by LJ Frank
silver spoon theologies politicized
slither over the airwaves with tongue in cheek
talk radio glibly enunciates the bold lie
while hosts speak from their teeth
still, the cruelest of lies are hidden
in silence
and the highest technologies equal bloodshed
war has no doors or fences
still, songs of inspiration raise
Churchillian voices echo
in the cathedrals, temples, synagogues
and ancestral shrines
never, never, ever give up…
yet somehow it all rings hollow
to the child kneeling on the barren soil
in hunger
as a vulture waits for its meal.
is a virus preferable to a bullet?
or machete piercing the flesh
another suspect, another innocent
enslaved, cudgeled, and imprisoned
gender, race, height, weight, and age
are meshes of control
so, the gut can impede the strangle
of the truth
what exists in your yesterday?
no surprises please
while a politician argues
to legislate the uterus
rather than the penis,
for the Republic’s Supreme Court
has outlived its efficacy of fairness
and justice is out of balance
while legal textures veer to the hard right
the metaphors of high courts
called into question as democracy fades
finality is not the language
of Man’s deities.
artificial intelligence, nuclear weapons,
global warming
in a universe
with no beginning or ending
for there was never any nothing
mere cycles of endless rebirths
and science fiction is now
non-nonfiction
and the semen and the egg
are a complicated sensual affair
but will sex outlive it usefulness
and will humanoids beget humanoids?
Genesis is a primitive, naturalistic voice
of superstition, and fear
in which the reign of the phallus
witnessed an opportunity
but rebirth and reform are cause for hope
reason is the creative seed
implanted in the human brain
and was that not the original
intent?
the mythologies and theologies are ancient
liberation is ever waiting
Buenos Aires is a cut jewel in Argentina
and the Vatican overflows with vested rituals
while tribes of worldly Medieval thought
effectuate pain from their dogmas
for in the margin of a Summa Theologica copy
Thomas Aquinas’ note was scribbled
I thought I knew but have yet to discover
an utterance followed by quiet
materialized in Nietzsche’s murmur
in the existential cry of madness –
we have killed God
what has Man done to Man
how shall we now translate love?
*Pope Francis