Now the Earth
and then the skies
shall reject
and eject
and project the image
of hijacked planetary home,
of hollowed and hurting hearts,
to all who bide their time
and hold their tongues
and live to the beat of a magic drum
that beams hopeful stories round the world
tells a compelling vision of better days
if only you move through the haze
by doing this one thing: choosing
what's proclaimed as right, close now
your eyes to the blight of tyranny in time
and rather remain in perfect pretense,
pretending this does not matter
and carry your card with pride.

What spews forth
shall be a sign
of alll we have allowed,
of all the ways we bowed
before a golden calf
and professed a lie that we
were blind and could not see
once beloved other cut off at the knee
and chose instead to languish in a bed
propped with pillows 'neath our head
and tune in willingly or tune out
or turn out a sister or a brother
or not be bothered by bothersome
noise and cacophony of confusion 
or the latest party line
or true invisible enemy
lurking in our midst,
which is not the one
we think we know.

Waters rise
and winds surprise
with flames of a distant fire.
The ground gives way
beneath the weight of
Greatest Commandment unkept
and all the things we
swept under a rug,
snug as rolly-polly bug
and content to stay in this hole we dug
for ourselves the moment
we presumed to take
life or love or liberty,
looking the other way
and proclaiming innocence,
and make ourselves
to be the god
who wields the sword
or spares the rod
or simply goes along
singing merrily a merry song,
not knowing anything at all is wrong.

For surely
this we have done
to one another (and so often
done it in the name of love).
All things below and all things above
will meet us in this reckoning.
This is true requirement, 
a necessary ordering
of a chaos of collusion
and mass confusion,
if not drunken delusion.
Here we are in the middle,
in media res, at the heart of 
a human story, having become
a chain of fools who fail to see
eternal family of humanity,
preferring to imbibe the story
spoon-fed to us and never question
all that follows what's billed
as the logical course of action.

Prevalent
predicament
and the sway of power
over the people so easily swayed
and so unlikely to be dismayed
when things come through 
what's seen as the proper channels...
Why would one question the calling of names,
the glorified glittering generality?
How have we missed the transference
and tinkered testimony, tattered testimonial,
the tale of the ordinary hero as its told?
So what of the cards stacked from the start
or the banging on of the bandwagon band?
Stirred, not shaken, have we not
been swindled, taken for a ride?
Do we not all feel sick inside?
But God and nature are on the side
of those who know there are no sides
and dare to part the veil of illusion
and return to the principle truth
we left behind:

That no man,
woman or child
be left behind, that all are created free
and for freedom shall be set free,
that this ring of fire is forged of love
and will not be broken lightly. Still,
neither flood nor fire shall consume
those with eyes to see the story
they have consumed and purge
such sickness from their souls
before it is too late and 
things are lost in the fire.
Return now through this passage
to the heart's true home. Leave
righteous rhetoric and all the ways
you sought to make the world
in your image of how it should be.
Breathe deep, hand on heart.
Remember now who you are
and who we are together.