To be in love is life’s greatest gift.

To feel, to know, to have the pleasure

Of lovemaking, to move the earth

To be enraptured by the form of your naked spouse.

 

It someday wanes away.

And cherished ought to be the friend

You have made

That you have had sex with

That you have made children with

That you have kissed, and shared in the most embarrassing moments.

 

Never do I say that love is bad.

For, it is God’s greatest gift to man

To feel in love for those four years

You have it.

Soon, the opium should turn

To peace. And friendship ought to be made

And conversations should be made.

 

Newlyweds in naked embrace feel so much.

Old couples in naked embrace say so much.

For, friendship ought to be the manner by which

A man and woman formed their bond.

 

Do not say to the little ones who are friends

Do not convince them of this

That it is imprudent to marry one you’ve been friends with for years.

Do not tell a man that he is a friend

That there can be no manner by which he may enter into your heart.

Whether he is ugly or beautiful

Or simply seen in a light…

Shed light on the promise of friendship

That it is more valuable than the opium of love.

For, friendship is true love.

Love is useless as a passion.

It turns knitted hearts astray.

Walking through the deserts

The children one bore to that woman

Stood, with their halved lives.

They said, “Mother, do you love papa?”

She, being a fool said, “No.”

It was that uttered word that caused

The children to suffer so much ill.

Love was just a chemical—

And once the salts were made

From the Lemon and Soda

There was no more love.

 

The man, having fallen out of love with her long ago

Was at work, turning the leather upon a spoke

Dipping it in his tanning juice

Heating it,—he was content to come home

And see his wife, make love to only her,

Provide for his children.

But, when he got home the fool said to him,

“I do not love you.”

At that moment a passion erupted in the man

Which revolted her, for she could feel no such passion.

 

Though, it wasn’t the broken heart of lost endorphins.

It was a happy life, and doing what man and woman had always done,

That was taken from him.

And so with his children.

 

If I ever find a woman,

I hope she understands this.

Religion had made some men crazy

While it made the bulk of men sane.

The same man religion made crazy

The atheist man had been made the same.

 

Some men cannot see a moral law.

They cannot see, and lay traps and fall

Into the dark spiritual abyss

Of murders, rapists and blasphemers amiss.

 

It makes it hard for me to say

That all men are like it

And would go astray.

 

Something in a man needs God.

And I don’t know if that’s the evidence for it

But it seems more likely a lot.

 

One man cries for revolution

And uses religion to tally the cries…

Another man steeps himself with faeries

And pagan peace descries,

The bloody mess of men falling upon his bunk.

 

It can make a heart hallow

To see religious men do things so uncouth.

Seventeen days of revolution

Can completely shatter the innocence of youth.

 

If I can say that I fight my wars in prose…

When a violent thought meanders

Men die in verse and poesy.

So knowing battle I might say

That war bands are not so gay…

Victuals of a man’s inner regrets

As he watches men in the street corners beget

Violence upon violence

Stone upon stone

Blood upon blood.

I need not tell the world that I am not he…

Yes… sundry is the word I use for a rebellious entity

Who crept in the dark with mass graves beneath.

He who would cauter revolution

To secretly find the prize.

Government, children, and the whole nation rise

To his absolute governing hand.

Revolution does nothing whence there are no values which to stand.

 

 

I read them to understand them.

One I know is a goodhearted man

Who chose sin.

The other is a badhearted man

Who also chose sin.

Both were prophets…

Infused with God’s wisdom

Like Nietzsche.

How they interpreted a meaningless world…

A world of blood.

 

I read it, seeing how he could get lost in the particulars.

The other I see understands the need for freedom.

One went headlong into war.

The other sat in his house

Meditating on the fruitless endeavors of a revolution.

I read them to understand them.

So one cannot say to me, “You do not understand,

“Oh man,

“What the other side is saying.”

 

It’s not much different than the online troll

Who is telling me I’m pretentious.

Saying that my objection to Homosexuality is a sin.

Morality to him is smoking weed,

Sodomites,

Ripping apart fetuses,

Assisting people with suicide,

And a man cross dressing.

 

I see no difference between the high minded intellectual

And the lowbrow troll who doesn’t use grammar.

They say, “Prove your God exists.”

Is not their jadedness testament enough?

It’s proof enough for me.

That men like that exist is enough for me to cling to my Bible.

Men who would spoil the very existence of good.

Why is it so persuasive?

It’s a tantalizing little idea

That holds no water when faced with the mounting stack of evidence

That good and evil exist.

 

If men were without a God

I suppose there’d be no harm in men believing in good and evil.

Get to the bottom of the barrel

Men would war over their definitions.

Though, I’m satisfied that there is a God

Because something in me

Testifies to a moral absolute.

I never questioned it,

Only questioned my role in this moral play.

 

My argument is simple.

Morals prove God.

Where men went wrong is that God cut off their conscience

So they could no longer understand this.

They go about,

Killing children,

Smoking Weed,

Sodomizing.

And at some point enough men do it

With impunity

And gross amounts of bodies pile up in mass graves

Because one of them had sense enough to become a dictator.

 

If suffering weren’t proof of evil

And kindness proof of good

Then I suppose we shall all bow under the Tyrant

And none could depose him

For all would sing their merry little songs of the fool

Cackling while they starve.

Warhorses on thunder
Blaze the tyrant’s skies.
How many, how many
Innocents shall die?
The smoke lays down the valleys
The silent cannonades.
The men and children crying
The women’s bodies lay.

Oh silent wake of thunder
Oh warhorses ride!
Oh Chivalry, Oh Chivalry
How you have almost died!
The women are now warriors
To ban in silent throws;
With the hatchets wander
To cut down fleeing foes.

At last the canons thunder
At last the bullet’s flash
Has caused the stormy wonder
To pass by at the very last.
The bodies lay in hurdles,
The horses lay like dung.
Oh victory, oh victory
At what cost were you won?

At last the tyrants looked
And their eyes did terrify.
The bodies lay around them
And the tyrants raised their lies.
They had won the battle
They had won the fight.
With all races under
They put men to their plight.

At last the tyrants begged
To have God loose their life.
But the world they had bartered
The world lay its strife.
For the tyrants fought their wars
For there world’s right to stand…
That they would raise high
And rule over all the lands.

Man and woman fleeing
There were no subjects near.
The man who won the world
Had no one near to cheer.
Thus in desert valleys
In the sand he did lie…
God would not be sorry
That the tyrant could not die.

For the tyrant calling
To gain the world’s peers
He was the last man standing
In a desert land of fears.
For flesh was dung upbounding
The silent wars were near
The mind on them was dwelling
He was the last man on earth’s bier.

For all men lay in silence
All flesh was but dung.
The man who gained the world
At last had naught but won.

So this poet singing
Says to this his fear:
If I get nothing onward
I at least will have my cheer.
I will be in heaven
While the world fought its wars.
I shall be repentant
While the seas recede all shores.

I play.

The best all enjoy it.

I throw myself down.

I lose their interest.

I play again.

Some of them continue.

I throw myself down again.

I lose their respect.

I play for a third time.

They cautiously probe my intents.

I stay in the game this time,

But with a walking cane.

Read the poem for its beauty.

Read it again, and see an opaque light.

Read it a twain, and some elements come in focus.

Read it a thrain, a frain, a fifth and sixth

And soon the poem begins to shed its full light.

All through life, the poem reveals

Its hidden parcels.

 

A poem is not a work read in one sitting

And never taken up again.

 

A poem is read a lifetime.

So choose your poems wisely.

A tiny ant.

It neither has the ears to hear

Nor the eyes to see.

Yet, it knows I’m in the room.

 

What organ do I lack

To perceive God?

Like the ant cannot perceive me.

It knows I’m there by my voice.

It doesn’t hear it.

It doesn’t see it.

It simply knows there is a voice

Calling to it.

 

I must be that same tininess

To God.