no justice

there isn't really any justice, which in any case
only justifies the descent into madness,
unofficially known as revenge.

there is only more love.

offensive defense

when you proclaim the earth your eternal battlefield,
produce more weapons than any other commodity
(and sell more than any other nation),
rack up a consistent reputation for unprovoked invasions
enabled by blatant lies,
assassinate leaders you don't like,
incinerate tens of thousands of trapped, retreating soldiers,
smother cities in depleted uranium
causing cancers and deformed infants
dwarfing the rates in the teeming cities you nuked,
and are responsible for the deaths of at least
seven million human beings,

you don't have the right to say you're defending anyone from anything.

ever.

second coming

the second coming was over before it began.
he showed up at a Syrian wedding
to eke out the wine,
as was his wont.
though his suffering didn't linger
like the last time,
there weren't enough fragments
to stage a comeback,
and he didn't get the chance
to ask that we be forgiven.
on reflection,
i suppose it wouldn't have held water
for him to claim that
the "only essential",
endless "christian" warriors
still "know not what they do".

exceptionalism

whether blowing about on the opportunistic winds anointed for Hillary,
dripping like butter from Obama's folk-flattering, terror-laundering lips, or
spewing from the slime-prodding battering ram of the Great STrumpet himself,
Exceptionalism is always and forever a destructive, isolating, entitling tool,
as blinding as the amnesia it implies, as rife with genocide
as Netanyahu-cum-Hitler's Klu-Klux-Custer catechism.

back in the day

back in the day,
when there wasn't a reason
to fear the things
that fell from the Syrian sky

Sainthood

how ironic.  defending persecuted, innocent Muslims by pointing out that they
helped kill persecuted, innocent Muslims themselves.  tis an excellent strategy,
there's nothing America loves like its hired guns, "protecting" our "freedom"
[aka corporate "interests"] from our unoffending victims.  these hapless fellows
are candidates for the unwashed Sainthood of the Great STrumpet himself.

odyssey

the odyssey of observation having once begun
intelligence eternally alters,
experience spins as its spirals expand;
Great Mystery telling the same timeless story,
in the here and the there; the Universe, and the sparrow.

the gift (a psalm to summon peace)

behold i scatter tidings of sweet, resounding joy

for unto the dread midst of the looming Texas night

dawns innocent transcendence in its life-affirming seed:

a wayfaring Divinity, a child from the east

bearing in her loving hands her priceless, open heart

to rectify our scarcity and slake our aching need.

"and lo! thine is the rose e'er blooming"

spake the angel to those who might heed.

"the scent of heaven is caressing the earth

and this is its worthy deed:

smite thy bombing abominations,

forswear the stifling of the slightest, frail reed.

renounce thy ridiculous fences,

lay down forever thy exceptional creed."

then she summoned the wrath of Jesus

collapsing the temples of corporate greed,

admonishing disciples that the devil's only sin

was forcing his own brethren to bleed.

and she said: "bring down the military monster.

sever every branch of the blood-soaked weed.

keep its noxious roots away from thy children.

render no ground for the bitter beast to breed.

arise from the media's conscripted nightmare,

all that pounding of fear by a guilt-ridden steed.

shut out its conquering anthem.

laugh off its protection, don't suffer it to feed.

shatter the myth of good versus evil,

eschew that vengeful, self-righteous screed.

for under the sun there can be no other,

it's for thy very souls that i urgently plead.

and all of the harm that ye seek to inflict

turns thy cells into hollow, haunted shells, indeed."

then the wrath and the angel departed,

and the child once again was a slender, fragile reed.

my eyes had been opened by the gift she offered.

a piece of her heart, a bright, resplendent bead

that forever awakened my senses

to recognise our family by its common, aching need.

behold i scatter tidings of sweet, resounding joy

that shall be unto ye a life-affirming seed.

- Evan Hawthorn, the 4^th of December, 2015