Suicide of a Nation pt 1

Parables of the New World: A critical examination of the American Christian in poetic verse


The Head of John the Baptist… sat venerated atop a podium in a secret place in a church of the East, its eye sockets vacant, its mouth agape; frozen there in eternal prophecy, calling to repentance.


A priest of some import knelt at its base and finished a litany of servile prayers, and then rose to close the sacred case from which the permanent Crier called.



No sound had the head made, preserved either by miracle of Providence or miracle of science, since the thing lost its natural mount – but now!


The priest whirled round at the guttural emanation of a disturbing groan, his eyes wide with heretical disbelief.

Unknowingly, he fell fast to his knees, numb with what he saw forming there in the long-dead prophet’s mouth and sockets; both tongue & eyes took shape.

The hair from its scalp grew long-wild and its flesh was rejuvenated, and the priest – the man, wanted to call out, to raise an alarm, but his throat was caught with panic.

The head of John the Baptist looked at the man, and with a new voice cried out, 
“REPENT!”   

                                                        And the man fled.
  
In the days that followed an investigation was launched in the hopes the thief who kidnapped the priest and stole the Holy Relic would be discovered, the priest emancipated and the head returned.

Somewhere west of the church, John the Baptist walked with God, each step taking him closer to the United States of America.  



Lady Liberty 

In Perdition’s arms she rests, a silent angel to see what she sees, an American assured of her righteousness, hoping to be wrong.The taste of copper in her mouth, the smell of burning ozone filling her nostrils; and she watches the children of Columbus scatter to flee the violence of the monetary gun.It will not yield, it only grows, threatening to eat every child in its path; but then she knows, there is consent to apathy.All fled, the shooter weeps, nothing more to kill; but The Killing never dies.Who did she love when she was young? Your face has changed. 





 Journey of the Midwest Frankenstein

Floating in jetsam, the tide washing him down; he is motionless and constant, and living decay atrophies within.

Erosion exposes Elysium; can’t hide islands of paradise in the promise of dreams yet to erode.

Constancy & Empathy, he is lost in tide, ever in the zeitgeist of a dreaming community, nation-open-wide,
24 over 7.

Did you:
Pay your taxes; love your neighbor’s wife; vote for my way is the right way; kill all evil in the sight of a jealous and vengeful God; beat the descendants of slaves with gold-plated plastic, and did you uphold the violence of your patriotic Rite w/out shame in your heart?

He is singing with pride for the ancestry of his parts: “Red & yellow, black & white, they are precious in His sight…” but he can’t remember who it was that loved them enough to die. 




 A Heavenly Country

love&hate 
and sinful fate and everything is great 
and as fresh as a clean slate

love&hate 
and saving grace 
and why change our fate 
if all must abate?

love&hate 
and is it too late to contemplate & capitulate 
to better serve the State?

love&hate 
and delegate 
the righteousness of viciousness; 
we live to retaliate

love&hate 
do not agree

love&hate 
need authority

love&hate 
want for sense

love&hate 
require defense


love&hate, 
a democratic growth-rate

love&hate, 
a starving tax-rate

love&hate 
and inundate
in service to mandate
the country’s weight.


love&hate 
do not relate.    




Reliquary Reunion

Sacred, the law of the land
when vileness is exalted
above the sons of man

Love not your brother,
your sister,
your mother

Love not your enemy,
and pray not for his
prosperity

Holy are these items
from hallowed halls:

…work on broken backs,
feeding the empire
the blood it lacks   

…wealth in strength & confidence,
draining the poor and
calling it providence  

…world presence, a dominant force,
demand the globe beneath you
pay for the course  

Bring it back!

Make it great again,
let not the values of tradition
fail the sons of men

Beat down the wicked,
filling our streets with
protest & picket

Hold fast our place,
send back the woman
running the race

Send her back!

Send her back!

SEND HER BACK!   

Holy, holy, holy
is the President Almighty,
who was, and is, and is
to re-elect  


 



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