The year 2060

Men plow their entire yards

Or cobble shoes;—

They plane houses

They build furniture in their wood shop.

They go to the markets.

They cook, they clean.

 

In the year 2060

Women sit at the computer screen

Do woman’s work by earning the household income.

The money she earns,

Gets given to the man.

The man pays the bills.

The woman sews the garments.

 

In the year 2060

Both parents teach their kids

The course material comes from online schools

And the mother—when not doing her online work—

Sits and schools the children on Columbus and Calculus;

The pixeled hologram of the teacher stands in the room to lecture.

The children spend most of their days with their families.

 

In the year 2060

Children play tag,

They don’t get homework

But they do love to learn because learning is about

Nurturing creativity and problem solving skills.

They meet with their local friends

And play with sticks instead of video games.

 

In the year 2060

If we’re still around

This seems like a nice way

To spend time and live life.

Life with family

Who raises you

Instead of peers and strangers.

Two cheeseburgers

From a high end restaurant

Costs, for the whole meal

About 12 dollars per person.

Two double cheeseburgers from Wendy’s

Costs about 10 dollars per person.

 

I did the math. My roast dinner…

With premium, 4lbs of Roast Chuck

Four premium potatoes

2lbs of the best carrots on the market

A gallon of Rice Milk—

I’m not making a political statement here—

A quart of Beef Stock—best on the market—

A can of sweet peas—

A whole container of Parmesan cheese—all of it won’t even be used—

Comes down to about 34 dollars

Divided into four people’s hungry bellies…

 

That’s $8.50

Per meal.

And I guarantee you,

It will be better than anything I could buy at Applebees.

Jesus’ parables.

Our notion of right and wrong

Stem from Him, and Him alone.

In the West, we, even believing we do not,

Follow His command.

Even in rebellion, our rebellion

Is because of something He said.

Our hatred of Gays our hatred of “Cisgenders”

It comes from Christ’s teachings Who said

“Be Kind.”

Everyone has taken a foothold on that

Christian and Atheist alike.

Only Christians seem to satisfy it

And behave the way Christ taught…

Much to the Atheist’s despair.

 

Goethe, of course.

All of our conspiracy theories,

All of our fascination with the Occult…

Hawthorn, Twain and Freemasonry

The idea of selling a soul

To obtain the prize in life.

How we all think about it,

Ruminate on it,

Believe it to be the case

That Satan does, in fact

Steal souls, and that there is no way around it.

All of our celebrities are either gods

Or they are abominations.

They are either objects of ridicule

Baals to be thrown down.

Or they are the very idol we follow…

With regard, the religion of the West

Is to sell out, or sell to naught.

 

Of course, Milton’s Paradise Lost

Permeates our culture.

The most British thing

Is how we all secretly

Empathize with Satan—

Not me, I use the Royal We,—

Though I am not Royal

I do have to live with everyone else’s mistakes—

How we cannot at all understand

But rather are bemused by wisdom

And will even sympathize with the devil.

Completely missing the crux of the great work

That Satan was a murderer

Whose sole mission is to destroy us

And convince us with wisdom it is moral to do.

But, still, Westerners never read Paradise Lost;

We’re still convinced we can make an argument

To prove God exists… therefore we forget

That God is good, and that’s why we worship Him.

Satan, through persuasion, has made the most foul crimes acceptable.

So when Americans do read Milton, they get persuaded by Beelzebub.

I do know he made most convincing argument.

 

A fifth is Thus Spake Zarathustra.

We are all preoccupied with power.

With fortune. With our will’s strength

Over all of the opponents’—

Those opponents the very people we know.

Over the psychopathic tendency

To not give a care about

Others, but rather our lives were solely

About exploiting those weaker than us.

Then… on the flip…

I’ve heard Nietzsche called the Philosopher of Joy.

What joy is there in declaring God is dead

When He merely died?

Precisely, the American wants their life here…

In the process they lose it.

They forget Christ made us hope in the afterlife

So our lives here would be filled with less suffering.

As all the atheist did was bash kindhearted theologians

While trying to repress the urge of the conscience.

 

Afterward it is Grimm Fairy Tales.

Disney… of course. But need I go to the whole principle

Of Grimm Fairy Tales

Which is the power of the will

And the power of choice.

How our entire society is obsessed with choices

And volition…

Much like the Grimms were when writing the tales.

For we are a culture obsessed with choice

With conquering evils with vengeance and force.

Wanting to overthrow and destroy

All evil in the world,

To bring swift rebuke to the criminal

And to live autonomous through the will.

But we forget that the path is chosen

By character—so, we conversely

Pretend like we never believed in Fairy Tales

Because most of us find we are the actual villains in the stories.

 

And as a sixth,

I have to confess,

Is Harry Potter.

Just the casuistry

Of the populace to believe

Rowling didn’t want her books interpreted.

She didn’t want them taught in schools…

Therefore, Voldemort is not Hitler

Because to our minds Voldemort doesn’t need to be understood.

The defiance of a meaning,

The Postmodern frack fest

That is Harry Potter,

Where the Audience got to make up the story

While Rowling wrote it.

Neither nor really understanding

One another…

For Harry Potter itself is not influential.

Just the casuistry it created.

And it wasn’t the author’s fault.

It was the populace not understanding what they read.

Rather, they defied Rowling to make a point.

But one snuck in there, nonetheless.

If I thought it would actually protect victims

I’d be for it.

 

At first, I saw it, and agreed.

I saw justice executed

By those who used their full rights.

They had de facto used these laws

To make sure justice was executed.

And the defendant was guilty

And the state prosecuted him

To the best degree, and fairest degree of the law.

 

Then, I considered every petty theft

Every assault charge,

Every crime committed on another.

I, unfortunately, saw this being abused.

To the effect that the courts would no longer

Regard the victims.

 

Then I considered a victim being read Miranda rights.

How traumatizing it would be

For an officer to read them these rights.

How, as the defendant were being traumatized

By the full weight of the law

The victim would be read a longer list

Of rights, that would pass over their minds…

I can see a cop saying it as part of a recited

Verse. Like the pledge of allegiance.

And the victim sitting there

As just another victim.

 

Then I considered humans are sympathetic

To the first thing they’ve ever witnessed.

Their first time seeing war.

Their first time seeing a visibly broken victim.

Their first time seeing the victims in the court room.

Frankly… I can see this being abused

And it will be because people are fascinated

By things which they are involved with…

Much like a circus spectacle

They, with morbid curiosity,

Would attend their accused’s trial

Hurl stones, and possibly turn the court room

Into a drama, and a laughing stock.

 

If there is real hurt,

A victim will—

As I was first hand witness to this—

Pursue their rights to the accused.

Even without these rights

I saw victims put a man in jail

And be active in every part of the trial.

It worked, precisely because the police had never seen it before.

If police, and district attorneys

Are being inundated by messages

Lambasting them and their efforts,

Screaming for the harshest penalties

And then, ultimately, turning the Prosecution’s

sympathies toward the criminal…

I don’t think this is an exercise of justice.

I think, rather, it will have the opposite affect.

I think it will burden the courts with extra phone conversations

It would create entire branches and bureaucracies,

And considering the information and rights are already

Provided.

 

My little sister, Tori

My family pursued the accused

With the mighty wrath of God.

She had been brain injured.

Had every victim done this

Tori would be in a worse state

Because it would no longer be special.

It would be another angry parent.

Another angry victim.

I say this from witnessing both ends

The spectacle will not help court proceedings.

The rights are already there.

It will, as a matter of fact, hurt the victims.

And that is something I cannot tolerate.

There it is

Red in the cup.

The proverb says

Do not look at it,

Do not linger long at it.

It goes down smooth.

 

Hecate puts the blood of deer

Into her pot…

A dash of Kohl,

Leaven and anise.

Is there also the juniper berry?

It’s curse is luck…

 

The luck of turning what we dread

Into joy.

 

It’s not hopeless.

This is why I write.

 

The curse lifts with a desire to end it.

Desire… then comes the waters to drink.