This is a tale featuring the great superhero, SNOGGO

  That ******* dangerous horrific and scary beast would not terrify me.  Who was I?  Some little stupid ******* weedy spastic?  No, I was the great fearless SNOGGO!  Yes! Yes! Yes! I was the magnificent SNOGGO who had faced (without flinching much) so many humunguously terrifying events! So I picked up the mighty hammer and struck out fearlessly: *'Wham! Thump! Crash! Boom!' I gave the terrfying monster a ******* great bashing.

  I was enraged yet not terrified more than was absolutely necessary. Did you erroneously imagine I was just some little weedy wimp afraid of attacking a terrible adversary without a platoon of Hummers (whatever they may ******* be) full of mercenaries recruited from the slum trailer parks of Hades?  'Take that you stupid evil cunty ideologue!' I yelled, 'Take that! And that! ******* take that!'

  My God, I bashed that vile and 100% hideous creature ******* senseless. I was so ******* brave, just as brave as the worthless ***** who will soon be called heroic US veterans killing innocent Arabs left, right and centre throughout the entire ******* Middle East to please their Zionist taskmasters, God ****** them. I was incandescent.  I was SUPER-******* SNOGGO! I would triumph over adversity in the name of ******* freedom's ******* bell! Ding-****!

  As so it came to pass that, finally after a tremendous struggle in which I nearly lost a fingernail, the immature pink dwarf hamster lay lifeless before me, squashed into a puddle reminiscent of a flattened dead hairy ripe tomato. 'Bring it on, you ****** *****,' I bravely thought as I ****** my comrade's flaccid **** eagerly as we cowered manfully in a burnt-out mosque, preparing ourselves bravely for a spot of rendition among the local orphans.

be tender of words
and
tender of hearts,

be strong, be kind,
forgive us, them,
forgive them, us,
yourself as well,
for ours are walls
needy for overcoming,
and yours are too oft
too high

lives of tasks and taskmasters,
these oft self-appointed,
responsibilities - rocket-******
upon shoulders of mortal materials
uneven for and unintended
for the job
of carrying the world...

and yet,
we do
carry you, carry the world,
imperfect and scourged,

those self-righteous,
beheaders be wary,
I will not atone for you,
I will speak no tenders for you,
on this day of forgiveness,
there is none

where chains
and the bite of a whip
once dug into our backs
and our shoulders,
backpacks
now leave chafed ruts
in their stead.
taskmasters
bid us to bake our own bread
if we want to eat
pass this exam
if we want to keep
our families
we will be taken
and beaten
if we do not comply
GPA:
the silent
torturer.

bumper-stickers of crosses
commemorating a Jewish hippie anarchist
are flanked by mantras of violence the hallmarks
of ambivalent compliance celebrating
barbarism the State’s chief contrivance

my fill-in-the-blank is an American serviceman
note here that it doesn’t matter if the individual in
question identifies as male female or non-conforming
they are a service man as if the
erasure of gendered complexities somehow
appeases the intricacies of humanity
beneath a blanket statement of hyper-masculinity but
i digress

my fill-in-the-blank is an American serviceman
reinforcing the spiritualization of militarization
in syncophantic intontations of
god bless our soldiers
and only ours
forget about all the other men and women
and children cursed by the pox of
foreign aggression and endless war
they are not our concern
on the contrary
they are just an obstacle in our path
a minor speed-bump we must summit by summoning
chauvinism and stepping on the throats of our enemies

dominance is our souls’ sole objective
we don’t have time for notions that might
challenge our hallowed perspectives or our
holy war in the most sacred spot in all
the world we cannot be deterred by the images of
broken bloodied babies on Mediterranean shores
‘cause the decimated dead with decapitated heads
only fan the flames of conquest
cultivated by the corrupt

i suppose i shouldn’t be so surprised
after all you did adopt an
instrument of torture to remember your
savior by when a dove of peace and
fraternity would’ve sufficed

your distinctly American Jesus stands shirtless
with a chiseled six-pack in camouflage cargo shorts
wielding a double-barreled sawed-off
shotgun in each hand he’s
white and rich and arrogant
as he trades blows with ISIS and
sits in consternate judgement over godless atheists
barking out damnation from the right-hand of
the lord our god the king of kings
salvation reserved for the predestined elect
necessarily limited to Americans his
chosen elite in their promised land

if only he could see you now
that same martyr you bless with one breath
before spewing vitriolic hatred with the next
what would the prince of peace
riding on a donkey
have to say to
bigots racists and homophobes

would he find the
stones you spew and shove
them back down your throat
the way i’d like to

no i somehow imagine that if your Christ returned
he’d interpose himself between you and the LGBTQ
and suffer the brunt of your bitterness
turning black and blue beneath the blows
willing to die for the least of these crying
abba father
why have you forsaken me

if the Nazarene came back he’d
overturn ballot-boxes in houses of worship
masquerading as venues for the 2016 election
he’d realize Sanders is no socialist
that Clinton is grotesquely hawkish and
i like to think he’d tell that fascist Trump
to *******

he would stand instead with the poor
and oppressed with men and women
of color at Black Lives Matter protests
smoke some quality kush with the dejected rejects
and comfort the back-alley addicts with
a soft word or warm hug to serve
as a reminder that the Kingdom of
Heaven is not above but is
built brick-by-brick in the day-to-day
interactions of compassion between ordinary
humans with an extraordinary capacity to
counteract the lethargy of apathy that
pacifies the populace and turns us into
cowed wage-slaves bowing in acquiescence

the rabbi would march to the gates
of the white house
and occupy the front lawn
to triumphant shouts that
rendered unto American Caesars
precisely what they deserve

a non-violent mass resistance of
leaderless and highly coordinated
civilly disobedient dissidents who
value dissent and populist movements to
voice their disillusionment at abject
apparatuses consolidating dominance
in order to remind the 99% that
in the words of one romantic

we will rise like lions after slumber
in unvanquishable number
we’ll shake our chains to earth like dew
for we are many and they are few

yet as much as i am loathe to admit it
Jesus of Nazareth was executed two
thousand some odd years ago
your god is dead and he cannot save us

if we intend to contend with the forces of
depravity that inculcate humanity with
putrescent fantasies of self-aggrandized zealotry
we cannot sit on our hands or
bury our heads in the sand and
wait for someone else to lead us to redemption

salvation keeps us looking down and shuffling
along suffering chained to our lack of imagination
rather than looking straight ahead
into the eyes of our taskmasters
and irrevocably declaring
we will lead ourselves

we have it in us to build a better world in
the shell of the old and raise a
culture of equality and liberty
provided we don’t buy into
all we’re told but
if such a dream could ever
triumph we must find the courage to
brave the cold winters of repression
that surely lay ahead and pour gasoline
on this ugly specter haunting our planet
before lighting the torch and tossing it
onto the detritus of misanthropy

watch it burn

come
huddle close now
gather ‘round
keep warm
if we stick together
we can brave the storm gathering
even now to purge our
peaceful non-compliance

as we carry the conflagration
to every nation to
each corner of the globe
we will overthrow the
ghost of governance

We’ve traded pearls for pigs
We’ve chosen to stand afar in fear of beauty
Behold we stand in ugly
Facing walls that have bars and caged we are within
We traded freedom for liberty
We celebrate and pride humanity at the loss of its glory
We indulge in excess and luxury and yet our souls have never been more deprived
The beauty of right is ridiculed and exchanged at the expense of tolerance and rights
The quality of our class is ******; we are low-low classless
We cant even stick to the rules that govern our own kind
We are debased; we tolerate the whips of our taskmasters
Like slaves, our mentality is deranged from indoctrination’s cup we drank and we are well drunk
What buffoonery, we ***** and bawl after which we crawl back like dogs we eat the same
We lost the North point, we are confused, yet claim to know
We are lost yet we claim to be found and know who we are
We are running a race before even the ‘go gun’ fires
We’ve overstepped our bounds and think we are within the limits and rights
We are trespassing and we think we have visitation rights
We do not have custody rights yet we hold the possession
We want the glory but are not gutsy enough to stand and fight
We choose our preachers and they tell us what we want to hear
We are preaching to ourselves without scripture
We listen to our own voices and call it ‘God’
How far from him we walk while claiming to be living at his feet
Our voices are louder from empty shallow passion that claim wisdom
We are bullying truth, we bruised it over and over again till it went to report us
We would rather lie to ourselves that face the truth, we cant stand how ugly it reminds us we are
We request sick leave and never go for our doctor’s appointment
We plunge into deeper and deeper cave of darkness, we may find out there is no light at the end of the tunnel
We hug and kiss darkness

God Ordained Moses to Lead Israel Out of Egypt

Moses was out for a leisure walk and saw a fire
and upon taking a closer look at what was burning,
he was greatly surprised to discover a bush was on
fire, but was not being consumed. As he stood wondering at it, a voice boomed out of it, saying, "TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES! YOU ARE STANDING ON SACRED GROUND!"
As Moses was taking off his shoes, the voice continued speaking:" I am the God of your father,
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I have been listening to
the prayers of my people in Egypt, and see the affliction upon them from their taskmasters, and am moved by their sorrows. I am going to rescue them
from the slavery of the Egyptians and lead them to a land of milk and honey.
Moses, I have chosen you to go talk to the Pharoah of Egypt and lead my people, the children of Israel out of Egypt"

And Moses said, "I am greatly honored that you think enough of me for such a worthy responsibility,
but I am not your man for such a task. For one thing
I am not a good talker, and besides that I am slow of speech."

God replied to Moses
"Moses" said God "Throw down your rod on the ground." And Moses did as God told him, and his
rod became a snake. "Now pick it up by it's tail" And when Moes did so, the snake returned into Moses rod.
Then God spoke again to Moses saying, " Now put your hand under your shirt."  And when he pulled his hand out, it was white with leprously. "Now return your hand, which Moss did and when Moses drew his hand back out, it was as healthy as his other hand.
"Now Moses, if my people will not follow you by
these signs, dip some water from the river and pour some on the ground and it shall turn into blood."

But Moses still was not convinced he was the man for the task God was calling him to do.

He began making excuses why he was not God's man for the task.
"I am not eloquent"
"I am not a speaker"
"I studder when I talk"
"Th e leaders of Israel will not believe me"

God had an answer for every excuse Moses came up with.
He recruited Aron, Moses's brother, to convey to Moses His
words to tell Israel and Pharaoh.

no dissenting voice
no choice
no need to ask us
until the people rise above
the taskmasters
what we say is meaningless

<Frothy waves coated the slippery rock
Seagulls gulled annoying caws
A ship had wrecked upon the beach>  

There he sat
Dazed and confused
Trying to grasp his surroundings
“Thou art alive,” he said to himself.
“Not for long,” replied the sea.
Fear told him to run
Reason told him to listen
Experience forced him to say
“It is true that thou hast lived many a year,
Ye foul beast,
Many a day hast thou slaved upon thine waves.
Just look upon my hands and ye shall see
The scars that time and ye have left upon me.”
He waved his hands in violent gesture
Caulouses cracking in dehydration
Pain a parasitic friend
The sea casually mocking him
“Oh, but I know of thee.
I have looked after thee from afar for many a sun,
And moons have bled and stars have fallen
That cannot give number to the times I held thee afloat
When otherwise thou wouldst have sunk into my depths.”
He laughed and his body ached
A grin twisted his wrinkled facade
Gazing around at the irony of the god
He said,
“Yet here thou sittest, surrounded by thee on all sides
Accursed by thy blasted brethren baking thee alive
And thine water be poison that I cannot drink
Parched with a thirst thou canst not sate
If thou be so benevolent,
Why must thee be so prevalent?”
At this a rogue wave rushed high
A not-so-veiled threat flattening him in proscinesis
“Little man, knowest thou not of my scope?
Thou hast sailed me across the constellations,
Beyond Terra and Firma
Riding Pegasus to Orion
With Polaris as thy guide
Across the entirety of my body have I graced thee
With nigh a swell to impede thee.”
He paused in recollection
Remembering hard days and nights
Pulling his oaken oars with little resistance
To his taskmasters chiming rhythmic timing
“Row… row… row”
A tear rolled down his face to join the sea
“Then why hast thou stranded me here,
Alone to die,
Ostracized from thine protective *****?
What sin hast relegated me to divine flotsam,
Cast away and destined to be forgotten?”
With a splash that could be translated as a laugh
The sea sighed as the tide began to recede
“We all have our limits, little man.
Mine is the earth that bars my current
And thine the body which rides it.
It seems we have both reached our ends
Mine the land
And thine thy life.
It is time that we say goodbye and part ways
Mine to my depths
And thine to thy death.”
With a wash he looked down
Only now realising the ghostly cast of his weathered skin
Slowly he stood and with a few tentative steps
Descended into the God who had taken his life
In exchange for his freedom  

<Frothy waves coated the slippery rock
Seagulls gulled annoying caws
A ship had wrecked upon the beach>

There were no survivors