If you love someone,
Before it is too late.

When science and religion collide, bloodshed ensues.

I have a request to ask of each of you.

If in your heart you know that every human being on Earth is innately equal, if you know that millions and millions of children around the world are starving to death every moment of every day, if you believe every human being deserves to have healthful food, affordable housing, education at all levels of the highest caliber, excellent medical care for everyone, as well as disseminating equally all the other necessities every human being needs to live a safe, full, and satisfying life--all at no cost--then I ask you, with all my heart, to email  my commentary, EARTH LOVE, to 10 of your friends to read, and in turn, ask them then to email this post to 10 of their friends to read, then continue to do the same thing ad infinitum until humanity comes to the realization that it is utterly possible to create Peace on Earth forever.

(P.S. There are currently 7.5 billion human beings on Earth and over 4,000 languages and dialects they speak. We need to reach as many of our fellow Citizens of Earth, as I call them, as possible. The task we face is momentous, but after the first match is lit, success will be realized exponentially quickly. The fire of love will sweep Earth and we shall celebrate our new moral world. Thank you all for helping to create Peace on Earth forever.)

EARTH LOVE

by

Tod Howard Hawks


PREAMBLE: All we have is our little planet, Earth. For the vast majority of my life, I have thought, “What would it be like to have Peace on Earth?” But for only two, maybe three, weeks every year, usually around Christmas, I would see the phrase “Peace on Earth,” mostly on Christmas cards. But after Christmas, I would not hear or see that sanguine notion for 11 more months. The longer I lived, the more this annual ritual bothered me. At Andover, I had studied European history. At Columbia, I had majored in American history. Over time, I increasingly came to the realization that in both prep school and college, I had essentially been studying about wars on top of wars and their aftermaths: millions and millions and millions of human beings being killed. Most scholars believed only a little over 200, out of roughly 3,400 years of recorded history, were deemed “peaceful.” Humanity, I concluded, had a horrible track record when it came to effectuating “Peace on Earth.” And during my lifetime things have not gotten any better.

SPIRITUAL ECOLOGY: There is one land, one sky, one sea, one people. The boundaries that divide us are not on maps, but in our minds and hearts. Earth is as poor as its most destitute Citizen, as healthy as her sickest, as educated as her most ignorant. If we pollute the upper waters of the Mississippi, then ineluctably we shall pollute the Indian Ocean. If we continue to pollute our air, the current 7,500,000,000 Citizens on Earth will die. The water and air of the world care nothing about national borders, nor does the pandemic. The imminent threats of nuclear holocaust and catastrophic climate change we need urgently to prevent. This is the truth of Spiritual Ecology.

CAMPAIGN FOR EARTH: If we can wage war, why should we not wage peace? Nations are anachronistic. Therefore, there will be none. There will only be Earth and Citizens of Earth. Each Citizen will devote a sizable number of years of her/his life to the betterment of humankind and Earth. All military weapons — from handguns to hydrogen bombs — will be destroyed, and any future weapons will be prohibited. All jails and prisons will be closed, replaced by Love Centers (see below). Automation and other technological advances will enhance the opportunity for all Citizens exponentially to realize their potential, personally and spiritually. There will be no money. All precious resources and assets of Earth will be distributed equally among all Citizens. The only things Citizens will own are the right to be treated well and the responsibility to treat Earth and all its Citizens well. All Citizens will be free to travel anywhere, at any time, on Earth. All Citizens will be free to choose their own personal and professional goals, but will do no harm to Earth or other Citizens. All Citizens will be afforded the same resources to live a full, safe, and satisfying life, including the best education, health care, housing, food, and other necessities throughout Earth.

LOVE: The only way to change anything for the good, for good, is through love. Love is what every living creation on Earth needs. Love Centers are for those Citizens who were not loved enough, or at all, especially at their earliest of ages. Concomitantly, they act out their pain hurtfully, sometimes lethally, often against other Citizens. Citizens who are emotionally ill will be separated from those who are not. Jails and prisons only abet this deleterious situation. Some Citizens in pain may need to be constrained in Love Centers humanely while they recover, through being loved, so they do not hurt themselves or others. In some extreme cases, Citizens may be in so much pain that they remain violent for a long time. Thus, they may need to be constrained for the rest of their lives, but always loved, never punished. In time, Citizens, when loved enough, will only have love to give, and the need for Love Centers will commensurately decline.

EARTH: In 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the commission that wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. UDHR, with some updates and revisions, will serve as the moral and legal guidepost for Earth.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY: To honor and remember the former nations on Earth, one member will be elected by Citizens from each of these former nations to serve a one five-year term as a member of the General Assembly. In succeeding elections, Citizens currently residing at that time in areas that were formerly nations, will again, in perpetuity, vote for one Citizen also residing in that area, for a one five-year term as a member of the General Assembly.

FIRST VOTE: The first vote of all Citizens will be to establish CAMPAIGN FOR EARTH. Majority rules. Citizens will have to be 18 years old or older to vote. All Citizens will have access to Internet voting, as well as access to smart phones and other types of computers. Citizens will have her/his own secured ID codes. Citizens will be encouraged to bring before the General Assembly all ideas and recommendations, as well as any concerns or complaints, which will be considered and responded to promptly. Citizens’ ideas and recommendations will be formed into proposals drafted by members of the General Assembly. Citizens will have the first two weeks of each month, every month, to vote on these proposals of the previous month. Members of the General Assembly will be facilitators who will work with millions of volunteers. Citizens of Earth will be the Earth’s government. There will be no president of Earth.

ALLCOTT MOVEMENT: Citizens of Earth will instigate the Allcott Movement-not boy-, not girl-, not woman-, not man-. but the nonviolent Allcott Movement-against each multinational corporation and every mega-rich individual unwilling to abide by the democratically held, worldwide vote in favor of the CAMPAIGN FOR EARTH. Citizens will continue to use the nonviolent boycott against recalcitrant multinational corporations, and, in a similar nonviolent manner, will continue to use viable pressures against the recalcitrant mega-rich of the world. All smaller-business wealth will be converted into resources to be distributed equally among all Citizens. All proceeds in excess of what’s needed reasonably by each Citizen will be saved for future generations. Consequently, Earth, which for millennia has been turned inside-out will be turned right-side in. Citizens will take these steps because they are the moral, the right, steps to take to save all of us, all other living creations on Earth, and Earth itself.

CELEBRATE AND SHARE: If you were to take a photograph of humanity and gaze at it, you would see a beautiful mosaic of mankind of different, beautiful colors. If you could step into the photograph, you would hear a melody of languages and dialects. You could have a worldwide picnic with all your sisters and brothers and experience different customs and taste different, delicious foods. And in moments of silence, all of you could pray in your different religions, separate but together at the same time. You would also share the same human laughter and joys and feel the same sorrows and cry the same tears, all in Peace on Earth eternal. All of you would come to delight in these differences, not dread them. You would look forward to celebrating and sharing with your family, not killing them. The spiritual whole would be larger than the sum of its sacred parts.

A QUANTUM LEAP:  The world, over millennia, keeps evolving. Over 3,200 years of recorded history, powers, nations keep shifting, sometime seismically. Now is the time for not only the grandest seismic shift ever, but also the one that will save Earth and all living creations upon it. It is time for Earth to become Earth--not a scattering of over 200 nations with artificial borders, but an Earth that has one land, one sea, one sky, one people. The boundaries that have simplistically divided us for eons are not on maps, but in our minds and hearts. The air and water of Earth, even the pandemic, take no notice of national borders, nor should we, the Citizens of Earth. Technology, with its innumerable advances, has made us into a world when all can become one. We are free to be our real selves, to spend our variegated lives not aggrandizing, but by sharing and giving. Rather than dreading our superficial differences--our different skin colors, our different cultures, our different religions, our different languages--we can explore and enjoy them. Let us finally be what we truly have been forever, one big, worldwide family of humanity. No more wars, no more weapons, no more killing. No more hunger, no more homelessness, no more hopelessness. No more ignorance, no more illnesses, no more social classes. This is the quantum leap of which I speak.

PEACE ON EARTH: Wealth is not worth. The mansuetude of loving, and being loved, is. When love is your currency, all else is counterfeit. Citizens will be able to go about creating their own happiness that is built on love-based personal relationships and professional activities. No longer will human beings be able to profit from another’s pain. With love at the center of being and living, there will be no more corruption, no more dictators, no more wars. Finally, there will only be Peace on Earth forever.

A graduate of Phillips Andover Academy and Columbia College, Columbia University, Tod Howard Hawks is a poet and human-rights activist.

email address:  todh21376@gmail.com
phone:  303-939-0561

Somewhere in the past
you were deeply affected within your interaction
with one of my accounts.  I don't know who you are
(who the person is that is leaving tangible fingerprints
on the keyboard of this account I am speaking to)..
I can only guess,
but I am fairly sure that my guess is accurate,
     so I will keep all of that to myself,
so that you can freely and without fear of being found out,
go back with me to that place inside of yourself  that felt so well
met and seen back then.

In turn, no more *******, devaluing of love
the way that you do so often at close range.

If you pull that horrendously harmful **** again,
I will pull away again, but this time.. never come back.
That being said, I will not leave you hanging,
(or do my best to not to)  
if you bring  towards me  the need within you..
that through your memory,

you so well believe that I can satisfy
(and you already know that I am not talking about the ******).


You feel the deep, internal response--
from deep within that body of yours,  
when love warmly touches  
previously untouched places within you

And you spin them out publicly right in the midst of our
closeness of interaction (which I think is really cool),
just please don't flay me for showing my humanity
by responding back to you sexually.
I will keep that side to myself,  if that is what it takes
to keep you from throwing me under the bus, yet again.
The ****** (within the closeness of warm, loving connection) --
((even in the world of support..))
that very sensuality so perfectly parallels..  
through physical, tangibly-felt metaphor..
all that there is also within the Realms
when it comes to the spiritual.

Healing of that which has become broken by the fallen
******-up version of love this world brings--
that type of healing and restoration back into wholeness
is what all relational closeness is meant to bring,  and stand for.
You want something that you deeply believe that I have,  
yet somewhere..   maybe in another life..
I must have hurt you deeply,
or you wouldn't be sending  all these finger-puppet forays
my way.

Come and get what you want and need,
and if you believe I am shorting you your rightful blessing  
by missing it..   or simply just being generically stupid,
then instead of flaying me publicly,  
privately come to me  in boldness,
   and shake it out of me--
that which is rightfully yours-- my healing-response.

and do it brazenly,  with a fierce, yet open and vulnerable heart
the way that you have shown in your poems. Maybe in time
you will find out all on your own  
that what you thought was hurtful from me,  was felt
out of perception,  rather than what was actual.
If I really did do something,  tell me what it is
so that I can own up to it and tell you that I am sorry
for ******* everything up that way..
if, in fact.. it was something I really did.

I will only talk to you  from here (my M Vogel account)
so that you can rise and fall
concerning what things you need most from me,  
solely

by the responsibility of you,
and of me.

You already know that I am Paul.
You can call me that,  or M Vogel,
or stupidface..
or any of my other account names if you want,
but get inside of here with me what it is that you came for.

If it is something that I am able to give or be a part of..
then know it will become yours  in time.
  You have the ability..
    even though being spoken to this way
    both wildly turns you on
    and completely scares you shitless
    (and probably both at the same time)
you have  proven,  through your posted words  
that you are actually able to be a part of   and do,
what has for so long  felt so horribly distant from you,
   and so horrendously impossible for you to attain.
You have earned every single part of this very rightful place
that you now have in here with me.

Please don't stupidly **** it up the way that you so well
and so often do.
You are brilliant, girl. We both know that.
Stupid things are possible because your world has had learn
to be so incredibly indirect in order to survive.
What has saved you up until now,  out there..
will destroy everything for you,   in here.
But you are human, and rendering old things   dead
may be too much to ask for.. so I will tell you now--

that even  if within your broken, PTSD-filter--
you make a mess of the closeness--  at close range..
then with poetry, find your way back into my heart--
by speaking solely from yours  as you have.
**** me over too insincerely and callously  without remorse,
and you yourself will have stolen  you--  directly from
that of the deepest of places within my own heart.

Your call, kid..
You are not a little 14 year old  clad in combat boots anymore.
Yours is a living, breathing heart--
left withering  within the dry desert of indirectness
that you have  been forced up until now  to live in.

Every single day the sun comes up, anew. Those words mean
everything to you for a reason.
Through love and accountability,  breathe life in to them.

That is how you will make them real.

I used to read your poems
but lately you don't write
you're silent and aloof
you know that isn't right.
You can't close a door once opened
you can't abolish all your dreams
you're a poet of the heart
mustn't fall apart at the seams.
Say what you can in words
they speak the message true
spoken from the heart
the poems will see you through.
A hermit's not your style
a recluse, you are not
never give up writing
of things that you've been taught.
I used to read your poems
I'd read them once again
if you would send them out
(this one's from a poet friend)

They said,
"The most beautiful art is
looking into someone's eyes
when they talk about the
things they love."
And I said,
"Or looking at someone you love.
Or maybe, just maybe,
by looking at the mirror
is the most beautiful art
anyone should appreciate."

ive fallen for the moon,
ive fallen for you.

Love is needed
love is wanted

But what love is to you
may not be what I needed

That doesn’t mean
you are in the wrong

But rather we are different
and love is in many definitions

So let’s not take it personal
let’s not blame each-other

When we both can just agree
that love is difficult and different

For each one of us
and we all deserve to be

Loved by someone that doesn’t take us for granted ever

Because that just doesn’t
seem fair or loving regardless

Of the various definitions
that love can truly have

Go ahead and look it up
in a thesaurus and you will see

That the words: pain, sorrow, grief , disappointment and hated  

Nor abused, neglected, forgotten , frustrated and mad  

Don’t belong in the pages you would read or the emotions you would ever have to feel

Truth be told ............

She said "I'm falling in love."

I said "I'm falling apart."

The universe loves a bad joke.

am I sad
over you?
am I sad
from you?
every person is different
the accommodations needed
are different
have you made me
sad?

you are drowned
by someone else
you are being murdered

not by malice
by fate
it was time

i've got shades

to me

you've got shades

to you

still we're

the same black

created from

different hues

My sleep isn’t silent
I go down screaming
Screaming
Kicking

Because I’m one breath away from
Death
One whisper away from
Eternity

My sleep is quiet
So I fill it with shrieks
Just to make sure
I am alive

In the morning of yesterday
There were strangers talking in my garden, heads close together
Intent on each other, in whispers
I heard them say your name
And the earth shifted a little...the season moved forward a little
And I heard myself sigh like a dreamer

Harvesting hearts and marigolds
The thief steals in when we least expect it, masqued and lithe
Wanting an exploration of Souls
Oblivious, if we’re generous
But still the knife cuts deeply...the blade turns without intention
And I’m bleeding out like a Madrigal

I loved you too much in the Mirrorfall
I found you in the violin’s shadow
Dust and star tears are my witnesses
I love you
My joy and my abyss

So many poems
and stories
have gone unwritten
due to fear of not being good enough

If there comes a time
that you might lose me
Find me in my poetry

i climb the scaffolding
look down below
spirit faltering
will i die in the blow?

caffeine swirling,
dizziness whirling,
truth obscured
devil-lured

dry darkness,
unfeeling eyes,
dropping, heartless
out of the skies

failing, falling,
faster than water,
missed my calling,
embracing slaughter

but i'm still here,
didn't dare,
risk the fear
of devil's snare

I love him
I tell myself
I know that
We will be together forever
I don’t believe that
We could be separated
My thoughts tell me that
He’s the love of my life
Sometimes my heart lies and says
I could live an eternity
Without him
Like my friends say
“We’re perfect for each other”
And you can’t tell me
He’s not the one.

Now read from bottom to top.

your name is
forbidden in
my mouth
or in my heart
because when
i think about
you;

i'll cry a little more,
hurt a little stronger
love a little softer
because you no longer
make me feel sober

i'm drunk on the
memory of you

A light growing bright,
and changes frequency.
Earth forgotten a time
before the push screen.

i spend my days
pouring myself into the cups of others

only to find that
when it’s time for myself
to take a sip

all that’s left
in my cup
is the remainder of a girl
who gave too much

The poet lives two lives.
One on the outside,
And one in their mind.

When you look in their eyes
You could see an abyss.

If you looked long enough
You could sink into it.

But most people don’t see it.

Take the time to read the words, though,
And you would know for sure.

The poet lives in two different worlds.

Each time you smile..
Each time the sparkle of your eyes meet my eyes...
Each time the wind  caresses your hair..
Each time the melody of your voice fills the air...
You are demoing your soul...
Your most precious asset....

when i was a kid
i always wonder why the moon kept following me
is she my best friend?
my protector during the nights i walk alone?
until  i grew older
and find her presence my peace
started telling her my secrets and dreams
sometimes we share our tears
we will talk all night
together we will fall asleep

I see birds fly
from this concrete predicament
faces in ****** hands
I hurt and I cry
my hands are wet
trapped
on Pilates plateau
a place where bugs die.

You.
Are.
A.
Walking.
Masterpiece.