Hellenism

To avoid the tyranny of
The stepmother's disloyal rage
She sent her two children upon
A lamb to swim them o'er the bay.
The daughter fell off the sheep's loin.
She drowned, while the boy was then saved.
In this journalism I see
Vacuous truth, unconscious in
That it had no symbol, nothing
The storyteller of the fleece
Would wish to cause us pay heed.
Rather, no moral does it spin
No deep truth for a heart to win.
Yet a past land's conscience it leaves.

If I Could Write My Story

If I could write my story
One day I were walking down the state park
Or sitting in the mall
Or typing at my laptop in the local bookstore
A beautiful girl would pull up a chair next to me
Sit down, and say high.
I wouldn't know why.
I'd be shy at first
But she'd be persistent.
Then we'd strike up a conversation.
She'd find out quick I'm a writer
Ask to read some of what I wrote
And then she'd like it.
We'd spend the next month
With that obsessive kind of friendship
That comes with just meeting someone.
And soon, we'd fall in love.

About a year of being friends---
An eventful year, where we waited on each other
And were in the pre-relationship phase---
I'd put an engagement band on her finger.
A little gold ring with a small diamond.
We'd have a night of weakness
Where we would make love for the first time.
Soon afterward, we would get married.

We'd have kids,
And I would homeschool them.
Not for any religious reason
But only to spend as much time 
With them as possible.
She'd work from home on the computer
And I'd spend my time teaching my children.

My writing would be a mystery to my children
Something which they would be forbidden to read
Until they reach the appropriate age.
And sure enough, they would sneak into the room
And take the step ladder
To take the book from the highest shelf
And read it. I would scold them.

However, my books would sell a modest amount.
A small amount.
Maybe I would make thirty thousand dollars a year from my books.
I would then take the money and tithe it
And invest it in treasury bonds.
It would be a supplemental income
Which brought us comfort.
But, I wouldn't be famous.
Nor a household name.
Just a random stranger some people met
On the internet,
And they bought my books.

When I was old, and had grandchildren,
Then, when it couldn't corrupt me
My work would explode in popularity.
Just enough that I was old and gray
And my wife too,
And my children with children and their children on the way.
And my work would be praised as the greatest of the twenty-first century.
I would win Pulitzer, Nobel, Hugo, Poet Laureate.
In old age...
And I would be surprised by the sudden success.
But, not changed by it.
I would know how to use the money
And would be like Milton Hershey
Who invested it into the widows and orphans.
To which, I would pass away silently in my sleep
At an old age,
My wife also by my side.
And I will have lived the life I dreamt about.

I Hate the Tastes of the Populous

I hate the tastes of the populous
So I follow my muse where she leads me.
I see a wicked man cannot believe in God
But a righteous man cannot but help proclaim the name of Jesus.

Wherever I go, I see in people's heart a light
And the older they get, the more it dims.
It's like when a young maid loses her virginity
A dark frown furrows her brow.
Her glow becomes dim
And her inner light ceases to shine.
Or a young man who has heart and courage
And is like a lion, without knowledge of a woman
When he enters into her, he too loses that innocence.

Virginity ought to be prized,
As once it's gone, it never ceases to be a vapor.
Yet, a woman who was molested does not cease to be a virgin.
She is not consenting, yet I do see she loses some of her inner light.
Not for what she had done, but for what she had done to her.
And it is a shameful thing among the sons of men.

Yet, I also see men caught in a summary offense
Whom having offended the virgin they had deflowered
Be accused of committing a more heinous crime.
For a fifty dollar fine, they find themselves shackled.
I do not say it is injustice, for the woman ought to have been married
And her lost virginity cries out to her
Though many women pretend like it is not so.

I look also to the wind, and see change comes
To correct bad behaviors of the past.
What looks wretched and tyrannical
Is actually a chain which binds evil nations.
It wraps around them, and it chokes out the sin;
And while we all suffer for a while because of it
Soon, it is better left that sex be for a married couple
And for procreation. For, the nude show of woman's skin
Is something she does feel guilty for,
And though she shows her breezier at work
The men who stare at it are condemned.
And that whip chastises them,
Yet the lack of love in her life chastises her.
For all had been exposed for the purpose of vanity
And still, that vanity cannot hide its shame.

So, I look to the current age and say,
"Is it that I must suffer too?"
And the answer is yes.
For a short time, and then it will pass like a raincloud.
Yet, the dark storm is wrought by God
To correct our foul notions.

Word

Only a genius can understand this concept.
So, I may look insane speaking it.
But, I am not the first.
Nor will I be the last.

I will try to speak it as simply as possible.

Men, in two places on the globe
Can discover a principle in science, art, morality
Simultaneously with another man.
Neither man, having ever studied
Or known the other,
Can discover the principle.
And that is how we know it is true.

For in China, and in Greece,
The concept of Tao and Word
Was discovered.
Poets find similar thoughts
Similar constructs,
Meandering through the languages' rhythms and stories.

Myths build upon one another
To create archetypes,
To create forms
To create similitudes
With others.

Aborigines, I've heard
Can navigate their paths through song.
Fortune tellers can understand your path
Through a hidden tell.
Detectives can know a sequence of events
By a single fiber out of place.

Moral philosophers on three different continents
Separated by various degrees of culture
Discover truths about compassion
About kindness, about love.
And societies crumble when they reject these 
Fundamental truths.

Scientists dig into the earth
But poets dig into the constructs
To develop similar themes to one another
Precisely because they exist somewhere
Latent deep in the subconscious minds.

Psychoses are so similar from one man to another
Because we human beings share similar
Mindsets, and similar passions and similar dreams.
Men share their mental diseases in common
The same as their bodily diseases.
Men share their moral failings in common
The same as their physical addictions.

When we understand this,
We shall find there was indeed a creator.
And we shall name Him until we discover
There was indeed a name at the beginning.
And when we find that name
It shall be Jesus.
For, all the hidden truths and unpleasant things
Were told to us by Him, and not a single thing was hidden.

Odes of Strangers XVIII

Drink wine. Make love. Merry the heart a bit
With the pleasantry of vaginal skin.
Oh, Dionysius, to whom Kingdoms
Are but a game, and legions march out to war
On orders, by programming upon the screen.

They march, as you work upon them
To get the droves to do your bidding.
You wade in your underground hot springs
And you dine upon flesh and flagons.
Then, you hide from me your sin
In our conversation, like a Roan Cleveland Bay.

No, for all are guilty, but this you cannot admit to your own guilt.
You hide it, oh Northern Prince,
Your claims for evidence behooves you
As piously you sit upon your throne in your den.
You sit upon it, telling me there is no evidence for your sin.
When, it is written all over your shameful acts
To try and humiliate me.
For humiliate me you did, for I cannot call to mind
The potions you have drunken, 
The women you have made love to
Nor the roughness by which you treat your own kin.

To me, oh Dionysius, 
You are like royalty;--- Far beyond this jester fool
Whose given the license can critique you.
For you are like royalty, 
And I am like screed.
My words have none affect upon you.
They do not move you.
They bore you.
They are sonorous sermons
To wit, namely, should I shame you like you have shamed me
I cannot. For my shame is in the open
And yours is locked away tight in your underground labyrinth. 

I speak of this to your benefit, that
Yes, most men are guilty of the same shame as I.
In one form or another.
Laid the orgies of Dionysius,
It is like murder upon your soul.
And I, wishing to ease you from your sins
Have been humiliated by you
When you point to mine.
For mine is a matter of public record.
And yours is not.

A Roan Sow

There is a moral center to the universe
It can be tapped into, and understood with ease.
Yet, men fail to comprehend it by choice, turning
Their faces away from it, even scoffing it.
Yet, within the particle of language there is
Truth, and stories embodied within the very
Words used in that language. Truths which can be expressed.
Yet, falsehoods creep in because men reject the truth
And rebel against the principles which cause joy.
Rather, a certain kind of man has no conscience
And no ability to understand truth's Word.
For, to them, they wish for evidence from the ground.
Digging in the dirt, when the truth comes from places
Which are like still air, present, able to be felt.
And like stranded men, off a ship with broken sails,
Those lost souls turn their frigid ice upon earth's winds
To putrefy kindness with frostbite, and deaden
Souls with what they have found digging in frozen mud.

Reverse Racism

After Uncle Tom's Cabin swayed the North
To their war, and after killing Southern
Rebels---their blood stunk like dung heaps in heat---
Some pretentious bastards started work on
Turning the culture against itself yet
Again. It called "Sentimentalism"
Poor art, and thus, went to annex reason
From the heart and conscience of man's good soul.
It then turned "Uncle Tom" into a foul
Pejorative, so it could  subjugate
My friends, and confuse them enough to call 
Math racist, Word offensive, and therefore
Turn themselves back, yet again, to slavery.
For if education is pugnacious
To my beloved Black Friend, you will be slaves
Yet again, and have been the catalyst.