1. Child, Touch Another World
The child's heart within all
Feels so much larger than it actually is.
It feels like all laws bend to its will,
That it is of a greater importance
Than the Great Pyramids,
Than the Mythic Stonehenge,
Than the Swirling Milky Way,
Than the Eifel Tower,
Than Democracy,
Than Free Speech,
Than Patriotism,
Than History.
The child within all feels like the creator of all worlds.
It feels so important,
Like a king,
Like it were great at every which thing.
A great skier,
A great chess player,
A great teacher,
A great writer,
A great builder,
A great artist,
A great singer,
A great champion and hero.
The child in all believes itself to be great...
It feels entitled to all good treatment.
It feels as if the world revolves around them.
I don't know how we ever grow up...
I look at people, in their self importance,
And I find each one a world swirls around their minds,
I can tap into it by listening to their words.
I can feel their feelings, know their thoughts
By the words they speak, and the mien they imbue.
I can know them, and so can you.
Yet, not many care to know them.
Not many care to look at the dramatic obelisk of Other
As a friend once wrote in a poem about a man named David.
That there are obstacles hindering us,
People, places and things.
I look at myself, and my wisest thoughts
Came from other minds much wiser than mine.
It came from listening, from tasting,
From touching, from smelling,
Through the descriptive tense
Of another's words.
Not my taste, not my touch,
Not my smell, but my ear.
The greatest pieces of wisdom
Came from the greatest adversaries.
For, I could poke holes right through them
When I became undaunted by their words.
When it became interesting.
In practical matters I still feel there are foolish men---
Yet, they find a more practical lifestyle than I do.
And I feel their swirling world as they speak---
It is offensive. It soon becomes my world
A swirling kaleidoscope of thoughts and inventions.
I've learned to embrace it, for such is their freedom
And such is mine.
Yet, my brother told me today,
"Do not seek to persuade me."
Can democracy flourish without persuasion?
My inner child likes to reach out and touch other worlds
But it often gets burnt. Thus, it still reaches,
It still touches, it pries into the deepest held beliefs.
Politely, I can have a conversation with a woman
On Dharma, and she enjoy it.
Yet, her husband---for he ought to be by now---
Scolds her, offends her, doesn't listen.
"Buddhism is more optimistic."
I agree, it's not the torments of Caste systems.
But, really, there must be something better after this life,
Than having to live it all over again.
What cruel deity swirls us in this cosmos for eternity?
Hell is a comfort to me, for there is no wisdom there.
No activity. No planning.
Meaning, no thought. For, with thought
There is wisdom. Hell seems less cruel
Than tormenting someone on Earth
Over and over again,
With a reincarnation of past lives
Rejuvenating and swirling like the Milky Way.
That is immoral.
And at last, it is simply to die?
I cannot believe death is the sum of life's choices.
I believe there must be more.
I'd lose hope, if all I had to look for
Was another life like this.
Yet, her thoughts are interesting,
And he---very sure of himself---
Tells me I upset her.
Something tells me she was telling the truth
That it was not me.
Rather, I live to listen...
Do not be offended if I cannot agree,
But that is core to our freedom
Even to have heated arguments.
If I could not persuade,
If I could not gain access to the worlds which swirl around me,
I would be despaired, and lonely.
I would be, as the Woke Mob wishes me to be,
A solipsist, constantly reassuring himself with his own thoughts.
And there I would be, no one to challenge me
Suffering in the hell I created for myself
By telling someone I thought was wrong to, "Shut up."
Offense is necessary in a free society.
For, in a free society, we are free to share our worlds
With one another, and burdened though we be,
The child within us touches the scalding, red-hot
Iron of another's world---if we cannot sway them to ours
Or be swayed to theirs, then there is no freedom.
I know it burns. But, there is no better joy any other way.
2. Blood Red
China, your skies are bloody red!
What do the astrologers and soothers say?
I say, it happened once before, the year of Boston's bloody massacre.
And from that massacre, America was freed from the yoke of tyranny.
Thunder, hail, storm,
You shall be pestle
And turned to the sea.
Your odor shall waft abroad.
3. The Trinity Explained
God the Father,
God the Spirit;
God the Son.
For God to be all Omniscient,
Omnibenevolent,
Omnipresent,
And Omnipotent,
Philosophers have credited these attributes
To be contradictory and incompatible.
Except, that God exists in three Persons,
Then those divine attributes are reconciled.
The Father is like the Mind of God,
The Son is like the Word of God---His Voice---
The Spirit is the Life of God.
The Word of God became Flesh
And tabernacled among man.
It would be like our Vocal Vibrations
Taking a bodily form.
For Words are vibrations of air,
And the entire cosmos is energy---
Energy is vibrations
And must be vibrating because of the Son
Or Word of God.
That Word which became flesh
Died for us on the cross
And raised.
Distinctly, Genesis even says in the Hebrew,
"The faces of God"
When describing God.
The "Faces of Elohim."
Meaning, the Trinity is and was and always will be.
The Spirit is the breath---
In a man, spirit is our life,
Our breath.
It is our life force.
And in God, His Life Force is Holy
Because it can animate flesh
Bring the dead back to life
Prophesy
Heal
And speak and interpret tongues.
I believe when I go to heaven,
God will exist in three persons
Whom I can talk too.
The Father will sit at His Temple by Ezekiel's river
And the forests of the Trees of Life,
All the sacrifices made which will ever need made,
The Son will walk with us in the garden and city,
And dwell with us in our mansions,
And the Spirit will fill the whole Kingdom like a fire in a paraffin.
4. The Greatest Plot, from its Genesis to the Final Revelation
A plot emerges from its pages.
An epic story, spanning every generation.
Do you wish to know the Bible's story?
I will tell it to you.
Man is created, and man falls.
So, immediately God sets forth a redemption plan.
Through the Woman's Seed, will be an heir
Which crushes the head of the Serpent.
So, God chooses a man from among His people
To give His promise to.
This man is Abraham.
And then Abraham has a Seed Isaac.
And Isaac has a seed Jacob.
And Jacob, all of his sons are promised
To be God's peculiar people.
Jacob's son Joseph then gets sold into slavery by his brothers
And later raises to the status of Satrap in Egypt.
He stays the famine, and all the world is saved.
And his family comes to Egypt.
Four hundred years later, Jacob's family
Are slaves, and the firstborn of Israel are commanded to be
Killed. Yet, from among them, comes Moses,
Who is from the son of Jacob named Levi.
And Moses leads his people out into the desert,
Gives the law and command of ordinances
By which God will judge the Earth,
Which if followed to the letter
Condemns every man, woman and child
And every nation to be destroyed.
For that is God's judgment and Wrath.
Moses dies, and a Warrior named Joshua raises up,
And Joshua leads God's people into Canaan,
After forty years of Israel's wandering
Because of disobedience and worshipping the Golden Calf.
Joshua conquers Canaan, for Canaan was abominable in its sin
And ruled by wickedness.
Then, Israel is established, and the land is ruled
Through God's law alone.
Yet, after several hundred years,
The peoples cry out for a King to deliver them
And a king is given to them, by the ordinance of Samuel.
Then comes the lordship of the Kings.
First by Benjamin, the smallest tribe,
But Saul, the Benjamite,
Fails and becomes wicked. Then, redemption comes through Judah
And David becomes King,
A man after God's own heart.
And from David, it is promised that his Heir
Will be one who is seated upon the Throne of Israel forever.
David's Son Solomon then establishes the Temple
And his son Rehoboam divides the kingdom
For his cruelty. And Israel fractures into
Two kingdoms, Israel and Judah.
Judah remains faithful, mostly,
But, Israel rebels, and comes under siege
By Assyria, and is taken captive.
However, Judah survives the onslaught,
And is promised that the Messiah would suffer
For the sins of the people,
As it was promised to Abraham when he went to offer Isaac
That God would provide the Lamb for sacrifice,
And Abraham would not have to.
Finally, the King of Judah,
Jehoiakim, is besieged by Babylon,
For Hezekiah, the righteous king,
Sinned by showing Babylonian Kings the riches of Israel.
Babylon besieges Judah,
And the bloodiest siege in history ensues,
Where men eat one another,
And must eat human dung to survive.
The walls are broken,
And Judah goes into captivity.
The Law is broken, and severed,
And cannot be binding any longer.
So, after seventy years, Judah returns
To Israel by Cyrus the Great's decree
And there they rebuild the wall and temple.
And they are told to Eat the Fat and Drink the Sweet.
For they are commanded this, to show that they are awaiting
For a newly prophesied Covenant, rooted in Abraham's seed
Who will bless all nations.
Then, the Maccabees reign for a short while,
But are conquered by Rome.
And while under Roman Captivity
The branches are sheared for the ordinances of the Law had been added to.
Here a little, there a little.
And finally, the Promised Heir comes, the Seed of Abraham, the Seed of Eve
The King Who shall reign forever in David's stead,
And God's people reject Him, and Crucify Him,
And mock Him, and made Him poor and a vagabond.
Thus, God Himself was this man, and when He died
He descended into Hell to become our Burnt offering;
The Lamb Whom Abraham was said God would Provide
In stead of Isaac.
Then, this man named Jesus raised from the dead,
Demonstrating His awesome power over death,
And He was God, Who raised, as the Early Creeds go.
And this man ascended in Bodily form to Heaven,
Where He remains to this day, awaiting to judge the living and the dead.
Then, upon His return, Zion shall give birth to the Christ Child,
The promised Heir, and He shall be swiftly carried up into Heaven
And there nurtured, until He returns with the Sons of Israel
Who had never sinned---those like He---
And He slays the hordes at the Battle of Megedo.
And this same man will rule upon the Earth for one thousand years
Giving those of His saints principalities and governorships,
And beautiful wives and children, and vineyards.
And none shall be made afraid, and every man shall eat from his own garden
Undaunted by any sin or malice.
Finally, Satan shall return, after having been imprisoned by God's Angel
And Satan shall gather his forces for the war
Of Gog and Magog. They shall be defeated utterly.
And a new heaven, and a new earth shall descend,
From which those men who have chosen God from the foundation of the world
Shall dwell, in a city more beautiful than any other,
And shall become nations and be pleased by the neverending
Bounty of Jehovah-Provider.
Amen.
5. Martian Doorway
Open this doorway honey,
I'm roving tonight
Through the banded hollows
We see, we feel, we take flight.
Walk right through to the other room
I see a couple brooms,
I see a janitor's closet,
I see some computers, too.
Walk through this Martian Doorway,
The Moon landing was real---
Buzz Aldrin and Harry Hapsburg
Have walked there for some cheap thrills.
In the sky above us,
There it hangs a silver thread.
A May Moon cannot lie
As toilet paper gets stolen by the feds.
Martian Doorway,
The moon it is not a lie...
Yet what lies beyond that doorway,
Is it yet another artificial sky?
Our generation is so hollow,
Its achievements a rare feast.
There is nowhere left to wallow,
So out of the ocean came the beast.
And there he walked through shadows,
And there he walked through fame.
Oh, Martian Doorway,
Is the truth ever so lame?
Martian Doorway,
The moon, it is not a lie
What lies beyond that doorway,
Is it yet another artificial sky?
Fact checkers, and ministries of truth---
They have you afraid of Cooties,
For the common man ain't no sleuth.
Then the feds change the almanac,
Thinking they have power over I.
They leave the time at 6:16
My God, It was seven once upon a time!
O, the blind bats sing the door jams,
Green Day skates on thin ice,
Joe Satriani is questioned,
Whether a keyboard warrior's information was right!
Martian Doorway,
The moon, it is not a lie
What lies beyond that doorway
Is it the discovery of foreign life?
Then the hoodoos are falling,
The blimps descend like Babylon,
The peoples all do their crossings,
As they see the alien in lights.
Ooo, Martian Doorway,
The moon, it is not a lie
What lies beyond that doorway
Is it the discovery of foreign life?
Walk into that room and you'll see,
No starship nor star command.
You'll see a spook in overalls
That he is but a man.
There he steals the toilet paper,
He tries to change the almanac,
Yet, it is a complete failure,
They are crazy like Animaniacs.
Ooo, Martian Doorway,
The moon, it is not a lie.
What lies beyond that doorway?
Is it but another white lie?
6. On Judgment
In prosaic verse allayed,
Southey talks of Perpetual motion---
I know not where, but at some time it existed---
As poet Laureate, he attacked free speech.
He rails against men whose verse is sublime---
Don Juan, were you not seduced
By many? My member is dry
And my morsels stolen.
Are you insane, Robert?
I've read your poetry---
I've defended it, though I know not why.
You call forth a vision and place a Tyrant in heaven?
Meanwhile, Byron writes of St. Peter's rusty keys?
You called forth that attack,
Not I! For, I am a defender of free speech.
I am speech's solemn knight,
Saying this sacred right fends off the most fierce tyrants.
Perhaps, my love, thou art Maddok---
Making love with many women,
Fending off and aggravating freedom of speech,
A slave to kings---I am a free man!
Do I prescribe rules against free speech?
Do I say Byron is not allowed to write?
I love his verse, for it is prophecy.
Yet do the prophets err?
For many men have entered heaven.
I now understand, as the Urn with Ashes and Homilies.
I will defend Byron's freedom, and yours.
I will fight for your work to be read,
And mine, and Byron's
And Martin's, and Blake's, and Green's,
And King's, and Bradbury's,
And Rowling's, and Smith's,
And Marx's, and, so with it, also yours.
I am in love with genius of all kind---
I love radicals of all kinds.
Don Juan, I see you in my dreams.
And I see you.
7. If You Ain't Ever Caught a Rabbit
I beheld a man who claimed to be a
Woman; lofty were her eyes, with my auld
Grandmother there. "She is my grandma, too."
In Jotunheim, thou did call me a "god"?
And told me that you talked to me about
Racial purity; how the Germans were
Actually Jews. That day you hypnotized
Me. You tried to kill me twice; you fooled them
But not me. You stole my dog and my work.
You spoke through Jacob, saying I copied
Thou, but I did not; yet Jacob said I
Am not bad, as I listened to sermons
Where the LORD said to me, I, Israel,
"I won't give my glory to another.."
In my dreams a bunny and Scruffy would
Cuddle with you, yet all my delusions
Were sprung upon you in that instant. A
Rabbit nestled with you; oh so gently.
Scruffy was there, too, as the men in masks
Came, with auld family who have since now passed.
I awoke with peace this morning, knowing
That you were but a nightmare, far away.
You are imposters. Both of you. Selah.
8. The Stink Eye
Oh, I love the Silent and Greatest generations.
But, Gen-Z, there's something about them you
Will never know. The old fashioned Stink Eye.
And an old lady from my former church just
Beamed me one tonight. That evil eye is gone
And God bless, Gen-Z, for all your dysfunction,
That it's one of the two things which go away.
You're offended by Racism,---well, those generations
Were extremely Racist. I'm talking real racism
Not your made up intolerance.
Where they grew up in a culture where Racism
Imbibed the entire social order.
That evil eye is a relic of that same era,
And it looked upon every nerd and queer,
Straight through them,---and it chilled me to the bones.
Those were the greatest generations in history
Fam---The greatest. The Boomers had nothing on them.
They were salt of the Earth, the kindest people you'd ever meet.
But, don't be different around them, and don't be unique.
That is gone, and waning away, and is being forgotten.
Every generation has its great evils,
And yours is your homosexuality and transgenderism.
Those two generations it was the Stink Eye and Racism.
The Boomers it's Laziness, Greed and Lasciviousness.
Gen-X embodied a strange time, where no sin defined them.
But all sins worked equally, to equal degrees of complexity.
Millennials, it's their pride and unwillingness to do hard work.
And Woo-Wee, did that stink eye crack like a whip;
It had no tolerance for being different. No tolerance for being unique.
You won't remember it. I do. But, I still wish to emulate them
In everything else. What you pretend to be outraged against
It doesn't exist anymore. So, stop acting like it does.
9. Alex Jones
"Alex Jones is a madman,"
They painted him as a bad man,
Yet I must confess that in his words
Were some truth.
He was wrong about the shooting,
He was wrong about the spooking
Of CIA planes hitting our twin towers.
Yet, if he were not right I say,
I'll eat a pile of rice and pray
With my curry and my ginger
And some salt.
I'll eat and drink and be merry.
But Alex Jones, a Canary
Is pressed by Beatty that sleazy
Court-Lawyer, fool and slime.
Like Bradbury had spoken,
That fool who hates talk is a broken
Government with kerosene and fire.
Ol Beatty will live unspoken,
A dumb man who has broken,
Ol Alex Jones' spirit can you say?
For we are allowed to be wrong
We can see and sing our dumb songs
We can't be sued for what we truly believed.
Alex, live unbroken,
Get a fine lawyer
And use that token
To fully defend our free speech.
10. The Scent of a Rose
The scent of roses,
Unlike all other flowers,
Is a form bred from
Horticultured, white florets
Which smell like honeysuckle.
11. I Am Not a Genius
I am not a genius,
And that's okay.
I'm three points
Short of it.
But, I found God richly
Blessed me with a score
Which I am satisfied with.
Any higher, and I'd be too smart;
Able to understand everything
At a moment's glance.
Any lower, and I'd not have a capacity
To understand anything I wanted.
I have a nice score,
Which lets me pleasantly struggle
With a concept for days
Sometimes months,
Until I finally get it,---
Working out the minutia,
Understanding it in ways
Which nobody has before.
I am satisfied with the IQ
God gave me.
It is not where I feared it to be.
160 is Genius,
And I am three points short.
And I am okay with that.
12. The Darkening of Guangwu
There was a solar eclipse in 33ad.
It was only visible in South Africa,
And the furthest North it could be seen
Was the bottom tip of India.
There was another Solar Eclipse
In 32ad, but it could only be seen
Near Antarctica.
There was another solar eclipse in 34ad
And a little sliver of it could be seen
On the Eastern Edge of China.
Just a little sliver.
There were no Eclipses in 31ad.
Given the timeframe and reference
Of the record of Guangwu,
What they recorded could not
Have been a total eclipse
Or even partial eclipse.
As, the only eclipse near China on the month given,
Was in 34ad, and that only a small sliver
Of eclipse could be seen on the furthest
Edge of China's Eastern edge.
It does not comport with what the records say.
However, to a skeptic,
Your faith will have to be so dark
As to try and assume
This partial visibility
Was the actual date,
And somehow, you will
Have to discount the
Announcement of the mages
That a man had died for the sins
Of the world, to give us pardoning,
And that a "Man from heaven died."
It would have to be a dark faithlessness indeed,
But, God likes to hide Himself,
So I have found your contention first.
Then, to complete your theory,
I speak foolishness,
Perhaps word of Christianity
Reached China in 34ad,
And seeing the sliver of an eclipse,
The two things were brought together.
I have lightened your eyes,
And increased your doubt.
I gave you hope,
Yet, you shall be utterly ashamed.
This cannot be it,
As it is too contrived an answer
For something which is so simple.
Christ died, He raised, He comes back again.
13. Alvarado
Two outs, the closer is pitching.
He comes out, in comes Alvarado.
He throws a 100mph fast ball;
Can't hit the zone though.
They go here, they go there.
An ERA above 7.
I'm next to cussing at the TV.
"Why?" I cry, as the game goes
Into extra innings. They keep him in.
He pinch hits. Nothing special
But the NL Pitchers don't have to hit anymore,
So add that factoid to an already bizarre game.
To get us there, Harper won my approval when he
Scored clutch runs, pinch hitting, after a bogus strike.
My guy, Veirling hits a homer at the top of the 9th.
And bizarre rules got my other guy Hoskins to home plate in the 10th.
Thought it would go to New York for that one,
Getting the National's Manager ejected.
Alvarado throws a nail biter, gets another run scored on him.
But Rhys gave us a run to give. Game's not over in the bottom.
And, another nail biter, the ball grounds to third base,
Bohm throws a beauty to first;
This after our best fielder Didi gets his first error of the year
Sending us into extra innings.
The final out is in. I think to myself, "Well, a guy throws a 100mph fast ball
"I make 4,000 line epic poems;
"The pitch isn't that good, but it's at that elite level."
14. The Sarsoodledom
The Satrap of the Sardoodledom
Sat, calling all art Kitsch.
Save, it was writhing with fear, or sex
Or it idealized crime and perverts.
He, wisely? was called Athena,
And ruled his Sardoodledom
With an iron fist.
Nothing good could be made,
Save what was a Sardoodle
In his Sardoodledom.
15. A Fox
There is nothing more despicable than a fox.
A gnarly haired, weasely fox.
It goes from place to place, wandering
Until it finds a nice little grove
Where all the meeker animals are at rest.
There, the animals are at rest,
And frolic on the knolls, will linger
By the human legs which wander nigh.
Then, the fox sees this, with belly growling
And it decides to disturb the years of peace
By picking off the little ones.
Then the meek ones.
Then the plump ones.
Birds, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks.
All the nice little animals which before,
Like the little chickadee which nearly perched on my sandal
It eats them.
And the animals, restless, stir from their holes
And no longer linger by the traveler's foot.
Never having known danger,
The meek little mild bunnies die
With wounds in their sides,
Half eaten. To be thrown into the garbage heap.
And one Fox does this, and when the habitat is disturbed,
And restless, and scared, it is happy
So it moves to the next pleasant forest,
And there, does its murderous spree once again.
16. Iron Ore
Can't fertilize the ocean with iron.
Rust is poisonous to fish.
B. K. Neifert 