What shall I call you

when they come to kill us

Mercy won't be in their vocabulary

Manifest destiny's in our bones

Before our minds open toward the seas

we must be victims of systemic fright

failed, flailed, decrepit like older states

like the thieves of this nation 

ruling on the periphery of power

We must smell sin's putrid odor

stare into the coffins of the rotting of our dead

taste their blood dried upon our lips

up-end God who's stretched across the Vine

As we mummify our gods

at the collapse of our funds

we may see the limits of license

and capital's gold dragged to the grave

We will have joined the human race

cursing our gods for their abandonment of us

trapped in the cage of our arrogant thrusts

affections submerged 'neath desolate lovers

people wasted on the the boasts of leaders

brain-washed and herded before whimsical crowds

mauling ourselves in our cesspools of wants

selling our souls as advertisement's prod

Having thrown ourselves into failed visions of life

the war's to be televised with cocktails on tap

setups and snackables before din-din is served

We'll die delighted swallowing olives without ice

But before we drink

you never offered your name

*Reflections of Jean Sulivan:

-Yes, I'm an unbeliever - like you, unless you've yielded to the illusion that the dividing line between faith and disbelief only passes between one person and another and not within each of us.

-To tear down the idols that exists outside oneself doesn't mean much.  To destroy idolatry within oneself is far more difficult.

-In the area of faith it is both vulgar and stupid to try to prove anything.  Fight for truth?  Never.  People fight for convictions in place of truth.  Someone who genuinely loves the truth seeks only to let it fill her whole being.