea,
Using his deductive proof
Of conjunctions and copulas,
Of phrases and clauses,
To describe something true about human existence..

Wise men are the ones who like them---
Common folk don't do math in their free time
So also they don't read poetry.

However, for those who are engineers,
And doctors, and lawyers,
And priests, and poets, and professors,
And students of life...
We take enjoyment from the big concepts.
So, those in the STEM field
Don't say a poem is useless---

Look at it like a riddle which needs solved.
And that riddle will reveal deeper things
About the human cosmos swirling around us.
It fills a mind like a cup as sweet
As milk and honey. It fills a mind with meaning.

I pray to God that it is not a curse
To think deeply, and see wisely.
For, if it were, I would remain saddened
By the loss of my mind.
The only thing sweeter than poetry
Is love--- And Poetry teaches me how to love
For it forces me to listen carefully to what other people are saying
And it teaches me the joy of other people's ideas.

17. Stupid People

It was brought to my attention
That a stupid person was one
Who was misfortunate.
And being unfortunate,
They brought misfortune on others.
I thought long and hard on it---
Only a stupid person would
Create an x/y graph, and link
Fortune with intelligence.

Good Character ought to bring fortune
Whether someone were not intelligent
Or someone were. Yet, it is not always the case.
For some people, with exceptionally bad character,
Bring fortune to themselves and all around them.
There are some with exceptionally good character
Like Jesus, who being gifted with God's intelligence
Are extremely unfortunate.

Is it intelligence which brings fortune?
Not always... men with iqs of 200 are extremely
Unfortunate, and do nothing with their lives
Beside farm---though they are very wise
For what else is there? They are unfortunate
In the sense that they are not household names
They are not great innovators solving problems.
They are unfortunate.

Really, there is no causal link between
Good Character, Fortune and Intelligence.
Each is a positive attribute to have
As desirable as the next.
To have good fortune is highly prized.
Intelligence is highly prized.
Character is highly prized.

In free societies, good character ought to bring good fortune.
This is true. There ought to be that causal link
And where good character cannot bring fortune---
And rather brings misfortune---that society is called corrupt.
Where bad character brings fortune
And not misfortune that society is corrupt.

Really, fortune is as much a lot
As a die cast---and depending on what you do with it
Determines your own prowess.
Yet, even prowess is not the same as fortune.
And prowess is not the same as intelligence.

There are many things and diversities.
Fortune, though, is primarily linked
To willpower or luck, depending on whether
A society were benevolent or corrupt.
In that sense, it is linked---but only with good character
And never with intelligence.

18. Guangwu

Recorded in Chinese History,
On the Seventh Year of Guangwu
In the Fourth Month---which is exactly at Passover---
It is exactly 31AD. And the sun darkened
According to the historical text.
The text prophesied that one man
Would bear the sins of the entire world,
And pardoning on the whole world would be accomplished.
It is in the actual text.
"The sins of all the people are on one man
"And pardon is proclaimed to all who are under heaven."
"Man from heaven died."

The miraculous thing about this is that
The next Solar Eclipse would be in 33ad.
Therefore, Christ was crucified in 31ad
And Chinese Historians had chronicled
The darkening of the sun on that exact day.
A year which did not have a solar eclipse.
It is actual historical evidence of the darkening
Which happened during the crucifixion.

Found in the history of the latter Hans
Record number 18.

19. Skeptic's Mundi

I once saw a man speak eloquently---
He said electricity were like a chain
Where the electrons vibrated back and forth
Which were stimulated by the electromagnetic
Force surrounding the entire chain.

My best friend explained magnetism
To me, like a magnet's field
Were something of a solid object.
Which, occupying space
Would push or pull like a metal rod.

Also, a thousand light year chain
If taut, and no resistance,
Being moved would move the whole
Thousand light year chain.
The whole thing would move,
All thousand light years of it.
Just like the cosmos expanding
Causes objects to move at speeds
Faster than light---does this make sense?

Therefore, this man implanted an idea in me
To which expressing his views, he reneged.
For, electrons flow through the wire like water---
So therefore, my entire idea was moot.
Was he wrong? I don't know.
I have not instruments to observe electrons
Flowing through a wire.
Only, that if his principle were right about electrons,
Then no matter how far away something were
From a power source, it ought to feed power immediately
To an object at any distance---
Assuming the electrical field were taut.

Or, maybe my first assumption of electricity was right
That electrons just move through wires like a river;
And therefore, the entire idea were moot.
I had watched inception yesterday,
And the pinwheel incepted in the young Fischer was a bad concept.
I hope to not have incepted in me a bad concept---
Though, it is our freedom we enjoy to be wrong;
Let blood be spilt if anyone ever tried to steal that from us.
So like this man, I will change my mind if the evidence appears.
But, I know nothing of electricity---only what I have heard said about it.
And what he originally said, it seems my premise ought to be correct.

Yet, this is a skeptic's world;
So much so that basic science is doubted.
A thousand scathing critics bite him---
They were not paid.
They were not hired.
They were not actors.
Rather, to destroy beautiful concepts
Was all they set out to do.
And frankly, the breadth of this wise man's
Knowledge seems to be more lucid
Than their ranting tirades.
Thus, I believe him, though he might have gotten this one thing wrong.
It led me down a rabbit hole, which led me to an interesting thought.

To be completely honest,
It wouldn't surprise me at all
To think we understood it better in the 50s.
We had a lot of things better understood then,
Including Psychology.

Yet, things either are or they aren't.
That's the main principle of science;
But the principle of freedom is that we have a right to be wrong;
As, how could knowledge ever be pursued without that freedom?
Also, how ought progress be sustained without the risk of failure?
And if every risk in science were met by a thousand dissenting voices
Silencing what might be the actual truth, I find that serious
And the beginnings of a dark age.

"Cram them full of noncombustible data, 
chock them so damned full of 'facts' 
they feel stuffed, but absolutely 
`brilliant' with information."
Beatty to Guy Montag
In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

"Where I have to fear
for an unpopular or incorrect opinion,
or am spied on for having such,
it is no longer a free society."
B. K. Neifert