Odes of Strangers XIV

Gahanna was shrouded in mystery
As the Styx flows through the Acheron;
Descended into the deep
Son of a king, you trifle there.

King of the scouts
The minstrels sing of you
In the woven dreams of Morpheus.
The gum of Acacia is upon your thigh
Yet I rejected it, for such is the disease
Of mind, which your magic spun
Through dirt and vulgarity.

You sought me, and you found Cyrus.
You found me, yet you were but a boy
And our lives crossed on the banks of the Susquehanna.
I do not know what powers are over me...
Only that an Acquaintance, a man my equal,
So says David,
Whom I had counsel with in the LORD's house
Will betray me.

Forsooth, such a strange thing to be
That it was a happy accident
Which brought you to my humble life;
Yet you should be one plotting against me.

I believe in God
Because I see good is inherent.
I believe in Christ
Because He is inherently good.
I believe in the God of the Old Testament
Because there is evil.
And I believe evil needs to one day be punished.

Odes of Strangers XIII

Cyrus, I understand you
The way you think.
I know you from the inside
How you have petulant doubts
Yet rage at the heathen.
I know you rage against God
And seek to destroy Him.
Yet I also know you secretly wish
To use his laws to exact vengeance on this world.

You do not believe in God
You do not...
But His laws are enticing as an engine
To siege the Capitol
And to tear down walls and bulwarks;
To stir Media and Persia
Against Assyria and Babylon.

I know you from the inside
And your rage which burns toward the infidel.
Religion to you is a tool
The Messiah an engine which you will use
To usher in your reign.

Alas, I stand here
Arguing with you for the second time
As you tell me, "On your death bed
"You will say as Jesus said, 
"My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?"
Yet you take slaves
While you dash the infants upon the rocks.

Christian you do not hate---
No, you love God's people.
For it is in you to love God's people
For the law which burns in our chests;
Yet you rage against God as Satan himself
And you move upon your holy quest to purge
Sin's temples from the world.

I see you in my thoughts and visions
And I am like you
So it disturbs me greatly.
I am gentle, and meek;
You are a warrior
Believing in the law of my God
Right down to the tittle---
Yet you do not believe in God.

Such a strange doubt in you
That I feel in my chest
But I do not understand why you believe in my God's law
But not God Himself?

Is it, like so many Jewish men
You like the burdens of lamb stew and drink oblations?
I say to you,
You will be used to purge the land of its idols.
That is what you wish.
Yet it is I who shall prosper in the LORD's Name
For I will declare my portion
That your rage may be just
But it is not a wholesome intention to 
Desire to fix the world.

Odes of Strangers XIII

Cyrus, I understand you
The way you think.
I know you from the inside
How you have petulant doubts
Yet rage at the heathen.
I know your rage against God
And seek to destroy Him.
Yet I also know you secretly wish
To use his laws to exact vengeance on this world.

You do not believe in God
You do not...
But His laws are enticing as an engine
To siege the Capitol
And to tear down walls and bulwarks;
To stir Media and Persia
Against Assyria and Babylon.

I know you from the inside
And your rage which burns atoward the infidel.
Religion to you is a tool
The Messiah an engine which you will use
To usher in your reign.

Alas, I stand here
Arguing with you for the second time
As you tell me, "On your death bed
"You will say as Jesus said, 
"My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?"
Yet you take slaves,
While you dash the infants upon the rocks.

Christian you do not hate---
No, you love God's people.
For it is in you to love God's people.
Yet you rage against God as Satan himself
And you move upon your holy quest to purge
Sin's temple from the world.

I see you in my thoughts and visions
And I am like you
So it disturbs me greatly.
I am gentle, and meek;
You are a warrior
Believing in the law of my God
Right down to the tittle---
Yet you do not believe in God.

Such a strange doubt in you
That I feel in my chest
But I do not understand why you believe in my God's law
But not the God Himself?

Is it, like so many Jewish men
You like the burdens of lamb stew and drink oblations?
I say to you,
You will be used to purge the land of its idols.
That is what you wish.
Yet it is I who shall prosper in the LORD's name
For I will declare my portion
That your rage may be just
But it is not a wholesome intention to 
Desire to fix the world.

Odes of Strangers XII

Xenophanes, you poetically, and surgically
Weave your origins of doubt.
You find God to be cruel
More like man than actual deity.

I see the traces of wisdom in you
How you want an origin of God's being
And callously say,
"Christ is only two thousand years old."

Yet, ancient was the deity Who gave Moses 
Law, and more ancient was the deity
Who gave some of which to Abraham Hammurabi's law;
El is Hebrew for God
And El is traced to Mesopotamia
To be worshipped at the time of Melchizedek and Abraham.
El, it turns out has a Son.
The Scholars at Oxford and Yale
Say, "It is the cult of righteousness."

Yet, I say it is not so.
What cult of righteousness springs up in China?
What cult springs up in Greece?
As if this God's truths were universal
Found throughout West and East
And firstly discovered in the Middle of the world?

Greeks found Word, Charity, Agape
Chinese found Tao, Filial Respect, and Universal Love.
Jesus is the Word, is the perfect picture of Filial Respect and Charity and Love.
How cultures found morality independent of one another.

Yet, there are those who contest it.
And Xenophanes, you find them
Secreted in your doubt that man had anthropomorphized God.
And that is what causes you to doubt.

Yet, I see the same notions springing up in separate cultures
Meaning there must Be.
What is there? 
What can be found?
If it's there to discover
Who put it there?
And these my God answers
When He took on Human Flesh.
No other satisfies it;
Yet predicted at the beginning of human civilization---
When one man and another agreed upon their social contracts
And thus forth bore rule---
Is the fingerprint of my God.
That El, the nameless deity
Had a Son
And from this sprung what academics call "The Cult of Righteousness."
And then I find philosophers discover those same truths.

I say to myself, "The evidence is overwhelming.
"And then add to it the Heavens and Isaiah's scroll;---
"The stories written in the constellations."
I find one hundred percent proof that God is the Hebrew's God
And that God's Word put on the Flesh of Man.

Let Me Fight Our Wars in Verse

Let me fight our wars in verse.
Purge the violence from our souls.
Let me...
Let me speak of rebellion
Of slaughtering
Of killing
Of being unkind.

Let me tell you of war
You who wishes to kill the children
You who wishes to violate the women
You who wishes to plunder the spoil
From the homes.

Men die---
The very strangers I sing about
The very souls who occupy my verse.
These men, they die
Picking up the rifle.

Let me tell you the raw, uncensored
Emotion of war.
What kings feel when they send their troops into battle.
Children are to be dashed against the stone.
Women are to be ripped apart
Their breasts ripped open
And their bodies made into a heated flash of fury.

No... what I write ought to be offensive
Because you burgeon close to war.
These things you all will be guilty of.
So, let my poesy purge you of the evil.
Show you the guilt.
I'll draw you close to suicide
I'll draw you close to homicide
And then you can inch back
And say, like it were a dream, "I had never done it."
To know the feeling of a man's warm blood
Upon hands---
I do not know it, but I know the feeling
Of battle.
I will show you,
And let you meditate on it.

For is my verse offensive?
It ought to be.
For both Woke and Nazi youths
Will die with one another's
Fluids upon them.
Blood, guts and the ravished .

My poem should be offensive.
For war is offensive.
Do you wish to walk to the brink?
Do you wish to learn the regret
Of having taken another's life?
Of having violated someone?
Will your conscience ever be made whole
After knowing and tasting violence?

So I say, eat with trembling.
Drink with haste.
Prepare your hearts for war.
And if it doesn't come
Give a sigh of relief.

Dark and Ancient Truths

Dark and ancient truths
Which still burgeon in the world today.
American soldiers slaughter children.
Iraqi soldiers violate women.
War still gets fought by civilized countries.

Were you offended by Cyrus?
Yet our modern wars are fought just the same.
Children die in bombings,
Women are violated
Men slaughter one another.

What justifies war?
What justifies the crimes attributed to war?
War is the supreme evil.

What justifies it?
When is it justified to commit all atrocious evils?

Surely there is a time,
But now is not it.

Cyrus Conquers Babylon

Sing, oh wary ship traveler.
Cyrus sees your weary eyes
As the watch prowls the street
Asking for bribes, and stirring the 
Little townsfolk into their homes.

Prosperous was the land you fled to.
Prosperous, and kind
Until Sin's dark shadow grew over the basin
Of the gorges.
O! If you only knew our freedoms
If you only knew.

Cyrus, stir the Medes
Stir the Medes
Stir the Medes.

Cyrus spoke,
"I would cut them to pieces
"And rip out their throats.
"I would ravish the town squares
"And purge the evil of this land.
"I shall not spare their children.
"I shall not spare the rod.
"For I destroy even the Babes
"When I go to war."

O! Babylon! Prepare for war
For the peoples desire the law of Yah
And scorn the laws of Sin.
From the East, from the North
From the South, comes the armies
Of Persia and Media.

Sing o strong ones
For freedom is meted 
And the war shall be fierce.
Weapons shall unsheathe their naked steel
And in one night the battle shall be lost
For thee, o Babylon.

For the barren ones in the East
And the Barren ones in the South
And the Barren ones in the North
Are ashamed of you.

Cyrus Conquers Babylon

Sing, oh wary ship traveler.
Cyrus sees your weary eyes
As the watch prowls the street
Asking for bribes, and stirring the 
Little townsfolk into their homes.

Prosperous was the land you fled to.
Prosperous, and kind
Until Sin's dark shadow grew over the basin
Of the gorges.
O! If you only knew our freedoms
If you only knew.

Cyrus, stir the Medes
Stir the Medes
Stir the Medes.

Cyrus spoke,
"I would cut them to pieces
"And rip out their throats.
"I would ravish the town squares
"And purge the evil of this land.
"I shall not spare their children.
"I shall not spare the rod.
"For I destroy even the Babes
"When I go to war."

O! Babylon! Prepare for war
For the peoples desire the law of Yah
And scorn the laws of Sin.
From the East, from the North
From the South, comes the armies
Of Persia and Media.

Sing o strong ones
For freedom is meted 
And the war shall be fierce.
Weapons shall unsheathe their naked steel
And in one night the battle shall be lost
For thee, o Babylon.

For the barren ones in the East
And the Barren ones in the South
And the Barren ones in the North
Are ashamed of you.

Odes of Strangers XI; Revised

Trivia, riddle odes
And weave webs of lies.
Every word you speak is
Invented from the world,
You make yourself more ancient than Hecate
Who stands with her torch.

You occupy yourself with every fact that contradicts
Strange, ancient wisdom.
The Love of the Two Peaches
Is constructed, born a twelvemonth ago.
Yet, it is born as ancient wisdom.
Trivia, your weave a web
Of factoids.

Wisdom can still be purchased
So the ancient accents are known.
Paul Revere did ride a midnight ride
Yet, Trivia, you make Boston's Massacre 
Riot control---
It was a massacre.

Auld Lang Syne replaces "You're A Grand Ol' Flag"
And Trivia, Mnemosyne is silently demented
So all acquaintance is forgot.
Good men are turned into Joseph,
Yet all his mourners are comforted
For great lies are being spun by Trivia.
It soon becomes apparent
The Love of the Two Peaches
Isn't ancient.
Neither was the City of Sodom one which stood ancient.

For there is truth:
And it is hidden
By you Trivia.