THE NEW COLONIALISM

In old colonialism white guys took what was colored

Called it empire, called it civilizing the darkies.

Darkies eventually had enough, sent whites

Back to Europe.  Even the U S came to regret

Its invasive war against Philippine patriots

Though it held onto Puerto Rico, other islands, Hawaii.

We decided to let Panama have the Canal, Cuba kicked

Our butt and the casino mafia out and installed a rule

We would despise.  Still we spread military everywhere

To make the world safe for democracy and capitalism.

Now the colored and dark are abandoning their deserts,

Their greedy dictators, and invading the imperialists,

Seeking life like ours.  At first Germany welcomed hordes,

France was also generous early on to “protectorates.”

The rainbow once Englands’ now looks for its pot of gold.

MY HOLOCAUST

Leviticus 20.13 requires homosexuals die.

A Jew in Medina persuaded Mohammad

Judaism had some good ideas for the

Monotheism his Arab friend was hatching.

When Christianity replaced the Pantheon

It added The Old Testament to the New

So Leviticus reached almost everywhere.

I described elsewhere many creative ways

Various worldly places executed queers

So spectators could watch, sometimes

Amused, sometimes horrified, the better

To learn the lesson against temptation.

How many hundreds of thousands died

Over millenia in agony we can’t know

But even now Christian evangelicals have

Persuaded African nations like Uganda

To make homosexuality a capital offense,

Wishing they could do the same at home.

As usual, not all executions are official.

Is this holocaust over?  I don’t think so.

FORTRESS OF FAITH

Inspired by desperate need, built on a cloud of promises,

The bulwark is reinforced with family precedent, buttressed

By fellow believers, congregation fellowship, pastoral,

Persuasion and encouragement sometimes in breathtaking

Buildings that have stood for ages pointed at the heavens.

The famous leap reaches its foundation but it’s assembled

Wtih theological infrastructure, and constant praying.

Faith accepts the miraculous with its power of awe that

Science and experience find impossible, so what other

Incredibility, improbability might not seem plausible?

Humanity is such a fertile field for any beliefs, so

Disposed to any kind of superstition, so readily

Convinced nothing happens by accident, so alert

For “signs” wandering through our unfamiliarity

With this mysterious world and its many strangers.

One maintains the fortress steering clear of any

Information or chatter that looks or smells vaguely

Skeptical, potentially heretical or blasphemous.

Eventually the fortress becomes invulnerable as

Faith, not based on reason, dismisses its arguments.

Fortresses are structures for defense of course,

Constructed to keep something out, protect a

Vulnerable self within who has committed itself

Fully, forever to this enclosure, this exclusion

Of the world outside stretching to the horizon.