The Ox and the Bird

‘When I was young,

I had a mulberry tree outside my front porch.

I gleaned all of the fruit off the street

Then stood on the electric dispenser

And began taking them off the boughs of the tree.

We ended up with a bucket filled with mulberries.

We ate nearly an eighth of them.

The rest went to waste.

In life, we’re like this.

That is what the law means by saying,

‘”When you come across an egg

“In a tree, leave the mother.”

When at work,

People have to pay for their food.

The reason why is because of the former.

Yet, the scripture says,

“Do not muzzle the ox.”

That means it is lawful

To allow those who work for you

To eat your food for free.

It is unlawful to not allow them to eat your food for free.

Yet, because the former law is not observed

People are leery about observing the latter law.

Our economic situation is this:

“Muzzle the ox, take the mother.”

That is why all are burdened.

How I View Grace

We are all degenerate

Serial rapists, murderers, cannibals

Drug addicts, adulterers, child abusers

And meet Jesus.

We say a thousand times we doesn’t need Jesus

Because we are pretty swell.

Jesus says, “I see there is some good in you.”

So, Jesus spends the better part of our lives

Trying to get himself caught for our sin.

Jesus does get caught, when we confess Him as LORD,

And then Jesus gets put on death row

Where He’s beaten up in prison,

Stabbed, and fed gross food.

We someday forget all of what we did

While Jesus is the one found guilty for all of our sins.

This is a helpful tool for understanding Christ.

We all are the degenerate fools;

Jesus is the Christ.

Wasn’t our LORD something of a radical?

My Words About the Revolution

Colonel Brandon had his say—marching with

Washington’s troop toward the Brandywine.

I say… Had Washington’s troops actually listened to that fellow

They’d have knocked him on his rear.

The story was made with today’s so called

“History.”

What we claim to know about the revolutionary war.

The fact is, it seems like rhetoric.

But… using that rhetoric

I wanted to show something good.

The fact that America is worth fighting to preserve.

The whims of an author cannot change history.

We can, rather, just put in our moral say

By the details we have given to us.

How the historical data says Washington’s troops were misers

When, historically, they probably believed very strongly

In the cause of the revolution.

I, rather, can have my say about what I want.

I can reinvent history.

I can rework truth

In order to present another truth.

Stories and works of fiction are never literally true.

In fact, they often get very details so wrong

It cannot be denied that the whole work seems flawed.

But, trade in one analogy for another

The truth is still in there without the details being accurate.

The truth is we, America today,

Are jaded and would not stand by Washington.

The fact is that today,

Washington and Adams and Franklin

Would be trolls on the internet

And nothing more than a blogger or a haphazard writer

Believing the lies about history we are taught.

Why do I bring this to bear?

Because the whole of the truth is that truth

In stories are present today, the age they are written.

And not in the past.

When we dramatize the past

With our stories, often it is today we are talking about.

When we watch the idyllic past

It is the past they are talking about.

Funny, isn’t it?

How art captures the ideal, and the truth

Of the age it is written in.

The Tragedy of Pekah Avram

There once was an old Jew

Who thought he was a woman.

He dressed up in clothes of a woman

Made a mighty fine one at that…

Though, he was confused because he was a man

But thought he was a woman.

He wrote the book of the Gatekeeper

And a Jewish prophet found his curses.

He, this old Gatekeeper

Was meant to allow certain men

To have access to their meat

For he, with the access to times

Could open the doors for them.

He, quite foolishly,

Did many unworthy things.

He turned himself into quite a nasty fellow.

So, the prophet finding his curses

Said, “I see you speak of me

“And my grandmother

“And I feel your curse every night around eight.

“How you pray your curses,

“And your songs are your religion.”

Yet, he did not know it was Hezekiah

He trapped. Hezekiah,

So the foolhearted Pekah,

Who hated Jews and held them captive

Said, “I shall enter into even greater curses”

It does sound true, doesn’t it Avram;

That you thought, “He calls himself Judah

“I shall make myself The Northern King.”

That is Babylon’s king.

O’ but my name is now Israel

Because you get to call yourself “Babylon.”

You trick, I trick, I am no longer Judah

Because you are no longer Assyria.

Jacob is a trickster

Trickster,

It all fell down!

On your head.

Thus, the crest of the northern king was on your car

O Avram Ephraim, Pekah King of Israel

With the Six Hundred and Sixty-Six talents of Solomon’s Gold.

Thus, I speak no curse on you.

Rather I bless you.

Your poetry is amusing.

I should have thought Israel was a safe King

But you are not…

Why I’m not Another Religion

I come to this often topic,

Of why I’m not a Buddhist.

At the beginning of my life

I said of myself I was a “Christian Buddhist.”

It was then said, “Those terms are antithetical.”

Certainly, they are.

Buddhism is a religion that praises suffering

As if it were the only meaning in life.

Suffering, to suffer…

Suffer in pleasure, suffer in pain

Suffer in war, suffering, suffering, suffering.

And after all of the suffering,

The meaninglessness,

The sitting among the tombs,

One’s greatest aspiration is to die.

That is the highest ideal of Buddhism.

Not to go to heaven…

No… simply to stop the reincarnation cycle.

It is what is called, “Nirvana.”

Nirvana is not heaven.

It simply is not.

Greeks and Egyptians have heaven

Yet their gods are vain, and will war among one another.

Viking’s heaven is to fight over a goblet and pork chop.

Islam’s heaven is nice, but how do you get there?

Do you just do a lot of good?

And what about people who did a lot of bad?

Do they just have to work off their good?

Like the Hindus and Buddhists have Karma

Evil must be worked off?

Because I see how evil I am today…

Being much more loving and kind than most people

And I see the extent of my evil

And I know Karma is a bitch;—

It makes a murderer never suffer once

And puts a good man who has a conscience out on the street.

It kind of invalidates itself, doesn’t it?

The happiest people seem to be the most vile in my experience.

So… we know it doesn’t exist.

Christians know this happens. They know…

They expect it… They often guarantee it.

Hindus the same, but there never is a real reward.

Hindus believe the ultimate goal is to be annihilated.

Westerners believe in heaven,

They believe in Hindu’s heaven,

They believe it is Islam’s heaven…

A nice little garden you go to

Where you get to make love and eat and drink.

Rightly, Westerners think all religions have heaven.

Very few religions do, outside of Western traditions.

Because, we believe in Heaven, we know there’s a heaven

And all religions aside, we know it’s there.

I talked to a so called “Religions Scholar.”

He said, “All religions have heaven.”

No… there are about seven religions practiced today.

Four of them do not believe in heaven,

Two of them do, and another just has no faith.

All the others I tend to reject…

Not because they didn’t survive…

My religion won’t in a little while.

How do I know this?

Because men don’t want to believe in the truth, anymore.

A persecuted Minority can be right

If that minority has the truth on their side.

Christianity does.

Why I’m not an atheist,

The simple reason is because it’s insane.

John Lennon says, “All you need is love,”

But he beat his wife.

If his character is anything to display

If Atheists, then I want nothing to do with their religion

Or lack there of.

I’m not Agnostic, because it’s stupid.

If I half believed in God

Then I’d better pick some religion

And make sure it’s right.

Only one seems to advocate truth…

“Turn the other cheek”

“Give to those who ask”

“Murderers will be torn to pieces”

“Frivolous sex is not right.”

One of those I’m sure

Most of you don’t believe in…

The last one.

And granted, your civilization sucks.

I have to live in it.

I don’t want to.

And, I see ya’ll suffer like the Buddhists do

Not believing in Fairy Tales

When the Fairy Tale simply says you’re in control of your own fortune.

Bad fortune? Probably bad people.

Not all the time…

Because they are happy.

I imagine people who live today

Are as happy as a Psychopath

Butchering a sheep or something.

Some pleasure is there…

I know.

But, there are better pleasures.

Buddhism believes it’s not so.

Christianity affirms that there is good.

I think most religions forget that

Or try to say they don’t,

But then when you look at it…

It’s a perfect engine for state craft.

Christianity doesn’t seem to be.

It seems to scorn capitalism

Communism

Socialism.

Everyone wants Jesus to be on their side…

Jesus’ side was weighing a shekel

For a pound of wheat.

And how much better would society be

If that’s what we did?

“No, because Modern society is so advanced.”

You have TVs. Want a cookie?

Because that’s about as advanced as we got in the past 100 years.

I call that a dark age.

And that’s, also, why I’m not an atheist.

And the reason I’m not a Muslim

It must be added here…

If you took every bad thing, thought

Idea—I said the “B” word in this poem—

And tallied it up in a day…

And say gave me time in hell for it…

I’m a student of La Rochefoucauld’s maxims.

I understand that would be my entire life

Spent in hell… and whatever sins I committed in hell

I’d spend that time still in hell.

A cycle, a cycle, a cycle.

Christians like to believe I’m evil…

Atheists like to believe I’m stupid…

The other religions like to believe my religion is true

Because clearly I make a case for it

And they realize, “Huh… this makes sense.”

And Muslims who look at this would say,

“But Hell is so bad, that it burns away your evil.”

Every Muslim, listen to this.

I do nothing on the account of a day, beside say the “B” word

That, in your eyes, would constitute as sin.

In my eyes, in my heart, I know how desperate I am.

I understand that I write this poem half to convert you

The other half is to eat.

I understand that I want love

Half because it will make me better,

The other half is because I want to eat.

I understand that I don’t like clothes

Yet I buy them… and have a lot more than Jesus recommended.

I understand I argue…

I understand I am hard to deal with…

I understand I insult people…

And though I do it all with the best intentions…

Converting a soul…

Removing a mote…

Discouraging bad behavior…

It is all sin.

At my best, it’s filthy rags.

You, yourself, are the same.

You worship Allah, what you call god

And “he is pleased with you…”

Your desire to be rich

To eat…

To have wives…

To have children…

To protect your own…

And then my religion,

God dies for you.

Did your god die for you?

He doesn’t even want you to be filled with him.

He wants you to bow to a stone

And he wants you to sit and say a repetitious prayer

Five times a day.

He wants you to fast once a year.

He wants you to go to Mecca to worship that rock.

Why? My God, you worship Him by feeding the homeless.

You do it by being kind to a person in a wheelchair.

Yours, you do it by bowing to a book, a rock,

And that’s all Allah is, I’m afraid.

He’s a book. He’s a rock.

And you look at Christians.

They worship a book.

They worship a rock.

So does the rest of the earth.

Me, I say the “B” word,

And I know how bad I am.

I know it… I see it… I hate it…

And your god says it goes away by touching your head

To a rock every day.

My God says, “I’ll take it out of you.”

And He does.

Day by day, it disappears little by little

And that’s the proof I have that He is LORD.

I don’t doubt Muslims are good people…

Or Hindus, or Buddhists, or Atheists, or Jews,

I just doubt their religion is what made them good.

Often, what’s good in them is the very God I worship

And when that starts fading,

It’s normally about the time that they get ensconced in their faiths.

Me… I get ensconced in my faith, too.

It’s simply to do what’s right,

To know I’ll never be fully good,

And to just say, “I’ll do my best,

“And Jesus will do the rest.”

Because my God said, “He who feeds the least of these

“Feeds me.”

All worship in my religion

Is centered around how you treat others.

It’s not prayers, Hail Mary’s

Or anything of the sort.

It rather is a religion about love.

Love sometimes rebukes.

My friends sits across from me

Gets angry that I said something that was right…

He leaves…

My religion is that it won’t be the last time we ever talk.

My family hurts me…

My friends abandon me…

My religion is that I’ll put in the effort needed to mend those wounds.

Because surely every other religion is about

How everyone around you isn’t perfect.

Christianity is about how you aren’t perfect.

And yet you should strive to be.

God Made A Good Earth; Men Just Abused It

The pleasure of sex

Brings a child.

That child grows

Under your thumb

And becomes like a half of you

And a half of the person you had sex with

That beautiful pleasure.

Then there is work.

You build a garden

An alcove

Vineyards

Pleasant houses;

You trade precious stones

With each other

To get things that will enrich you.

You work to compile wisdom

And skill at your craft.

You build shoes,

Art, paintings

Cupboards

Wooden ducks and chess tables.

Then there is pleasant sunshine

There are animals,

There is a wellspring of life

And clouds and blue sky.

In that heat, you build.

In the cold, you cuddle up next to a fire

With your beloved, and children

Huddled there all winter

In a cocoon of love.

The rain comes, it smells good.

The bees pollinate the grass.

Flowers come in all different colors

There are words for different things.

Teals and greens

And fuchsias

And magnolias.

Men are born…

With some pain…

The baby comes into the earth crying

And that little thing

Grows to be a man or a woman.

That woman or man makes love

And the cycle repeats itself.

You, the next generation,

Build a life with those you love.

Why is there suffering?

Can you truly blame God?

He builds the Earth,

And like the fruit on the tree of good and evil

We pluck it.

It is there, so we pluck it.

We pluck it, and eat.

That is why there is suffering.

God says, “Do not do this

“Or you will suffer.”

And we do.

All the beautiful things above

God has given us.

Heaven will be wondrous

Because we will never have to sin again.

We will never sin, we will never sin

We will never sin, because we cannot.

That is what we hope for.

To be like Christ…

Unable to sin.

Two Men

There were two men.

The first, a lot of what he predicted was wrong

But he did what God told him to do.

He’d say, “On this date, this would happen.”

And it didn’t happen on that date.

It, rather, happened, if it happened, a lot longer.

He, making one thousand shekels a month,

Gave twenty-thousand shekels to the poor.

He healed the lame with his words

And comforted them.

He spoke what was wise

Though he got his predictions wrong.

He also condemned the sinners with his words

Though he did not judge them

The sinners felt condemned when he spoke

Therefore, they hated him.

The second man, every word he predicted came true.

He didn’t do what God told him to do.

He would say, “On this day, this will happen.”

And it would.

He, making two billion shekels a month

Gave none of it to the poor.

He would tell the sinners, “God loves you”

But would not correct them to their face,

But it made them feel secure.

He would hug the sinners,

And make them feel very happy about themselves.

He never told anyone that they were wrong,

But rather, everyone was right because he was a murderer

And he didn’t want to accuse others for his own sin.

Every sinner felt like they were saved

Though they had great sin,

And they were comforted by this word,

“A mass murderer, if on his death bed

“Confessed Christ, he will go to heaven.”

So, they all committed murder

Believing their final confession would save them.

Which is the prophet?

A Little Parable I Told

There were two men.

Both heard God’s voice.

God said to both,

“You do what I ask,

“And I will give you everything your heart

“Desires, even wives, children, and vineyards

“And man-servants and female servants

“And oxen and sheep in great number.”

The first man,

He listened to God’s voice

And being a great sinner

He hindered himself

And caused a great calamity

Against himself.

He had sinned

And therefore had shame cast upon him.

For, his sin was known to everyone.

But, he had only made it known because God had told him to repent.

He believed in God’s voice

But, the more good he did

And the more he waxed in righteousness

The more he grew hesitant in his belief that God would save him.

He believed God would not even

Give him a mote of what his heart desired.

The second man,

An even greater sinner,

Knew he had heard God’s voice

But decided instead to act very foolishly.

He went out and began to torment his family and friends

And began to spill innocent blood.

He began to whore-monger

And would not repent.

When asked about his crimes

He felt shame, but would not repent.

He said in his heart, “There is no God

“And I don’t want to be mad like my brother.”

So, he continued on sinning.

Which is faithless

And which is unfaithful?

Who is the greater sinner of the two?

The man who did what God told him

But didn’t believe there would be justice?

Or, the man who did unjustice

In spite of God’s commandment?

All the Reasons I Could Go To Hell

Just today,

I woke up late.

I watched a show

Where a man put leeches on his eyeballs;

Just two seconds of it.

I have holes in all my clothes.

Just yesterday,

I woke up late.

I didn’t mow the lawn.

I got cranky with a local clerk.

I thought someone had stolen from me when he didn’t.

Just two days ago,

I woke up late.

I back-talked my dad.

I accused a friend in my heart of a grievous sin.

I was afraid.

Just three days ago,

I woke up late.

I was suspicious about my friend.

I back talked my dad.

I was angry.

I talked nonsense.

I said things that weren’t true.

I didn’t speak the truth in my heart.

I was afraid.

Just four days ago,

I woke up late,

When I was praying, I asked for something that was not good.

I feared something that did not happen.

I was angry.

I let myself get confused.

I argued with my brother.

I provoked arguments with people.

I had strife and bitterness.

This is the last four days.

Any one of these is worthy of going to hell.

This was the extent of my sin those four days

The whole of it,

Yet, any one of those

Could be the reason I go to hell.

This is why I need Jesus;

Because he wipes the slate clean

So I can still live,

And try to be the best person I can.

Rosemonde

There was a daughter

Of a certain Prince,

Known as the Great Strong Bull.

His Daughter’s name was

Rosemonde.

Rosemonde, the blessed defender,

Loved her father with all she had.

She fought for him

Went to war for him

Yet knew nothing of his deep sin.

Rosemonde was fierce in loyalty to whomever she loved.

She gave her unwavering support.

Her father used her war to injure his enemies

And would send her out on divine mission

To use the daughter Rosemonde

To war up in chain-mail

And like that blessed Joan of Arc

Would win all wars.

She was an equal price to lose for victory

Yet, Rosemonde loved her father with all her heart.

To the wars, through the valleys, Rosemonde

Gave her father a wicked name;

Infamous with all bloodshed,

So they said, “Rosemonde comes

“For the Bull, to wage her bloody war.”

O! Rosemonda! Why do you shed your

Blood for unworthy sires!

One of the Thirteen!

The bull was soon to be deposed

By the warriors Tavid and Zelek.

The great company of Nethanim did fight

The Maobitess Rosemonde

And all her hordes; Those of the children

Of the Bull.

Rosemonde was beaten, and had nowhere to turn

Thus, she turned to religion for help.

She turned, and had gained favor with Judah’s King

Who heard of all her sins;

Who realized it was a wicked man

Whom she served all her life;—

Even her own beloved Father.

So, Rosemonde threw down her spun cloths of war

And surrendered to Christ for a time.

Yet, soon came the Priestess Zerah

Who claimed that only the language of the Jews

Would suffice in worship.

She claimed that men must have to preserve the law

In their hearts, and so abstain from meats

Abstain from drink;

Abstain from all things unlawful

Which also meant to kill.

Zerah, the Ethiopian Priestess

Was this leader, whose self-strength was the Law of Christ

To execute judgment upon the sinners.

She had many great warriors underground

The elvish sorts, who tinkered with flesh

To rise from the ground and depose

The “Evil Hegemony” of Judah.

For, Judah was “evil” for his dogmas

So she believed strongly in Ethiopia’s lies;—

The additions of the Hebrew Fables of Enoch

And Book of Jubilee.

She spent years formulating plots

And found Rosemonde to be a great warrior of renown

Who now murdered for Zerah,

The Queen of the Damned.

War bastioned near

As Zerah fought against all righteous governments.

For established authority was her aught enemy,

And what was not established,

This was the good which must needs rise up

With her hordes. So, guns and butter

They did store, for twenty aught years,

Planning their uprising.

Rosemonde and her hundreds of thousands

Of sisters camped with the Ethiopian Zerah

Waiting for the time to strike.

Yet, Rosemonde secretly planned to set her father free

And back on the throne

But Zerah wished to set herself there

Thinking she were good authority.

Thus, the army set its heels against Israel

And Judah, believing even itself to be Israel and Judah.

For, the mystery of the Jews must be complete—

They did say—

To make the Law published, and observed

So also to stone the sinners

And to kill because men had not observed their Sabbaths.

For, disobeying the Sabbath was punished by death

Thus, death the army of 1,000,000 were ready

To unleash ‘pon men;

For, it was Death that they secretly

Did the bidding, that very Death.

Zerah and Rosemonde laid their traps

Setting up ambushes against the peoples Israel.

For, this Synagogue of Satan waited

And crept, desiring man’s blood to pay

For their sins, but forgot the Man’s blood

Who had already paid for their sins.

For, they worshiped through the Sentence of the Law,

And through law, gave themselves license to kill.

Sprung up, the armies of the Elvish wos and Rosemonde’s sisters,

And Zerah’s Ethiopian hordes

Amassed a strong war against the Nations Judah

And Israel.

Oh, Rosemonde! Your deeds are worse

For loyalty!

And in your good heart

Has been tempted by love

To thwart even this!

Array yourselves for battle!

There, the battle lines stood in glimmering rows

The Ethiopian hordes possessed chariots

Three hundred.

War was brought to Judah’s plains

And in glimmering rows

Did the arrows fly from the million

Of Zerah’s army

With the Moabitess Rosemonde.

Yet, Judah’s men rushed in

With supremely smaller force

And did block their arrows

With shield and aided gusts.

The arrows all blew,

All over, for wind was an ally!

The elves in combat lines drew their swords

Yet were battered

By a smaller force of Nethanim

Whom one could slaughter

One-grands Ethiopian

With seventy swift blows.

The winds cracked

And the lightnings shod forth

From the stormy gale that hailed over

The mountains of Judah.

The King of Judah,

A man of double heart,

Did on this day have strong, Lion-Heart

As he on chariot dismounted

And crashed the steel of Silver Sting

Upon the swords of Zerah’s Ethiopians.

Broken the Damascene swords asunder

Asa slashed the belly of blackened Ethiopians

With sword. The Whitened Moabites

He did bash over the head, and split twain.

Their blood ran thick on the battle ground.

Their arrows were pierced by winds.

The lightenings and thunders frightened their chariots’

Horses, for it was fierce thunder the likes of which

The great war horses had never seen

For they now knew it angered the LORD to battle!

So, they ran through their own ranks,

Uncontrolled, striking down the Moabite and the Ethiopian.

Zerah and Rosemonde were slaughtered

Before the faces of Judah

In bloody bands and bloody strings.

The word reached that Red Bull

That his daughter was slain.

Not for pity, but for cunning

He now forged a war against Israel.