On the lonely road, a crow was picking
At the fresh remains of a dead chicken.
It’s the circle of life, as far as I can see.
Everything is food; both you and me.
It’s all circle and cycles, you see.
Running away and then back again.
Life the enemy in our old age
That started out to be our friend.

It’s all ashes to ashes, dust to dust
Even solid steel is a victim of rust.
We can pretend might makes right
But that doesn’t stop the fall of night.
Water is necessary for us,
But without air, there is death.
We can live but a few moments
If we do not have our breath.

Without food, we will get weak.
And stone can break our bones.
Fire can consume us it is sure
But fire needs air, it is well known.
The crow pecks bones without joy
It is what it must to do survive.
The crow does not worry or frown.
It does what it does to stay alive.

The people that use that road
For the old crow’s grisly feast
Do not care for god or books
Or superstition in the least.
Congregations of god surely will
Hire mourners to wail their grief
About the loss of a pious soul.
No more honest than a thief.

I worry for a creature
One that calls itself wise
That needs to believe
Some ancient pack of lies
About timeless people,
Gods that can never die,
Though they are preposterous,
They fail to ask why.

I worry for a people who
In an age that conquers disease
Where we can educate ourselves
To do almost whatever we please;
Can turn night into the day
And speak across the many miles
Still chant their superstitious tales
About magic arts all the while.

It seems they are trained monkeys
Who push buttons for rewards
When spiritual independence
Could be their permanent award.
They thank the wrong saviors
For pulling us out of the slime
That has punished our people
Back since ancient times.

It was not ritual witchery
That gave our people freedom.
Instead it was seeing clearly,
Analysis, research and wisdom.
No blathering high priestess
With winged dragons to fight
Brought us medical cures, or
Radio and electric light.

My Jesus
does not shout his father's name
in a victor-trodden written page
in scenes atop mass unmarked graves.

My Jesus
does not begin sermons
preaching the "White Man's Burden"
treating a "Savage" as ill vermin.

My Jesus
does not parade down busy streets
holding signs of scorn and deceit
casting dour faces in their fallacy.

My Jesus
cries out his father's name
from a splintered cross in agonizing pain
his blood the payment of sin washed away.

My Jesus
tore the holy temple curtain
lifting the veil of the voyeurs uncertain
washing their ***** feet a humbling servant.

My Jesus
In the crowds victim to the zealots' decree
Widens his arms in the wake of their hypocrisy
He calls them all to him, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Thousands of years ago,
The loving god did decree
A vengeful statement that
Still affects you and me.
He told the loyal Israelis
In the Israel at that time
To go to their neighbors
And commit a huge crime.

It was couched in words
Of an eye for an eye
And lives in infamy
As the millennia go by.
This beloved god by decree
Ordered a massive genocide
Without a future thought or
Concern for those who died.

“**** all of them, even infants!”
That’s what they say he said
And even up until today
There are mounting dead.
A peek back at history
We watch the bodies burn
And know for certain
They have never learned.

The scariest part of all is
That these were all denizens
Of a timeless middle-eastern war
Now a cause by US citizens.
They have fought and murdered
For thousands of years on end.
So, why do we join in and fight
And send our beloved children?

Can’t we just agree on a course
To wash our nation’s hands of it
And recognize this madness
As a political bottomless pit?
It has never been righteous
Or easy to understand
How this war goes on over
This one small patch of land,
Fueled by religious hypocrisy
Written in a year that is labeled BCE?

On this side of the bridge,
Between time and eternity,
A foothill to the Necropolis,
Rises the cathedral.
The remains of St. Kentigern
Maintain it, the founding Father.
The spire tops the cruciform
Pointing the way to Glorify.
Within, walls are embedded
With plagues, standards and swords,
Praising foreign campaigns
And distant expeditions
Of long lost brave hearts.
Pilgrims stand silently;
Tourists nod quietly,
Pointing at remarkable achievements
Of Empire, and the young,
Beatified on distant lands.
The fading banners protest:
For this I gave my all, my best.
The stones are cold,
The windows stained:
In the crypt, St. Mungo lies,
The foundation of all
That died.

I see you,
Drinking from the water of inhumanity
Smoking the leaves of ingratitude
And eating the seeds of hypocrisy.

Observing you,
I found myself drunk of sorrow.

And it makes me,
Drink from the water of insomnia
Smoke the leaves of melancholy
And eat the seeds of solitude

So I can, finally,
Be drunk of madness

Let’s sit under this tree
Just you and me
And see what we can
From this piece of land.
Let’s see what is natural
And something others call
Contrived, manufactured
In their pricey lectures
To sell books and CDs
To clueless entities
Sitting on their couch
Ready to loudly grouch
About how poorly they are used
How they are abused
By the way others live;
Always have an opinion to give
Of what others should do
People like me and you
To whom they’re not related
But somehow got delegated
To a pool of the ******
Who they want to see crammed
Into flaming tour buses to hell
When Gabriel’s horn swells
And Jesus himself decides
Where the line divides
Those worthy to be saved
And those others who were brave
And tell the rest to adhere
To the line dividing queers
And the unbaptized sinners
From the rest of the winners
Who once read The Bible.
The rest are held liable
And will be sent to perdition
Due to their position
On The True Religion
Based on ancient renditions
Of fables and fairy tales
Of water wine and hungry whales.
There will be many Arabs in hell
And these folks know **** well
There will be no Mormons going
No Jewish representation showing,
Just good old fashioned Baptists
And maybe a few of the Papists
Certainly not that many
Maybe not any.
As I said, let’s sit and see
What happens to you and me
While we wait patiently
And see in the meantime
How many faithful commit crime
And intolerance in the name of God.
It should be pretty odd.