Tag Archives: Religion

NINE ELEVEN 2006

Audio Recordings / tagged , / / by

NINE ELEVEN 2006

You get rid of bad habits
by replacing them with good

It may be the same with pictures

One hundred years ago
on September eleventh 1906
Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
stood up before 3000 Hindus and Moslems
in the Empire Theater in Johannesburg

With Satyagraha – The Force of Truth
they pledged under God to defy an unjust law
without use of violence, despite consequences

I don’t want, or expect, to forget the lessons
or math and aftermath of September 2001

But I hope peace comes first to my mind
the next time the number comes up

MARX AND GOD IN NEW ORLEANS

Uncategorized / tagged , , / / by

MARX AND GOD IN NEW ORLEANS

The people of New Orleans are still singing

If religion is indeed the opiate of the people
seldom was it more needed and more used
than last September down in New Orleans

And yet strangely and much I suspect
to the relief of the administration
the God of the people of New Orleans
is not a God of revenge

The God of the people of New Orleans
is a God of mysterious intent
not blamed for those who die
but praised by those who live

Theirs is the God that rocks you to sleep
in the belly of the slave ship
surrounded by water

The God that rocks you to sleep
in the hold of the Superdome
surrounded by water

A KINDER GENTLER GOD

Audio Recordings / tagged , , , , , , , , / / by

A KINDER GENTLER GOD

As we look around the world today we see
with God as our father in trouble all are we

Fathers as you know, often have a tendency
towards discipline, judgement and wrath
while grandparents almost always
take a wiser, gentler path

There may be much to learn
as we choose, or create our deity
from the Blackfoot, Sioux and Cree
who still gather at Grandfather’s knee

JERUSALEM AND OTHER TRAVELS

Audio Recordings, Travel / tagged , / / by

JERUSALEM AND OTHER TRAVELS

I wake in the night
in a prison of my making
rattling the bars of might have been
and should and should not have done

Unable to escape I pace and I wait

For Buddha to melt the illusion

Or for Jesus to open the door
with sweet forgiveness

Or God to at least send along
a minor prophet with
a file in a cake

GRANOLA GRENADES FOR GANDHI

Audio Recordings / tagged , , / / by

GRANOLA GRENADES FOR GANDHI

“Even God himself dare not appear to a starving man,
except in the form of bread”
– Mahandas Gandhi

So many fellow women and men today
down at the corner of have and have not
asking for a little of what we’ve got

Flying cardboard signs that say
“I’m a hungry homeless vet”
or one I saw the other day
“the repo’d my Lear Jet”

Being a poet what I mostly have is words
but remembering the words of Gandhi
I decide instead of something to read
I’ll give them what they really need

It’s simple enough, just take an elastic band
and wrap three dollar bills around a bar
you can place them in their hand
or you can throw them pretty far

If monks balance the world with prayer
perhaps these souls balance it with pain

So if they don’t like granola, that’s OK by me
the carnivores can afford to attack a Big Mac
and the thirsty are half way to a six pack