Babylon (excerpts)

Wept (Alpha)

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes.”

Luke 19:41-42

I do not weep for the truth,
I weep because of the truth;

I weep for the futility,
I weep for the loss,
I weep for the waste,
I weep for the hopelessness;

I weep for the children,
I weep for the tragedy,
I weep for the sorrow,
I weep for the suffering,




I weep for the inevitability.

._______

Shadows

We sit among these growing shadows,
standing on the brink of an unknown tomorrow,
hiding somewhere between the darkness and the light,
safe within this land of perpetual sorrow.

Moments come and moments go my dear one,
leaving only traces they were here at all,
this moment we hold alone,
free from a land full of killers and madness,
a world of defined boundaries and limits,
designed to imprison all that live within their deadly gates;
and to you do I say:

that it is better to lie here among these shadows with you,
than to walk among the light with any other,
better to have tasted your love even for a moment,
than spend a lifetime without it.

.__________________

Sometime in the Night

What is left to be said
that has not already been said?

We live in a world
where quiet heroism means nothing,
ruled by those who boast
of every accomplishment,
crying out every great deed,
putting others down
so they may be lifted up,
a world where truth and effort
are no longer rewarded,
only loud mouth trash-talking
and instant self-gratification.

We live in a world
ruled by television and play stations,
where might makes right
and ends justify means,
a make-believe world
in which there is no longer room
for simple lives or
even simpler dreams.

We live in a world
of our own choosing,
a death within the dead,
a soft quiet whisper
among the shadows,
a hot white empty light
filled slowly and surely
by the dark innocent night.

The time is now,
even as the moments pass us by
on their way to lost foreign shores
where mourning vessels await,
hidden among broken smiles,
cold and dark,
filled with a lover’s passion,
her eyes shining like liquid night;

seen by all
yet touched by none.
.____________________

New Gods and Prophets

What if I told you that white was black,
that day is night,
round is square,
up is down;

would that make it so?
would you believe what I had to say?
or would you let reality rule the way?

What if I told you
that the invasion of Iraq,
the overthrow of Saddam Hussein,
was what 9/11 was really all about;

that we are doing exactly
as it was planned on us doing,
what was counted on us doing,
that American youth are dying
for the cause of a new Islam,
would you believe me then?

Sometimes truth is so big,
staring us coldly in the face,
reality so twisted and unreal
that it is impossible to be seen
by those who think
only in terms of yesterday.

New religions are born
from the ashes of impossible thought,
by visionaries who recognize its birth
for what it is,
those who see beyond
the way it has always been,
those who see the promised land
before it has been reached,
and it is these visionaries
who become the new prophets,
the new gods of tomorrows reality;

whether you believe it now
or not.

.________________

Where Now America?

Where now
America?

Your playgrounds and sandlots
lie empty,
as your youth
grow tired and disillusioned,
hanging out at the mall,
gathering in clumps and clusters,
wearing hundred dollar rags,
wrapped up in coolness,
struggling to be ghetto,
jaded with knowledge,
dripping with sarcasm;

nobody’s fool.

Ice flowing through their veins,
filth dripping from their lips,
incapable of genuine laughter,
void of dreams,
growing old
before their time.

South jersey farm boys,
full of TV bravado and
James Dean machismo,
daddy’s good little girls,
playing MTV hoes,
busy being
trash talking lil bitch wannabes,
joking about
giving blowjobs for a dollar.

Generation X,
childhood gone,
innocence lost,
forever;

where now
America?

Where now?

._________________________

Teach Your Children Well

We thought we could change the world,
a new society,
the great experiment,
that we were different,
knew more, knew better,
we were the solution
not the problem.

Make love not war,
tune in, drop out,
hell no, we won’t go,
rebels with a cause,
defenders of the righteous,
crusaders of a higher standard,
a new code;

instead we became
more of the same.

Hypocrites within a world
of hypocrites,
masters of enlightenment
without light,
monsters disguised as
children of peace,
dogs licking up
their own vomit,
white-washed sepulchers,
dry bones,
sheep without a Shepard;

we fooled the world,
we fooled ourselves.

We became draft dodgers and activists,
poets and musicians,
stock brokers and analysts,
doctors and lawyers;

anything but our mothers and fathers;

we became consumers,
we became users,
we became takers,
we became the future,
we consumed
until there was nothing
left to consume,
we took
until there was nothing
left to take,
we used up what belonged
to our children,
we took what belonged
to our grandchildren,
but even that wasn’t enough,
we pointed our fingers,
we blamed the man,
we blamed the over thirty crowd,
only to realize we had become the man;

we were the over
thirty crowd.

It was all about us,
the ‘me’ generation,
gods of our
own making;

we taught our
children well.

.____________________________

Babylon

After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. With a mighty voice he shouted: “Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird. For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.” Then I heard another voice from heaven say: Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues, for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes. Give back to her as she has given; pay her back double for what she has done. Mix her a double portion from her own cup. Give her as much torture and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself. In her heart she boasts, ‘I sit as a queen; I am not a widow, and I will never mourn.’ Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her: death, mourning and famine. She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her. “When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. Terrified at her torment, they will stand far off and cry: ‘Woe! Woe, O great city, O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come!’

Revelations 18:1-10

O Babylon;
land of opulence and luxury,
kingdom of self-indulgence and lust,
home of instant gratification and decadence,
you use until there is nothing left to use,
you take until there is nothing left to take,
you lie dying in the filth of your own greed;

where is your pleasure now?

O Babylon;
trampling on the backs of those who have less,
stealing from those without the resources to fight back,
killing under the guise of righteousness and the greater good,
how long can the hypocrisy remain hidden?
how long can you pretend
the misery and suffering doesn’t exist?

how long O Babylon?

O Babylon;
surrounded by wealth and excess,
your children grow restless and bored,
turning to technology and machines,
ashamed of a legacy stained with innocent blood,
unable to reconcile the truth
in the name of liberty and justice for all.

.________________________

A Midday Dream

On a bright blue morning
I saw the end,
as the city went up
in flames,
you turned to me
with panic in your eyes,
screaming “WHY?! WHY?!
I said we must not
cry,
so when it is all over
we can face the truth
and say
we remained
human beings.

…..Be still
my tired,
beating,
savage,
heart,
your day of rest
will come
all to soon.

.___________________

Wept (Omega)

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes.”

Luke 19:41-42

I do not weep for the truth,
I weep because of the truth;

I weep for the futility,
I weep for the loss,
I weep for the waste,
I weep for the hopelessness;

I weep for the children,
I weep for the tragedy,
I weep for the sorrow,
I weep for the suffering,
I weep for the inevitability.




What now
America?
.
.