To write a poem standing up, I hadn’t thought of it, but these days one must be vigilant, as everywhere, there are drones with rows of eyes and ears like vampire bats.
No good to lap water from the stream on your knees; instead, use one hand as a dipper, and stand, like those fabled warriors of Gideon.
But this is not a poem. It’s a curse. Catapulted into missile factories. It’s a fevered-prayer, for the words, “justice” and “truth,” to be excised from the mouths of blighted men in their war rooms, and the politicians who stand by.
It’s not a poem, it’s a wish, that wishes for peace were needless. It is a call to recall a sermon on a mount. It is a bell, for people of faith to heed their faith.
Not a poem, but a prod to awaken the souls of angels grown lazy.
And a salute to the subverters of digital colonialists—tracking and prescribing our days—the new oligarchs of Moloch, redeeming democracy by buying elections; saving the planet by putting a price on it.
No poem here, just an old (almost said, quaint) idea: paint what is true, not because it’ll travel the world—quite likely it won’t—but because it’s right.
Well then, it’s also my confession: for repeating Pilate’s obfuscating question, and my complicity with the joyless myths of security through acquiescence, and peace through silence.
This is not a poem. But I am reading the poems of Palestinians, Jews, Lebanese, who are calling out the cowardly gods that water their violence with ideology, and their vengeance with theology. Poems that weep, until they see hope, seep, through the page.
I write as one meeker than most, but I see the signs. The curtain has lifted on our capacity for inhumanity.
This is not a poem but a plea: for the poor in spirit, the mourners, for all who thirst for light—to enter the temple of mirrors and overturn the fables and fictions employed to divide us.
This is a powerful piece and I feel like I am looking at myself in your mirror. Your last stanza causes me to realize how weary I am of it all. And how much I want to pull away. But that isn’t our call is it? And so, I ask, how do we “overturn the fables and fictions employed to divide us?” All I know to do is to try and know and care for people one at a time, but that doesn’t seem to be very far a reach. And does nothing for the hurting of the world beyond my doorstep. Still, it is something I can do.
Thank you, Ann, for your thoughtful response. Your’s is a question we all have to live with. And although it sounds flat, we do have to start within ourselves and then, as you say, care for those around us, one at a time. Of course there are also groups, communities we can join, share our resources, use our voices as well as our feet. I think you are mistaken about one thing, that caring for one person at a time “does nothing for the hurting of the world.” I’m somewhat of a mystic about this, as I do think that any bit of good put into the world somehow enhances the chances for positive human evolution. There is a spiritual dimension about all this. The one thing we can’t do (as lonely as it sometimes feels) is be silent. Christ’s overturning the tables resounds to this day.
Thank you, and Amen, Stephen!
A song into the night sky . To remind us that songs always survive
Thanks for this, Ananda. I always appreciate your ‘capsule’ reviews.
Stephen, you are standing, a channel for truth. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Suzanne. We stand together.
I plead with you.
Thank you, Doug.
Thanks, Steve – resonated strongly with the references to the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are the peacemakers…..
Btw, did you mean Pilate instead of Pilot?
Thanks Sam. And thanks for the correction. And a quote for us ‘people of faith’: “Faith is rarely where your head is at. Nor is it where your heart is at. Faith is where your ass is at!” Daniel Berrigan
Love it!