Category: Poetry

Geopolitics

There are no good guys.

I’m afraid there are no good guys.

Here… in America… I’m oppressed.

They think I’m a prince.

When I’m only a pauper.

Not a slave.

Just a free man.

As free as you can be in America.

 

I look across the world.

It’s ran by gangsters.

Kings, they’re called.

They look a lot like gangsters to me.

Putin? Meh… He’s scary.

Whatever he does

America does.

Obama did.

Like… it’s amazing to me

This pretense of freedom.

 

Saudi Princes are supposed to be boogie men.

They look half decent.

Kings of Jordan, The Sheikh

Who owns Hollywood…

Meh… Look at old Hollywood.

He’s always owned it.

 

Put away your television, America.

Put away your computer.

Read a book or two.

 

I look at the world.

It’s sin. Sin is the conspiracy.

Robber Barons who own industry

All mingled with the gentry classes.

They cheapen their products.

It makes people sick.

They don’t care.

A weapon? Meh…

Just sin.

 

American propaganda.

You go over to Egypt… the people aren’t hurtin’.

Russians act like idiots, but they’re honest.

Chinese are respectful.

North Koreans seem to be fed.

India’s not as poor as we want to believe…

A few billion people is hard to lift out of poverty in one generation.

 

I mean… it just seems to me

Like the rest of the world is happy to just live

Eat, and drink.

It seems like America is intent on war.

For what motive? Because there are boogiemen.

 

People are pretty much fed.

All over the world.

More people are out of poverty now

Than ever were.

Yet, we have the propaganda machine trying to start war.

A war I’m afraid we cannot win.

 

Our troops are women.

Our men are effeminate.

Our people are fat.

 

I mean… It’s just propaganda.

Isn’t it?

 

They’re gearing America for war.

They’re naming bad guys.

I’ve seen Iran’s cities.

They look a lot better than ours.

A lot cleaner.

A lot safer.

A lot nicer.

Just women can’t drive cars.

 

I think this is what Trump is trying to say.

You can’t win this with war.

I think he’s seen enough of people,

And the world to know America is not

The shining beacon on a hill.

Rather, it’s being left behind

While everyone else is running ahead.

And, I have, unfortunately,

Corrupt police in my area.

I have, unfortunately, organized crime

Right in my hometown.

I have, unfortunately, a lot of things

Going on.

 

Is Trump bad?

I don’t know. I really don’t.

I would assume not, because I don’t see Chinese troops marching down my street.

I don’t see atomic bombs blasting down cities.

All I see are a bunch of Americans

Believing that we are rich.

And… perhaps we are.

But, we just can’t accept the fact that other people are starting to be rich

Too.

God Found in History

 

Thirteen o Two, the Pope declared:

“Peace! Peace! Bring all ecclesiastical authority

“The authority of Christendom

“Over to me! So the troops do nare

“Fight, and wars spread!

“So the great plagues do not sweep

“Through your nations!

“So great suffering does not endure for a century!

“So famines do not wreak havoc on your lands!”

 

This Martyr was captured and tortured.

Thus, my friends, why there was the black death.

Thus, my friends, was the Hundreds Year War.

Thus, my friends, was the Schism.

 

Do not put to death your holy men

For they speak peace.

After they die,

The nations do suffer

From Asia even over yon to Europe.

 

Fifteen Eighteen, yonder the wars

The Pope indulged peoples to sins.

Thus, righteous Israel separated

From Unrighteous Rehoboam;

Thus, great martyrs were made.

Thus, great wars were to be had.

Thus great pogroms spurned the nations.

Do not indulge in sins

Otherwise great harm is done

And many peoples die.

 

1518 Cortez set sail to find new lands

For the Spanish lords.

Find he did, men who practiced rape

Cannibalism, Human Sacrifice;

Murder was legal,

Food was your very kin;

Wars were games

Where the captors were then to be supped

On at table.

 

Cortez found them,

And conquered them

With miracles of battle.

Plagues swept through,

Destroying cities

Destroying camps

Yet righteous natives it did not harm.

500 men fought of 100,000

And won.

Galleons were carried over mountains

To war.

And when there was sin in the ranks

The enemies did prosper.

 

1920s men turned away from God.

Men reveled in their sciences.

Men called men animals;

Men turned and called their fellow man inferior.

Men abandoned their God.

So came the great Dust Bowl.

So came the great famine.

So came a war so notorious

It killed millions of innocents.

So came pogrom after pogrom.

All for abandoning God…

 

What will happen today?

Atheism spreads like cancer.

Men walk with gleeful pride

Of their sinful acts

Boasting in their sin

Boldfaced like a harlot

Who just got paid to whore.

 

Consider wisely.

Just Call it Pride

There was a month dedicated

Out of the year

For pride.

 

Proud were the men and women

That they wanted to celebrate their pride.

They were proud to be thieves.

They were proud to be murderers.

They were proud to break.

They were proud to falsely accuse and put people in prison.

They were proud to shut up good men, so they could not speak.

 

Proud they were, and had a whole month to be proud.

They were proud of their mediocre talents.

They were proud of diminishing the skilled man’s work

With works of inferiority.

And they were proud that the inferior work could not be displayed.

 

They were proud, yes, so proud,

That they had their parades

And walked down the streets, singing their melodies

Celebrating their pride.

They were proud to have wooed lovers

They were proud to have their sin exposed to the world

So the world could praise them.

They were proud to be bitter, and angry

And they were proud to speak to the humble man’s hurt.

They were even proud that they owned animals.

They were proud that they had money to feed their children.

They were proud to have husbands and wives.

They were proud that they could divorce

And destroy.

They were proud, their children groaning and confused.

Their aggressive animal licking the face of the good man in their cabins.

They were proud…

 

Proud.

And for a whole month

Everyone celebrated pride.

“I Am Not a Thief” Says Every Thief

There was once a man

Who was really good at what he does.

He could do anything he wanted with it.

He spent all of his waking hours thinking of ways to craft

In his skill.

 

He went to his God and only his God

To get the patterns.

 

But, there came upon him a strange traveler one day.

He said to this craftsman, “I am not a thief”, so

The craftsman being really shy and wanting a friend

said, “Ok, I believe you.”

So, he opened up his store.

The skilled craftsman offered to teach the man his skill

Which was carpentry.

He would teach him all of the techniques.

He would be happy to pass down his mastery.

 

Yet, the man was not satisfied with this.

He did not care to learn carpentry.

Rather, he spied a few choice furnishings.

These, the Carpenter left aside for the poor

To give them a nice furnishing.

But, they were the choicest furnishings in a home.

So, the thief, having the key to the vault

Went into the storeroom and stole the furnishings.

The craftsman came in, having so many furnishings,

He did not see it.

But, soon his lobby began to be emptied.

But it was so slow, that he never could realize it.

 

Finally, he saw that the poor needed something.

He looked for his choicest furnishings,

And could not find them.

Thus, he became very afraid.

He searched all over his house for them.

He could not find them.

He sat with his hands on his face

And wept.

 

“What happened to my choicest furnishings?

“The ones with no nails, made of the choicest

“Ebonies and Mahoganies,

“My Chess table

“With its squares fitted without glue

And they would not move!

“And my Rocking Chair?

“This Rocking chair was

“Sculpted out of a redwood’s trunk

“And the larger pieces I cut from it

“I sculpted into lamps

“And pieces for my chess board!

“Which no longer I can find!”

 

The man wept;

And when his friend walked in

He looked and thought to himself,

“I am not a thief.

“He let me see all of his furnishings.

“He invited me into his home.

“He gave me a key to his house.

“I am now rich.

“But, there are still more great pieces

“Which I can steal.”

Yet, oh thief, remember when the Carpenter

Said he would teach you his craft?

Why, if you were so poor,

Did you not become his apprentice?

 

This is what a thief says.

The Inspiration for My Myth of Subang

In Dragon Ball Super Goku becomes what they call a “God”. I stopped relating to him. Because he became callous, and only wanted to fight. He stopped being the sort of hero I looked up to, and became something more than what he ought to have.

So, I knew Dragon Ball was inspired by the Myth of the Monkey King. So, I did my own myth, where Goku was Subang—the same name. And Goku becomes “Thor.” That is, an embodiment of men going too far.

Because I think the metaphor needed drawn out. I think Akira went too far with his portrayal of Goku. And, to be honest, he stopped being a good guy. He started being kind of like a Loki type figure. Just the way he gambled the whole entire universe on his lust for battle was disturbing to me. He no longer was a protector, but became, sort of, the embodiment of everything I’m despising at the current rate.

Goku in GT, although not as celebrated, I could relate to. The formula was there. Goku was fighting villains, and it followed the kind of formula I would expect for the DB franchise. Goku becomes some what of a folk legend, rather than saying he’s a deity. But, Goku in Super becomes a deity, and I can only say that after becoming such, he’s significantly changed in personality. He’s become more reckless, more haphazard, and he’s become a shell of his old character. GT preserved his character, and made him serious. Super has changed Goku’s character into something I can’t relate to. In fact, I relate to Vegeta more, now, because it seems he’s the more likely of the two to be a good guy. And he is the good guy, now. I mean, Vegeta has some kind of reverence toward life, which Goku has now abandoned. Which is interesting, I think.

Though, I don’t like the Super Saiyan God form because it’s not only blasphemous, it’s stupid. Because DB was absent of a religious context. There was no doubt that DB’s atheism was one of the things that made the franchise worth watching. Because it neither posited itself beyond the scope of itself, nor did it irritate the religious views of its audiences. It was something politically and religiously neutral. And then they go one step beyond, into the realm of godhood with the characters, which now I feel disquieted watching it. It’s no longer a story about a man defending helpless people, but is now a quasi religion.

So, I took the series of Dragon Ball and made this story. And the reason why I did was because I do know that Akira had drawn influence from the myth of the Monkey King. I’ve never read that myth, but simply watched a notable martial arts movie, and Dragon Ball, and of course Jacky Chan Adventures to really get this myth off the ground.

And of course Akira means “Light”, so Aarin, the Nethanim that is defeated by Subang, is Akira’s Nethanim, to guard him against this path he went with his story. Which, Subang is meant in this myth simply to tell Akira not to take Goku to this level. Though he did, I just want Goku to maybe be something other than an object of worship because I think it corrupted the Character of Goku, and the series in a lot of ways. The series was not religious, and all of its lore was in the realm of fantasy. Now it went into the realm of religion, and if going there, I think it’s best that we take a step back and understand how dangerous that is. Of course, he wouldn’t be the first to do so. But, now it’s coming into mainstream culture, and I don’t think this is a good thing.

Because God does exist, and I would hope that the myth I created could warn people about the ascent into “godhood.” That, the overbearing metaphor in this story is how the pursuit of powers beyond your scope can corrupt you, and it has corrupted one of our most beloved characters by making him less than what he was. And I think this is the danger of this pursuit. And of course Nethanim are guardians of the mind. They aren’t real, unless you count the person who invents them. The author is the Nethanim. The person on the page is simply his metaphor to defeat the evil. And in this case, the evil is Goku… and I never thought that would be the case.

Crap that Got Deleted

As a writer…

We all know this feeling,

You have a great story.

Just awesome.

Wrote five pages, it’s working good.

And you forgot to hit Control S.

 

Or, you wrote the greatest poem

You’d ever written

Etc…

And suddenly the program crashes.

There it is, you can’t go into the backups

Because they crashed too.

 

Then, there’s crap you wrote

That you just didn’t like.

Just crap. Crap. Crap. Crap.

 

Then there’s cult stuff.

Crap. Crap. Crap.

Nobody wants to write a new book of Mormon.

 

Then, of course, there’s just crap.

Crap you wrote, just wasn’t feeling it

And it needs to go too.

 

Then, there’s crap you wrote

That you just don’t agree with.

It’s neither wise, nor certain why you wrote it.

 

Then there’s crap you wrote

Because you were having a little bit of illness that day.

Call it that. Let’s not go further.

Crap, crap, crap.

 

Then, there’s whole entire books

Worth of crap. They need deleted to.

 

Then there’s the crap that you don’t want to delete

Because it has some sentimental value.

Those you keep.

 

Then there’s the crap that other people don’t like

And you like it, but you get so frustrated

That nobody likes it, so it gets deleted too.

 

Then there’s that masterpiece

That in a moment of absolute absurd stupidity

You delete. And then years later

You wonder why you deleted it,

And you still can’t think of a good reason.

 

Then there’s the thousands of words

You deleted in editing,

Often making it worse

Rather than better

But everyone is convinced

Because their hand is now in your pot

That it is better.

Sooner or later,

That authentic vibe your writing has

Is gone, and someone else is there

Nagging at you.

And, so, it gets deleted.

 

Then, there are hundreds,

And hundreds, and hundreds

Of words that you delete

Because you just know they ain’t gonna sell.

 

Then there’s that feeling that you have your pearl

But you’d rather throw it back into the ocean

So the people at the markets don’t undersell you.

Those… you ought not to delete.