Category: Poem

The Muse of the Arabica

Scrolling through the poems

O’ the poems,

The muse of the Arabica—

Yet, how many the Robusta—

Is the laurel champion of the

Mind’s strongest conjurings.

 

Like some kind of spell

We poets weave the strong drink

To bless it like Dionysus,

The drunken wine of the gods;

Foul Cretans they are to juice our minds

With the spirits of the age…

 

O’ Arabica, thou muse…

Robusta! None sing of thy tart fame.

The elixir of the Pagan rights

To bless the bounty of the cup

Rather than the bounty of the provision

Of Jehovah-Jyra

For the muse and the laurel

Of the day.

 

The strong drink

Which drives the prophets mad

And the minstrels sing their songs of you…

O gods, goddesses,

Lamenting like the Titans

Lamenting like thee O’ devils

Whom Paradise lost,

The war of the gods overthrowing the Titans

Is an ancient story… ancient

Despotic,

Of the regimes of one set of kings

Who overthrew another.

These manipulators,

These men who suck the venom

Of the Asp of Dionysus’

Cup, of the venom of the strong elixir

Which men praise’th

The God of Drunkenness.

 

Foul the beasts by which the depths of dawn’s

Chariot’s—this is no allusion, but the image has been born before I know—

Strike to the root of thy coffers

Which ingrained within is the strong drink

Which drives the whole earth mad.

For if we just praise it…

All know it is the source of our stories.

Yet… the Titans, and soon to be the gods

Will be bound in the chains of misery…

O, Saturn, Prometheus, Hyperion,

O Jove, Venus, and Hades…

Soon thy reign shall end—

And the true thunder of the God

The one who roars from the clouds of heaven

Like a Lion, in the storm which lit the sky like day does reign

And is goodly, the Spirits of which we should be drunk—

Those false gods shall be bound in those chains

Which you sought to place those whom thou ruled.

For one, I say one, has driven away the demon.

In moderation, the strength by habit causes no harm,

Yet in excess—which our story is about—

The strong drinks drives the prophets mad.

There Were Two Men

There were two men.

 

The first was a prophet.

The prophet, when he saw the wickedness of mankind

Would pray to the Father in heaven

And would accuse men of being wicked.

He would reprove for the sake of correction

And nothing he spoke was with intent to harm

But rather was with intent to increase faithfulness

Among the sons of men.

Never did he say, “You sin like thus,

“And, therefore, you are a worthless fellow.”

But rather, “The whole sins like thus,

“And your sins will condemn you.

“Not that I have never sinned,

“But that you are sinning right now,

“And I am concerned for your well being.”

When men heard this,

They felt sore vexed

Because it seemed like the Prophet was accusing

Them right to their face.

But it was rather the whole who the prophet accused;

And men stood up in judgment against this prophet

To say, “He is more wicked in his judgments

“Then we are in our murders and thefts!”

 

The second man was a judge.

He would see of men, “They are righteous,

“And they are, for the whole part, better than this man.”

But, when he saw a man’s sins,

He would say, “This man is incredibly wicked.

“This man, I have seen him be wicked

“I have seen his sins,

“Because I have made a diligent search for them.

“I will not depart from him

“Until I am justified in myself

“That I have found error in him.”

This man, all men loved

Because he had accused the righteous

And had encouraged the wicked to sin

By justifying them, and by making himself justified in their eyes.

Wherever he was, he made sure he was justified in their eyes

And that the truth, even, was abominable in the sights of men

Because he would rather be justified in his position

And not the truth; and once he found sin

He went home and said, “I know I am righteous

“And this other man is a sinner more than I.

“For, the prophets are judgmental,

“And I am humble and give grace to the sinner.”

 

Which man will stand in judgment?

Who is the hypocrite?

Why I Believe in God

A friend of mine recently said to me,

“What if heaven is so terrible,

“That you wouldn’t possibly want to go there?”

I thought of my poem describing my idea of what heaven is.

I thought to myself, “Me, in my paltry understanding,

“Can create this place.

“But why did God create the earth?

“It seems so bad.”

I then consider how much I want.

Love. Sex. Good, pleasurable food. Family. Raising a family.

Enjoyment from work.

I look at this earth, and I am impressed by how

Heavenly it could be, if everyone behaved in a decent way.

I then look around, and I see people cause most of the suffering.

I think, “Why wouldn’t God come right now and stop all of this?”

Then I think of my future wife, how we’ll have sex

Marry, have children, cook five star dishes,

An enjoy. I look at what prevents me.

Human corruption.

So, I again ask, “Why doesn’t God stop this suffering?”

Then I think of my future lover’s gentle loves

Eating and working to provide for my family.

Then I wonder why I suffer. It is men.

“Why doesn’t God stop all of this right now?”

Again, I think of the nudity of my future spouse,

The fusing of our genes into human beings

By the most delicious of God’s creation here on the earth.

How I can work, feed them, eat from that work.

Why is there suffering?

Because people are unsatisfied with this.

I’m not, but I see everyone trying to prevent

Everyone else from obtaining this dream.

“Why doesn’t God come right now?”

Because there is a chance I can make love

Feel the pleasure of a family.

 

Round and round this cycle goes

Until I die, and if I have not reached this goal,

I say, “What was my life worth?”

And then God takes me to a paradise

That if it is better than this earth,

I think of the paradise of this earth

And how paradisaical it is.

That’s why I believe in God

Because there is so much good here.

And I know heaven will be great

Because this is the flawed of God’s creation…

It’s flawed because of us.

In heaven, there will be no more of “Us”

And our sin. Which means we’ll have pleasures uncountable.

Because a life with no meaning steals from all men

This meaning I have found…

Men cannot reach the meaning without God.

That is good enough for me to believe in Him.

Because I know without it, men will only have reason to make other men suffer.

With a meaning, we’ll have every reason to make men suffer less

And knowing that men do suffer, and that this earth is filled

With such sublime pleasures,

I know there is a God, and I know heaven will be greater.

A Regea song

Preacher man don’t tell me

Heaven is on the earth.

Preacher man don’t tell me

Suffering is all we’re worth.

Because when you go digging for all that gold

I know eternal life on earth gets old

So don’t tell me things I know are cold.

 

Great Rasta you smoke your dope

Say getting high is for good folk…

Well I tell you all this song

It’s stupid to find meaning in your bong.

 

Because I see you corrupt as hell

Singing songs to the broken man

With all  of the lies you tell.

Saying, “Heaven is a place on earth,”

While billions live and die in crusted dearth.

 

Preacher man you ain’t off the hook.

You use religion and say, “O no, don’t look.”

You are the best magician’s wand

Waving hands say’n, “O, my dear God,”

While you see the people grow old and poor.

You say, “God wants me to have some more.”

 

So get up stand up,

Stand up for your right.

Get up stand up,

Don’t give up the fight.

 

I’m sick’ and tired of your liv’n, giv’n games

Saying, “Don’t live to go to heaven in Jesus’ name.”

Don’t give up the fight

Stand up for your right.

 

I see a world we all must bear

For years on end and that’s why I care,

Don’t give up the fight.

Stand up for your right,

The Elmer Fudd of Today

What surprises me the most

Is having watched Looney Tunes

As an adult, I see Bugs Bunny is in the role of Squidward.

Elmer Fudd, Marvin the Martian,

The Tasmanian Devil,

They are basically Sponge Bob

And Patrick, and Mr. Crabs.

 

It’s almost eerie in a way

That we’ve moved from the Looney Tunes

Where the characters were defending themselves

From being eaten, from their homes being invaded,

From a whole host of things and aggression.

But, Sponge Bob, Patrick, Sandy and Mr. Crabs

Come and destroy Squidward’s life over

And over, and over, and over again.

Now the home invader is Sponge Bob

And it’s ok. The person with the right

To privacy, the right to live and let live

Is being invaded by Sponge Bob.

 

I don’t say this to say that Sponge Bob is a bad cartoon.

I like the cartoon.

I just think it displays our modern archetype

Of the victim being the one to blame

Because they are stuffy, or whatever reason we find.

Often Squidward is innocent in every episode,

And we find a narcissistic pattern in all the characters.

Which, seems to reflect the society.

Did it build the society?

Art tends to do that better than any medium

Because it works on a powerful,

Subconscious level.

And it does…

The question is our response to it as a culture.

Do we let things continue down this path

Of Sociopathy, Psychopathy,

Criminal Negligence, etc.

Because Bugs Bunny always had justice on his side.

It seems Sponge Bob does not…

Very frankly our culture reflects this reality

By giving the Sponge Bob like people

Those haphazard, foolish,

Zealous and lustful about life

The reward, which is happiness.

We prize Sponge Bob in our modern culture

Because he doesn’t question the corruption

Around him, but rather is part of the corruption itself.

You can say Squidward is, too,

But in a sense he’s being exploited

And is in indentured servitude

At least implied a dozen times in the cartoon.

So… it’s eerie that this is our moral compass today.

And again, Sponge Bob is not a bad cartoon.

I think, though, the challenge it presents

To the former ethos is one that presents

Within its design and internal logic

A pattern of corruption that seems to celebrate

People who are overworked,

People who are exploited,

And people who are content with being exploited.

Which, frankly,

That’s the sum difference of Looney Tunes and Sponge Bob.

Looney Tunes the characters fought back.

Both are excessively violent, and display the same

Lewd sexual undertones.

That’s not the issue.

The issue is which side has justice.

And Bugs and Daffy Duck

We saw this same thing…

It’s something cartoons exploit.

It’s not something that ought to be censored.

But often, justice is a very powerful thing

And we need to at least have some semblance of it in our art

As I’m pretty sure most of our problems today

Stem from our art.

The reason why is because

Simply put

They put ideas in our head

That weren’t there previously,

You can lie and say it doesn’t affect you

But you don’t know what an arm being torn off looks like

Until you’ve seen it on TV.

You don’t know what a penis entering a vagina looks like

Until you see it on TV.

I remember flagrantly in my youth

Trying to imagine both

And I couldn’t

Until I had seen it.

And that alone, with the myriad of other problems

Shows how our art is exploitative and a cultural movement needs to change it.

Flag at Half Staff

O flag, flying at half staff

Stand tall, proud.

Men die, and people perish.

Let not your citizens peril.

Fly, raise up on your pole.

Men have been

Since the beginning of time

Murderers. Do you not know?

Why do you sag at every child’s ill fate?

Why do you stoop at every crowd maligned?

Know this, Star Spangled Banner

When you stoop twenty days of each month

The people stoop with you.

The Ox and the Bird

‘When I was young,

I had a mulberry tree outside my front porch.

I gleaned all of the fruit off the street

Then stood on the electric dispenser

And began taking them off the boughs of the tree.

We ended up with a bucket filled with mulberries.

We ate nearly an eighth of them.

The rest went to waste.

In life, we’re like this.

That is what the law means by saying,

‘”When you come across an egg

“In a tree, leave the mother.”

 

When at work,

People have to pay for their food.

The reason why is because of the former.

Yet, the scripture says,

“Do not muzzle the ox.”

That means it is lawful

To allow those who work for you

To eat your food for free.

It is unlawful to not allow them to eat your food for free.

Yet, because the former law is not observed

People are leery about observing the latter law.

Our economic situation is this:

“Muzzle the ox, take the mother.”

That is why all are burdened.

 

How I View Grace

We are all degenerate

Serial rapists, murderers, cannibals

Drug addicts, adulterers, child abusers

And meet Jesus.

We say a thousand times we doesn’t need Jesus

Because we are pretty swell.

Jesus says, “I see there is some good in you.”

So, Jesus spends the better part of our lives

Trying to get himself caught for our sin.

Jesus does get caught, when we confess Him as LORD,

And then Jesus gets put on death row

Where He’s beaten up in prison,

Stabbed, and fed gross food.

We someday forget all of what we did

While Jesus is the one found guilty for all of our sins.

 

This is a helpful tool for understanding Christ.

We all are the degenerate fools;

Jesus is the Christ.

Wasn’t our LORD something of a radical?

The Demon Reality

Torrid, swells

The aquamarine aquatic, torpedoes

To the zealous fate of antlers

Bucking in the wood

Of jousting imbeciles

Wondering, nonsense is the word

To the arrows of squalor pits

In the southern sphere of the flat earther

Birther, certificates of divorce

Yet, reacquaint with me

For none know their murders

Their slanders

Their thefts.

All are murderous

To the wretched swells…

Thus, deeply laden is the sin

Which torpedoes to the crux of civilization.

Into the demon reality

Goes the weary mind

To the swells of the oceans felt

Yet, flee from the nonsense!

’tis only nonsense.

That is what it means

When Jesus washes away our sins.

 

The mermaids live in the yellow submarine

The giants in the plane beneath the earth;

To this yellow submarine

Goes our sin.

Wretched, redeemer Himself

Ran to us with blood soaked hands

Redemption

Our spotted souls

Need only succumb.

Flesh rots, stunk up the carcass

Of our six hundred and sixty-six lies.

For money, for fame

To see the lands beneath our lands

In leviathan’s belly;

Torpedoes the soul

To the land of candy and answers

Where the childish souls

Seek to die. Oh how they seek to die

In a land of candy and answers

Where above that, say, is the heavens of heavens of.

I skipped to it, yet was freed.

By blood, soaked in the cloth of Turin

Where my heart was made and ripped into bands

Knowing the full breadth of sin

Could be laden on my

Time phased heart.

A thousand lives, a thousand lives

We live it, and are shifted.

The blood and water washed them all away.