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11h
In too many temple courts where gods like Baal were fed,
Mothers in droves with their infants
and no tears shed.
Naked, they sang as flames took innocent skin from tiny bone,
For righteousness, as always, wears that priestly tone.

The same as now
the bass drums are loud so the cries get masked,
And their gold still flows
from our every task.
Our forefathers’ hands did not resist,
For “what is right” has always been taught better with a clenched, bloodied fist.

And they were sure . Oh yes, like Falwell they knew,
That Moloch’s hunger was just and true.
That fire, not kindness, was virtue's kiss.
Then as is now, righteous suffering and pain is the gate to that holy abyss.

Unchanged, they sleep well under grey smoking skies,
Hearts black as their oil—greasy, justified lies.
Olmec or OPEC, no one questions the wise.

Now, we
sons of shortcuts, copying homework, heirs to the cheat,
Born in the light of air-conditioned laziness and comforting fluorescent deceit,
We who mocked the irreplaceable, wizened, long, slow way,
Traded sweat for clickbait and threw all skill away.

Your hands are soft. Our thoughts are thin.
We wear our vices like tanning bed skin
Phone grafted to hand, the true ruler of this accursed land.
It, therefore we, cannot build,
or plant, or sew.
We buy, we scroll, we Photoshop our fake lives and popularity and call that “grow.”

And the roof caves in when the storm gods come,
And your click-fed gospel won't save your filling lungs.
The water's rising and the oil is going dry,
Prices are soaring in cobalt cars and you do not ask why.
And no one remembers how to honestly cry
Without a screen to shape their tears,
Or algorithms to name for us our trending fears...

The "truth" never mattered
never did ,
never does.
What lasts is a story
That outlives what was.

Reap now your harvest of shortcuts
Taste a crop sown in fraud.
What you know of reality
Could fit in a nod.

My fathers built engines.
You build excuses.
Our mothers sewed clothes.
You tally abuses.
Choking on pills
snow white recluses.

The new, myths wither like weeds on a stone.
Nothing flowers in famine.
while it kneels to the throne.
hum inside like directionless beggars,
pass easy from mouth to child,
Changing shape with every telling,
Going feral and wild.
Till nothing of its core remains
like you ,
living on the sidewalk
passed over like stains.

There has never been a righteous nation.
Only the myth of one.
No pure revolutions.
Only blood in the sun.
remember what you think you need
not what was really done.

In Babylon’s time, they slit their sons
So crops would rise and famine shun.
Their hearts were full of ignorance branded faith,
not shame.
They did what gods and kings proclaimed.
We are not so different now
except we have forgotten the shape of sickle and plow.
Right was never just or good,
It always what the winners say you should.

Our myths need to change
to something deeper and real
that speaks to what we are
and how we feel.
Not to champion a sword, but to free us of chains.
Not in imaginary souls
but in hard working brains
We must write new stories of the crafts we revere
With effort and honor
and things we see clear.

Don't believe in the lie on the wall painted bright
For the lie was law, and the law was might.
The lie is in calling it right or just.
Don't do what you do for their greed or manufactured lust
Do it for the future
not now
and do what we must.
Jeffery Alan Hoover
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Jeffery Alan Hoover  49
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