Time Could Not Heal

Time did not heal the wounds he wore as he attended his own solemn burial

The passing of so many hurried years did not make them any wiser

Their broadcasted fantasies were not meant to have prepared the populace

Endless dull repetition did not bring her to some flashpoint of enlightenment

Sadly, the fear and worry that always drove them never lead to that happily ever after

All the time that convenience saved them was not stockpiled for their later enjoyment

Their passing would not heal the awful recognitions they suffered during their last days

There was no happy guided segue from this laying tubed up in a paralyzed desperation

That ever-pending eternity would disperse their strong feelings but never change them

Forever could not make up for any of their suffering, despite other’s pious assurances

For time could heal them no more once they had gone off and left us for good

The light-hearted empty lives of some, ironically enough, proved as useful as any pious brooding

Time neither erased his sins nor granted him the forgiveness his victims finally learned

Distance did not separate them from the memories they would always carry inside

No matter who those sad women slept with, they always awoke with themselves

The many long years did not help him to accept his own hideous apparition

She always carried that pain in a place that was walled off, but not inaccessible

They always sought something indefinable, though there was nothing left to tempt them

Time would certainly not heal the loneliness of her isolation during those final years

His healthy lifestyle was of no use forever once all his cells had ceased activity

They even dreamed it was not time that they needed, but devices that might save it for them

As he slowly faded, his only wish was that he could simply resume his empty, hectic life

The eternity that awaited her was oblivious to her many selfless sacrifices

His passing did not bring him the long-awaited pleasure of seeing his many enemies in Hell

Sadly, their quiet acceptance of lifelong suffering did not grant them an eternity with god

Time did not even try to heal their pain as their spreading wakes never quite faded to nothing

There would be no paradoxical heaven which included both the wise hermit and the great leader

Time could not halt the dispersion of any molecules that made up their hypothetical eternal souls

Allahu Akbar

God is the greatest <whichever one you choose>

God is Great, or so we shout, leaping righteously at each other’s unbelieving throats

And why not, for has He not revealed only to us, His chosen people, His living word

He grants us access to an inner strength that our fearful minds are otherwise denied

He relieves us of the monstrous uncertainty that envelops us in this frightening universe

Of course! We must raise arms to defend His loving message against the teeming infidels

Quite naturally our God is male and no foolish mother nature or some sexless spirit

We can go forth sealed in the ironclad certitude arising out of our mindless prayers

Allahu Akbar and He seriously does say to cover women’s faces and to grow out your beards

Faith and prayer will be answered, if not in this world, then, in the paradise to come

God remains great even if others twist and pervert His word to their selfish and greedy ends

Yes, He commends you to martyr your hopeless life while spokesmen make His videos

Obviously, He is taking an active interest in your stand on the sanctity of marriage

All our seemingly pointless hate and death and war really are His Divine Will being done

We greet each other, my unsmiling brothers, with the phony shibboleth of an Allahu Akbar

He grants us dispensation to quote Him freely out of context as meets our selfish needs

Our Lord Shiva adorns our missiles and His fellows sanctify our sick but cozy caste system

Private internal dialogs with our Personal Saviors yield irrevocable and guilt-free decisions

He gave us the Inquisition, the Taleban, Al-Qaeda and the New World Holocaust

Acting in His name they pimp various paradises which require only a simple but total faith

Twisting the fiction of His word, they channel our trusting belief towards their need to power

Yes, God is still great and the truth He revealed is absolutely no invention of man

We can stone disobedient women and burn the heretical at the stake in His name

Given their active imaginations, there is nothing in their commands that our faith cannot justify

Yes, we know evil when it raises its head and we recognize that the Great Satan is among us

He watches over us all tallying our sins and working in mysterious ways to test our faith

He knows all beforehand, sees everything, yet still awaits our decision to accept Him

And if you pray for a dogmatic guidance long enough, He’ll probably speak with you, as well

What a burden of anxiety lifted and awful guilt over our actions re-forged into pride

You can safely let go your fate into His hands reciting Allahu Akbar until you pass away

But, you must listen when others tell of His commands that the enemy be destroyed

For this is a non-negotiable package deal from which you must accept all or burn in Hell

Oh yes, and don’t forget that you’ll also receive a personal relationship with your Savior

So if you play by their rules you can live happily and get to dwell in Heaven forever

Right, and they’ll throw in assorted ancient dusty prophets, mysteries and miracles

You can lose your fear of death and accept all their horrors as simply part of God’s will

God is great and He can ease your fears if you just blindly grant Him, and us, your fictional soul

We Are Sentenced To Wildly Over-Reproduce

We’ll triage on down to only those features that simply maintain human population

We can crowd out the threatened species that do not enhance our own survivability

It’s possible to squeeze out a bit more farmland by clearing those last marginal habitats

And let our madly growing numbers remain our unspoken and most basic human right

We can crowd together in sprawling unplanned slums poisoning each other’s air and water

Economies of scale blindly sliding ever more of us towards some globalized fatal brink

We can monocrop with genetically-modified and sterile seed to feed the writhing masses

Verily, all of our one true gods bless our efforts to give birth to as many children as we wish

But, deserts would not encroach, if the hillsides did not crawl with firewood gatherers

Global warming would not threaten us without 8 billion immortal souls burning fossil fuels

If so many did not desire tigers, tuna and ivory it would reduce their profitability

But we are condemned to fruitfulness and sentenced to wildly over-reproduce

A few toxic pollution hot spots would not so endanger a vastly smaller population

Without so many customers, we would not have to build our meat like automobiles

Our bread need not be forged in factories and delivered in giant, dirty semi trucks

But our corporate masters demand hordes of wage slaves and a vast consumer market

Third world children would not grow up assembling luxuries they can never hope to enjoy

Maybe we could even give each and every one of our fewer children special attention

Smaller towns and villages might reduce the awful crimes bred of urban anonymity

But which fascist racist will you permit to dictate how many children you are allowed?

With far fewer consumers, perhaps resource wars would not be so wholly obligatory

Increasing numbers lead unsustainably to food pills and cardboard homes for most

A smaller human footprint would reduce our clumsy collateral environmental damage

But only the butchers and the sadists even consider over-population a social problem

Note well how Petri dish microbes increase wildly only to then crash to tiny levels

See how our vast numbers consume even renewables at non-renewable rates

Calculate our ever-increasing population’s dependence on irreplaceable resources

Yet the fruit of His living word decreases directly with the ¾ of a million new souls born every day

Our very numbers allow politicians to dangle false choices between family and habitat

We might even leave more than debts to the future if fewer of us were consuming right now

With more for fewer, the hopelessness that feeds fundamentalism might even just disappear

But, we cannot go there for fear of losing our precious humanity and our everlasting souls

There is not one global problem a smaller population would not help us to alleviate

Perhaps less than 90% of those living would not have to subsist on a dollar a day

Of course, any and all population control is simply a form of totalitarian, atheistic genocide

Though scientists say our numbers will stabilize soon, we are already unsustainably far too many

“He” Does Not Work In Mysterious Ways

"He" cannot command us to place no other god before Him and to smite those who do

It is not god who stirs our passions and pits us to the death against each other, in "His" name

There is no god under whom t"His" one nation remains indivisible, despite our pledges

God did not say to be fruitful and overrun t"His" earth like some terrible plague

"His" word does not bid us to war upon those adopting a different creation myth fantasy

"He" cannot condemn to endless suffering those who live well, but in ignorance of "His" word

"He" does not command us to destroy the environment merely out of simple greed

God did not say we should spend endless hours publicly politicizing abortion

"He" does not smile down upon the fruition of "His" plan for tax-deductible church ski vacations

No living god speaks to us through the moldy prophets of any bible or koran

Our so-called savior does not demand of us an ever-increasing defense budget

"He" will not come and counsel us personally in times of difficult political decision-making

"He" cannot guide us through the emptiness that will once more envelop all of us

"He" does not wait to tally our sins before the baroque gates of some fuzzy heaven

There is not a God who could even falsely promise salvation for only those who believe in “Him”

"He" has not notified any chosen people of their selection, either now or in our past

God does not throw "His" support behind any conservative evangelical movement

"He" does not bless us with the slave labor of the poor in far off heathen lands

"He" did not watch omnipotently with clucking tongue as we fell into original sin

"He" did not offer up what we called a son from some illiterate virgin to save us

The word is not even a human interpretation of some actual divine revelation

"He" does not work in mysterious ways, for "He" is not there to do any work at all

Your pompous costumes and righteous edicts do not spring from "His" commands

Demanding that God Bless America at the end of all your canned speeches says it all

We are created not in "His" image but surely from ashes to ashes, and dust to dust

Your scowling, brooding, vengeful, mullahs are only filled with poisonous myths

God never said that women should stay covered, barefoot, ignorant and pregnant

Preserving purportedly holy sites does not alter the utter baselessness of our beliefs

God did not say to take dominion over all the so-called lesser creatures of "His" earth

"He" did not implant only in us a soul that we might alone among all creation worship Him

"He" does not listen to the selfish prayers we squeak from our corporate religion warrens

"He" do not stand on our side in these foolish struggles with which we fill our short lives

There is no heavenly balance sheet holding your so-called sins and virtuous acts

They have no right to grant you a tax-deductible eternal salvation plan in "His" name

God did not say to franchise "His" word by milking the poor to build useless temples

It is not true that we are unable to toss out these dusty beliefs and re-invent them once again