Across the reeds of the African Gate,
Where Moses drifted passed the gator's gape,
The fertile nest of Cleopatra's reign
Where Octavian and Caesar there lay
With cherry breast of the Beauteous queen,---
War my beloved, would there be rapt with green
Reeds dabbed in bloody, purple bands of strings
When Caesar entered as a King of Kings.
There, Ptolemy's young corpse was to be lain
By the Nile's waters, as the flocks came
To drink up the waters stained with the blood---
That once Moses had caused to flow in floods---
Now they drink unaffected by the war
While Kings' blood was shed by man's utmost curse.

I. Philosophy

It is vain.
What does it teach
Save that "God is dead?"
It teaches truth cannot be found.
It teaches love is for the self.
It teaches pleasure is all there is.
It teaches there is no good.
It teaches to suffer blindly.
It confuses what is obvious.
It creates an idol.
It causes its practitioner to doubt.

It is vain.

II. Philosophy

But, when it grasps truth
It strengthens faith.
For, it is "Love of Wisdom."
And its truths point to Christ.
They toil over arcane mysteries
Yet, Christ being our Rabbi
Can let us unravel it for them
All the good thinker knows
Is Christ.

III. Desire

Also, I have become acquainted with the world's love.
Para mores are common.
Which is better?
Loveless marriages with paramours
Or husbandless women
Raising fatherless children?
For order's sake, the former
A cuckold at least loves
What he mistakenly thinks
Are his spawn.
They grow non the wiser.
The woman pledges 
Her undying love
Yet eats from another table...
Another vine.

It is a sad world
We live in, where no one
Truly ever could find love.
A sacred gift:
It always was perverted.

Let the damed play
That game, and never
Know true joy.

IV. Love

Marc and Erin could not even 
Conceive of the word
"Paramour". Their love was so strong.

Anyone who has truly loved
Would be offended
AT the mere thought of
Whatever the world has
Done to love
To make it not
Universally understood.

The love I know
Is so sweet, and real.
It trusts, never fails.
It is a friend; I read that
Somewhere in some great
Thinker's words.

The romantic seeks either
The nobler passions
Or she seeks the instinctual passions.

Man, by instinct, is a wicked creature;
Thus, I look to my nobler
Passions; what pleasures I felt
And needn't remorse.

The Young adult leader puts together a good program.
They get a beautiful flock.
Then, after getting his taste of power,
Wishes to go off and found his new church.
That beautiful flock scatters
And looks at me spitefully
For being right all along about the vanity of its pastors.

Is it just I? Or did I tell you all along what would happen?
They wanted a cooler group, and thereby destroyed
Your church, to obtain the popular and trendy crowd.
Yet you all looked at me like a lunatic
And treated me the same?
Where is my brother's church family?
Where did they go? Your pastor saved him
Or was it I all along who planted the seed?
Did you listen to his slander, and get a foul taste in your mouth about me?
Well, I cultivated the seed in both of them;
Where's the shepherd who will watch over it?

The central theme of all conversation
Is centered around the social clique.
If you really wish to interest someone
Talk about someone you both mutually know.

I? I have no interest in doing this.
That is why I am so unpopular.
I would rather talk about man collectively
Than any one individual person.
As I find that rude.

My sweet child, make your bed
So when you sleep, you rest your head
Upon the soft and orderly, divine.

My sweet child, clean your room
So when you work, you can be true
And not be burdened by what's vile.

My sweet child, do your chores
So when you're old, you will be sure
That you can be well to do your daily hire.

My sweet child, learn the gift of no
So you can be joyful in rain or snow
And not live life burdened by desire.

My sweet child, eat your peas
And carrots, sprouts and vegies please,
So you can grow to have great strength and mind.

My sweet child, eat a little sweet
So you can live so happily,
And be blessed even in life's sour brine.

My sweet child, do these things
And you will live to see the spring
Of winters many and good times.

To be of the
World but
Not in it

Is the same
As being in the world
But not of it.

This wisdom
Brought me
A good friend.

Forgetting it,
We separated.

For, we must 
Not love the world.
That is what it is truly
Saying.

Nations are burdened by periods of long-suffering
Equal to the opulence of their citizens.
It is not a sin to be wealthy; for comfort
Breeds an environment where suffering
Cannot choke out compassion.
Yet, the decadence of generations
Who inherit their predecessors' wealth
And become idle in their work;
Refusing to do work, or take up no activity,
And leech off the fat of the previous generations,
This leads to a corruption so deep and bitter.
The citizens become worse than any tyrant.
Then, by their own designs, does corruption
Seep into governments, and like a whip
The government cracks against the back of its citizens.
Where once they were free, they are now bonded
By their own greed and lust, and desire for idleness.
Then, they suffer for, sometimes, six generations.
The people who are natured to be violent die
And the ones who are hearty and compassionate survive.
The government continues to be wretched
Until the people rise up, and challenge it;
For they have been chastened, and must no longer
Bear the grief. Or, if they still be wicked,
The government holds them for another generation.

As a good man living in one of these times;
The very few of us there happens to be,
Remember Daniel, Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego.
They were protected in the lion's dens;
They were not singed by the furnace.
Or Mordecai and Esther, righteous were they.
Or Ezekiel, righteous was he.
The fact is, one ought to remain silent under the oppression
And bear it with grace. For, six good men cannot
Save a nation. They can only save themselves.

The nation enters into its colonial age;
It is founded by strong men.
It grows through its various wars,
And if it survives them,
It grows into its golden age.
America, she had two golden ages
And lucky were her inhabitants.
Then, the golden age disintegrates
Into pleasure-seeking.
The beautiful highways, architecture
Ethics and culture which built the nation
Begin to come under scrutiny.
The inhabitants then begin to focus
Their arts on effeminate objects
Or grotesque objects.
It starts in the intelligentsia 
And then bleeds down into the masses.
When this happens, the masses
Are as opulent as kings;
Then, there comes a first crisis.
If the crisis is averted,
Some three and a half generations later
There comes a second.
I do not know of any thirds.

Goethe argues on the shade,
And hails experience determines color.
Newton claims the color is inherent
Within the object, by reflected wavelength.

Scientists argue about it for centuries.
Did it ever occur to any of them
That both could be simultaneously true?
Like all systems of knowledge
Invented, the inventor thinks it exclusive.

Obviously, light is experienced subjectively
For no two objects are nigh a source of light the same.
Yet, obviously, within any object is its inherent color.
Yet, it is... The color exists and can indeed be described.
Though the light reflects off the table a white
And though the shadow creates multitudes of shade;
It can be described accurately. It is as scientific
As Newton's inherent color.

This is too wise for those who wish
To calculate and say that truth is subjective---
For, it is not. Color in both cases can be accurately described.
One on the chemical level, and the other on the photogenic level.
What we learn is that light interacts with color
Differently, depending on where the source is.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to have discovered this.
I look at Goethe, so impressed by phenomenology.
To express our differences---yet we are all inherently the same;
We can indeed know the experiences of others;
Just the same that Goethe can write about his.
Fools are enamored by slight differences.
Wise men are enamored by the consistency of life;
Yet, the opposite is true for the fool
When it suits their aims at committing mischief.
For, truly, there are only righteous men and wicked.
Each will find their wisdom in either truth or folly.
To me, it is folly to believe that either system must
Be the only law or the only axiom. Truth is multifaceted,
And based in objectivity. It is not, however, based in personal opinion.
What is my truth, is also your truth;
It just so happens that I may not suffer for the same reasons that you do.

There is no such thing.
It is just a demon;
A mass hallucination;
A photorealistic Pixilation;
A madness.