Poems Of The First And Last Kind

By Thomas Michael Malo

For Steffee

DogBoy / TinSoldier Publishing & The Malo Family Trust

“Out there alone in that wasteland of thought, I know you’ll forget me not”

Table Of Contents

1) Have You Ever Seen Sights Unseen?

2) Little Beggar Jesus

3) I Didn’t Go To Woodstock

4) Who Will Do This?

5) Blue Lives Matter

6) The Devil Doesn’t Want Americans

7) The Land Of The Free

8) The Way Things Really Are

9) This Is The Flag

10) I’ll Be Going Soon

11) On Earth As It Is In Heaven

Have You Ever Seen Sights Unseen?

Have you ever seen sights unseen

the eyes you see with not your own?

Have you ever done things undone

the one you do with not you at all?

Have you ever felt things unfelt

feeling it all as someone else?

Have you ever moved a body unmoved

the one that moved in you not you?

Have you ever said things unsaid

and waited to know what you meant?

Have you ever known things unknown

and changed without feeling changed?

It is devastating

to finally realize

the cost in sorrow

to be able to say

how you really feel

Saying of any sort

is simply human wonder

The real poet’s bride-price

the way to meaningful words for wonder

is to die and die and die

until you rise up again

and find the part of your soul

that left with each new death

safely kept in someone else

Have you felt your soul rise up in you

and rush in bliss into another?

Have you felt their soul rush through you

giddily dancing like a happy child?

Have you watched together your souls twining

and blending to one above your empty bodies?

Have you felt that re-made soul

living and being another inside you?

Have you felt your soul torn loose

and torn another loose?

Have you ever been torn into less than you are

because you could not let go of another?

It is agonizing to adore

and be adored

while twined across the abyss

between thinking like a human

and thinking like God

and feel the strands of remembrance

stretch toward snapping

the longer you live

Adore! Adore! Adore the beloved!

God’s song will not cease

and sings on inviting your voice

without any remembrance of evil

in the triumphant tones

of unconditional love

Little Beggar Jesus

The number of Christians killed by Marxists since the beginning of the 20^th century into the first decades of the 21^st century is conservatively estimated at more than fifty million lives, a pace of at least a half a million per year, and it is reasonable to expect an increase unless the US finally intervenes aggressively… any such US military intervention should now reasonably be described as justifiable self-defense.

Little beggar Jesus

Why do you hover so around the place?

Come closer

Be still

Let me look upon that plain unspecial face

Timid little Jesus

Speak up I would never harm you

Don’t fear

No tears

What is it that you seek from me?

Be brave my little Jesus

I am American

I fight, I work, I pay for my freedom

and for everyone’s freedom with my life if need be

Don’t be afraid of what I see

Look hard at my soul Jesus

See my weakness and my strength

I worked for everything I ever had

I won and lost, both right and wrong

but I still stand for my country and bow down only to you

Persistent little Jesus

What is that in your wounded hand?

Come over here

and show it to me

This jewel from your Father’s land

But please my dear Lord Jesus

I hope you understand

I don’t want to make you sad

but I could never love you

for giving me things I could have had

What truth my precious Jesus

It’s just an empty hand

Draw near now let me hold you

and tend the wounds you have entwined

Lift up that glorious plain unspecial face

Steadfast truthful Jesus

I know you are our judge

Into the hearts of men you see

but how can anyone truly judge

people who have yet to live free?

Hurry with me now King Jesus

Raise with me that storm of freedom

For my country is that lightning’s flash

our power that thunder’s crash

our baptism that cleansing rain of human liberation

I Didn’t Go To Woodstock

“To come from nothing, to go to nowhere,

leaving everything to nobodies who will do the same… is futility” (T. M. Malo 1966)

I didn’t go to Woodstock

I had a new wife and a new baby

I worked the night shift in a transformer factory

and weekends in a gas station

I considered going with my best friend

driving there from Wisconsin

in spite of those things

just to be a part of the history

and I nearly went…

but...

they said traffic was backed up for ten miles

and people were leaving their cars and walking

and I had a brand new Camaro

and I just got my driver’s license back

I wasn’t going to park on the side of the road

ten miles away

just to get naked and muddy

with a bunch of drugged up Hippies

I didn’t do drugs

I wasn’t a Hippie

and I worked hard to buy that car

My wife was beautiful

exceptionally, noticeably so

and occasionally daring…

Big Red our local sheriff

had pulled up on us naked

parked in the car one muggy night

on the side of a dark country road

shining his flashlight through the steamed up windows…

We would have probably gotten naked in the rain

swept up in the music and our youth

and slept under the stars...

but things are not like that for most humans

not all peace and love filled...

Sex and competition for beauty

is human nature

and when the fist fight started

the car would have been ten miles away...

And Big Red knew my Dad

and probably just wanted to peek

at my pretty young wife

My Vietnamese friend Kwon

has a successful business here now

and grown children and grandchildren all born here

and he vacations on the beach in Viet Nam

twice a year

American business is everywhere there now...

You won’t see my face in the crowd at Woodstock

I can’t make any claim to the history there

but then…

Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones can’t either...

I have a history, and a literary record

and I am a face in the crowd

an American crowd

a working man’s face

on a worn out body

but it’s not what you think it is

or how you think it is

Civilization is the business of living

America is the best at it

and it’s a privilege to participate and work

but it’s not life, not real life

It’s actually just the dying you do to love someone

and make new life

The trick is to keep your soul intact

because the love is oh so worth the work

if you can stand it

I didn’t go to Woodstock

I went up north and went fishing

three times that summer

slept in a tent with my wife and baby

and my brother on another trip

Passed a line of thirteen cars on two lane highway 53

Drove from Superior to Waukesha in five and half hours

in the rain

in the middle of the night

including stopping for gas in Wisconsin Dells

The Camaro was fast

but didn’t skip many gas stations

running at a hundred miles an hour plus...

I didn’t go to Woodstock

I liked who I was

and what I was already doing

My soul was filled with, surrounded by, and driven by beauty

I had a wife, a baby, a job, and a new car

I was a grown man, nineteen years old

and I could stand it

Who Will Do This?

“As I see it, men fight for the right to give their independence to those who love and respect it."

(Audie Murphy)

The question has always been the same:

Who will do this?

It has never been:

What can this world do to help me do this?

All of the things that have made our world better

that have been accomplished by people

throughout our history here

have required of those people

a steadfast love of someone else

and the courage to risk themselves because of that

All our historical pioneers in every great endeavor

did not expect help first

did not expect funding

did not expect forgiveness

did not expect to be understood...

but always forgave

always over and over and over

and pressed on into our brightened future

in spite of our backward vision

our social angst

our condemnation and prejudices…

Sometimes our free society

may look and act like a frigate bird colony

but we are not birds

and should not present ourselves as such...

Rioting, disorder, and anarchy

are the same selfishness

as the greed, and the lust for power

that are blamed for creating the urge to riot

Both behaviors resemble a kind of autism...

Both sides seem not to be able to recognize

when they are loved...

The desire to be free is probably genetic

The desire to be loved may be as well…

Old men seem not to need either

maybe more concerned with common sense

maybe more certain of self in general

maybe because they know what love is

maybe because God seems closer…

Maybe because the world matters more

than people’s hurt feelings

and their foolishly selfish imaginations

Maybe because country

especially this country

is not folly

and really is part of God’s light in the world

Who will do this?

George Floyd?

It may be that God vetted George Floyd

and maybe found him suitable

a simple man of poverty and low social status

and expected the unexpected from him

the remarkable, the courageous

but George Floyd won’t do this now

was past doing this

well before he was killed...

That is the loss to mourn

and that alone…

He was already a chronic criminal

a repeat offender

with a capacity for violent crime

Perhaps George Floyd was robbed himself...

but only of his chance to repent

his chance for remorse before God and his human family...

Now he is an icon for a movement

that cries out for justice

yet in the same angst ridden howl

cries out for lawlessness

There is no justice, no peace, and no freedom

without law and order and basic civility

simply because self-deception is human nature

and that is something that can only be cured by death

Jesus died to comfort us concerning that fact

I ran a medium size construction company for a few years

I hired and fired all types of men

young, old, skilled, unskilled

relatively high wages, and consistent overtime

I also worked with a local parole officer

a friend of mine

and hired men on the bracelet

men recently paroled from prison

men on probation as well

some tough criminals, some petty criminals

and paid them all equally with my other employees

Three times my life was threatened by employees

All three times the angst revolved around illegal drug use

One very troubled young man

with a very big drug use problem

who worked on my night crew

threatened me in my office one morning with a gun

I took it away from him

while my secretaries and my partner scrambled away

I sent him home

I did not fire him that day

Two weeks later I found him on a job

laying in a parking lot foaming at the mouth

I sent him to sleep it off in the truck

and fired him later that day

Later when I denied his unemployment

he sued the company

claiming I physically abused him

Human lives of any color and form matter

Existence only seems to precede essence

because our primordial essence is unconditional love

and it surely tears free of us with death

taking with it only our acts of love

We are all containers of unconditional love

Great men overflow

Old men are eager to know it again

Even God cannot make me answer

for the sins of my ancestors

and my sons will not answer for mine

Jesus Christ stands in that gap

I leave my father’s sins to my father

That old war is long over

Morning glory, honeysuckle, gardenia, Cherokee rose

sweeten the air of my memory

The bloody trails and fields

the gunpowder stench are gone...

My country is me

from Dixie to Nome

My face is all colors and kinds

I freely elect people to serve me

to make my light shine brighter

in the world

Sometimes they fail

Sometimes they succeed with my charge

They come and go

good and bad

but I always remain

and so does my hope and light

My name is: American Citizen

I made this and make this

and no one can tear it down

as long as I am alive

for my law goes with me

everywhere I am

and keeps me free

dispenses justice

and gives me peace

and I can love and be loved

and raise a family with this protection

What God has put together

should not be torn apart by human beings

Who will do this?

Only from humility

only from gratitude

only from adoration

There is no other path

that leads to freedom, justice and peace

and no other Gods

no matter if they gain the whole world

for the planet itself will spit them out

and no one will remember their names

Death comes to us all no matter what

Don’t fight to live brother

Fight to love

Blue Lives Matter

“We are trained Marxists.” (Patrisse Cullors Black Lives Matter Co-Founder)

I’ve lived past seventy years now

in this continual crisis of human civilization

we call the Untied States of America

We have defeated every possible threat

to the human freedom, justice and peace

that was founded only 250 years ago

A few weeks ago

watching from my doorway

eavesdropping on an old man up the street

attempting to converse with a

“Black Lives Matter” protester

I witnessed the fruit of the seeds

of Godlessness and lawlessness

festering in our belief in

human freedom, justice and peace

The old man called out, “Why are you vandalizing war memorials?

Why are you tearing down statues of Lincoln and Jefferson?

Why are you smashing church windows?”

A young masked protester stopped to confront him

and asked in an aggressively flippant tone,

attempting to be a little cryptic as well,

“Why should I be forced to remember evil old man?

What is history anyway?”

The old man replied simply enough, “History is you.”

The protester thought for a moment and then responded angrily,

“I’m not a slave owner! I’m not a KKK racist!

I’m not an atheist communist! I’m not a Nazi!”

The old man answered calmly, “Of course not. None of those things are real.”

The protester replied derisively,

“That’s idiotic! You must be on some good drugs old man!”

The old man asked more pointedly,

“Do you think you can make a name for yourself with God?”

The protester asserted immediately, his disdain with the question apparent,

“God has no place in logical discussion. Perhaps there is a God,

but if there is; he has a lot to answer for. The world is full of sorrow,

and most people struggle their whole lives to live and then just die anyway.

God is not very likely to be anything real; just a human mental intervention,

a kind of human coping mechanism for the harshness of this world.”

The old man replied mournfully, “Well you did ask me what history was.”

The protester replied, “Well fine. Just give me your opinion then.

I don’t care very much what you think now, and I’ve got things to do.”

The old man said, “Our real history is God’s love song,

and when you remember enough of it to sing along,

you’ll know it’s you too just like I said.”

“That’s just stupid.” the protester said flatly,

scornfully averting his eyes a moment…

an then he chuckled and replied a little merrily,

“You really are kind of a lunatic.

What in the world does that have to do with history?”

The old man replied quietly,

“You cannot destroy what is already gone,

and all earthly authority over people comes from God.”

“Just my point...” the protester replied, the fire rising in eyes,

“When policemen murder Black people it’s God’s fault.”

The old man answered softly,

“No, all humans commit that murder, not God,

and that includes you and me.

We all murder and get murdered at once,

every time a murder happens.

Most of us are just numb to it.

You can’t temporarily assuage that

without law enforcement,

and you can’t permanently change that

without God.

No human is innocent.”

The protester answered angrily,

“I’ve never killed anyone, and I never would,

but I will always fight for equal rights in whatever way I can.”

The old man replied “What is a right?

If it is the right to Godlessness and lawlessness,

I would call that a human primordial choice,

and a pretty bad choice, but not a human right,

and I would despise that.”

The protester shouted then, “You’re a racist.”

The old man replied calmly,

“No, unfortunately I’m a Catholic who refuses to abandon my faith…

even though my church has been outwardly perverse for hundreds of years…

and I’m an American who refuses to deny my history...

even though it is bathed in innocent blood.

Like I said just now...

I despise Godlessness and lawlessness in humans.

I despise it because it often allows the weakest examples of us to prevail

while excusing the loss of the best and strongest people

as unavoidable collateral damage

when they attempt to quell the insanity.”

The protester replied, “That’s definitely your white privilege talking.”

The old man answered,

“No, but it’s definitely your Negro privilege talking now.

We all start with nothing but life.

We are not born walking and talking.

We cannot feed or defend ourselves.

Without someone caring for us

we would certainly die very quickly.

Poverty does not have a skin color,

and neither does needing help.

Making exceptions in law based on skin color is foolishness,

and the prevalent racism in modern American law

is Negro prejudice against all other races.

It is absurd to argue otherwise anymore,

and it’s certain you personally are predisposed to hate me for my skin,

while I was never inclined to hate you,

only to help you understand some things about God and humans.”

The protester cursed, and replied harshly,

“Don’t say Negro again, or I’m done with you.”

The old man answered quietly, “Black and white are terms

far more charged with racial hatred than Negro and Caucasian.

Scientific terms add a calming obtuseness to emotional discussions.

I was attempting to not offend you,

but also to not offend my own logic with common stupidity.

I’m sorry you misunderstood me.

I did not mean to hurt your feelings.”

The protester pulled out a gun and shot the old man, cursing.

Two of his friends came over and begin to kick

at the old man’s bleeding body cursing and spitting on him.

A policeman appeared as I watched the old man’s soul

drift above his wounded body crumpled on the sidewalk below,

and fatally wounded two of them as the third escaped.

I watched as the old man’s soul

pulled each of their infant souls to him in turn

as they drifted up towards the light above him

asking each to forgive him and never forget him

and kissing them both before releasing them upward

and then falling back into his body and the scene below

Three weeks later he went to visit the policeman

who saved his life

Who was now suspended from duty

and expecting to be indicted for murder

He begged that policeman’s forgiveness

and wept with his family

A wound, even a death,

is not an especial honor

It is as common for humans

as a raindrop, or a grain of sand

We all murder and are all murdered

We don’t feel killing and dying while we live

because we don’t consciously notice God’s unconditional love

which is our real history

Policeman, soldiers, and civil law

give us a chance to notice just that

in a world that is otherwise chaos

Blue Lives Matter

to God… and to old men

The Devil Doesn’t Want Americans

“Capitalist societies can always heave a sigh of relief and say to themselves: communism is finished since the collapse of the totalitarianisms of the twentieth century and not only is it finished, but it did not take place, it was only a ghost They do no more than disavow the undeniable itself. a ghost never dies, it remains always to come and to come-back.” (Jacques Derrida)

The devil doesn’t want Americans

because they’re just too much work to break

It’s easier to break America first

because without that backbone they’re pushovers

and hell can effortlessly bloom in our great cities

and spread systemically to the last of the heartland

We have a real pandemic now

probably worse than projected

They come around every once in a while

Things like bubonic plague, smallpox and polio

but this may be the first humanly manufactured one

That rumor may be true

and it’s about breaking America if the rumor is true

and not about killing people in general

It seems to kill older Americans more often than not

People that still remember what America is

and the devil doesn’t want them anyway

Breaking small independent business

Breaking blue collar workers

Breaking Christianity

Breaking the American economy

is the path to breaking America

Incite riots for social justice

Send people into the streets

when they should be at home

avoiding human contact

Fan the flames of historic hatreds

Deny and mock American history

Destroy monuments and war memorials

Break the heart and dedication

of American policeman

So what do we really have now?

Let’s count it up

and maybe we can see it for what it is

First, a national health crisis

possibly caused by man made agents

spawned into the world

by deranged political activists

Second, a national economic crisis

certainly at least at it’s event horizon

brought on by a humanly introduced pandemic

Third, a national police crisis

instigated by an appeal to the racial hatred

systemic in the Negro community

Fourth, sadly, a rhetoric from the leadership

of the Negro protesters

that often disdains law and order

and directs it’s hatred at police

Fifth, and most notably evil,

a rhetoric from the political left

that ignores the true history and destiny of our country

that refuses to approach the rioters

with any appeal to reason

Sixth, an all permeating mass media

owned and predominantly controlled by leftists

maybe even anti-American Marxists

at the least thoroughly agenda ridden with leftist politics

Seventh, an institutional educational system

staffed with people so far to the left

that children are taught

that parental discipline is a crime

What we have now and will have

regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election

is a failed attempt at a neo-Marxist revolution

It will fail because most Americans

are not Godless

and are not lawless

and the devil doesn’t want Americans

All this dedication to evil

will break itself, like always,

on the quietly shining resolve of the American heartland...

Simple, slow to anger people,

who will do what is necessary

mournfully... but decisively nonetheless

How often have you seen Jesus Christ on social media?

How often has Jesus Christ been interviewed on television?

Where is His Facebook page?

I speak of the heartland for what it is:

the land of human hearts filled with Christian beliefs

soaring hearts filled with duty to their country

and love for their God

People humble enough to make hard choices

for what is right and good

Of course the pandemic can close churches

but it cannot close those hearts

neither can any leftist technocracy

What makes up this new leftist coalition?

Just a laundry list of failed ideologies:

Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Marxists, Atheists, anarchists

Ways of thinking about human life

that have all failed to produce

any prosperous modern example of human civilization...

but funded now by wealthy fascists

only interested in extending their influence

into a twisted worldwide domination of all human beings

Control first, then eventually human domestication

And when we are a domesticated species

will we be able to know ourselves better

to know God better?

The answer to that is obviously... NO

Death would be a better choice for us

than the sickening Godless, lawless version of human life

that this leftist subterfuge would bring to our beloved country

The devil doesn’t want Americans

just puppets for his private show

The foremost problem in urban Negro communities

is not poverty, or hunger, or equal opportunity,

or education, or housing, or police brutality

It is illegal drug use and the drug thugs

who terrorize their own people

We have a sitting President right now

who has indicated he would use

American military might against drug producers worldwide

and just end the drug producing criminal Cartels

hidden away and protected by their own local politics

To do so would be an act of war against several nations

and would completely upset a leftist Cartel of corruption

in Washington DC linked to the money in the drug trade

He cannot act without an obvious mandate

from the heartland of this country

and one from the Negro leadership of this country

would certainly make the statement

that “Black Lives Matter”

You can be sure his own life would be at risk as well

even though he is the President of the United States

How can any American respect

“Black Lives Matter”

until it takes up its real cross

and begins its chant with

“No more drugs” “No more thugs”

The devil doesn’t want Americans

just stupefied agents of violence and disorder

Freedom, justice, peace

life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness

are the blessings of being an American

but they are responsibilities as well

This grand experiment in human civilization

is certainly touched with God’s intent for us

but it is no ticket to utopia

The responsibility for its continuation is ours

Evil will always clamor for power within it

Freedom allows for that testing of our values

We go off course

but somehow the heartland corrects us

and we go on

The rising leftist technocracy

and its permeating mass media

have made their agenda much clearer in recent days

They falsely declare us dangerous radicals…

for wanting law and order

for wanting policemen

for believing in our duty to our country

for our faith in the future of our ever maturing system of government

for our hope for the future for our children

for our true sense of American history

for our respect for our elders

for our humility before God

for seeking the grace of God for our country

for going on and changing what should be changed

for fighting for what should not be changed…

The Spirit of God is never the loudest voice

The devil doesn’t want Americans

...he wants all the lights of America to go out

The Land Of The Free

Freedom is like the wind

You can’t put it in a big box and save it up for later

You just end up dragging around a big empty box

and when you need it the freedom won’t be in there anyway

Nations can be free

until they settle into complacency with greed and arrogance

Innocent blood is always witnessing

always crying out for justice

when it was the first sacrifice for a nation’s freedom

It’s not just collateral damage

Free nations have to move

Free nations can’t stand still

Freedom is like the wind

It either blows or it doesn’t

It needs to blow its storm around the globe

or those who have died for its beginning

will shout it back out into chaos

so it can begin again unencumbered by a nation’s name

A nation can be the wind, or be blown down by it

The Way Things Really Are

The beginning of the end will go unnoticed for those ending

as the way things really are

settles into the last few poignant years on its entropic curve in being

No one will acutely remember its beginning

No one will note that we are about to begin again for the last time

...most to really end this time

...most to settle into the way things really are not

There will probably be rejoicing at first

because there will be no systemic entropy in being

no desperation driven din...

...maybe just a little soft numbing hum at first

...maybe a fleeting sense of home

and then...

no more thens

only nows and hows

...How did I lose myself

...How can I find myself

...How can I begin again

as the way things really are adjusts

to the mass evacuation of being from within it

and the fabric of nothing

of chaos and void

swallows the lost

to their beginning again

and that first terrifying chance to be God

without even being able

to think of such a thing

Nothing, nothing, nothing

Void, void, void

Chaos, chaos, chaos,

Unknown, unknown, unknown

None is all, none is all, none is all,

All is nothing, all is nothing, all is nothing

A fabric of formless nothings

roiling in absolute chaos

Suddenly saying something

and then settling on the said

and singing what will never be unsung:

a choice for love’s order above all possible things

Even God can’t unsing such a song

We have not come from nothing

but rather the song

that knits the nothings to something

with unconditional unchangeable love

Karl Marx was an angry feral man discontent with his own emotional and intellectual inadequacy. There certainly is no genius in his derivative and reactionary proposals. Weak self-deceived men will often hate God for His unchangeable condition. There is no place for Marxism in our country and we should reject it out of hand, as we are guided and encouraged by higher better principles. Marxists are certainly like vultures waiting to swoop down on us when our country is troubled like today; content to divide the carrion of a broken nation equally, rather than freely grow something nourishing and thriving from the ground up for all citizens. Many of our modern Christian patriots are involved with an overly simplistic fundamentalist dispensationalism, that unfortunately holds them from action. While respecting their faith I cannot hold with a characterization of God that is bound with time in any way. Theologically, doctrinally, the book of Revelation is worthy of its canonization, but it should not be taken as historically interpretable. The only order we exist in is God’s steadfast choice for love above all choices, and this is His eternal choice without which we would not be alive, a choice which made time itself. Human events involving God have no time line, at least in the sense of the ordered way most humans relate to time and history. It is unfortunate that many Christian patriots stand on watch for the appearance of an anti-Christ, when in fact, no person has ever existed more obviously anti-Christ than Karl Marx, and he has certainly arrived already and continues to arrive in human events. My opinion can hardly be taken for conspiracy theory when known Marxists calmly admit to inciting our current social upheaval. Our government is definitely infested with Marxists and other foolish pandering people with Marxist leanings. Our institutions of higher learning are thoroughly diseased with Marxism. I am an old man, but no one would dispute the authenticity of my human life as a practitioner of poetic methods. My verse is certainly my curse, but I never opine first… the words and rhyme lead me to my own new understanding. It will never be time for this American heartland to sue Marxists for peace, and now, more than ever, it will never be time for the United States of America to compromise with Marxists.

This Is The Flag

This is the flag of your country

Stand up and take off your hat

Your flag passing by

This is the flag of freedom

Stand up and take off your hat

Your flag passing by

This is the flag of our soldiers

Stand up unashamed of your tears

Your flag is passing by

This is the flag of our Union

Stand up together unbroken

Your flag is passing by

This is the flag of our dreams

Stand up for our way of life

Your flag is passing by

This is the flag of God’s will for the world

Stand up and humbly pray

Your flag is passing by

This is the star spangled banner

Put your hand to your heart

Your flag is passing by

This is the star spangled banner

That flies the skies of our heartland

Your flag is passing by

This is the star spangled banner

Stand up, live free and be brave

Your flag is passing by

This is the flag of your country

Stand up and take off your hat

Your flag is passing by

I’ll Be Going Soon

I’ll be going soon

Twice I have seen the light and peace at the end

and lingered just until I sensed you coming to me

I had to return right then or not at all

Things still to do

Always things left to do

I have more than my own confusion to offer now

Living is being present now, child-like

but growing up is always dying

and dying strips away everything but love

Grown up love for humans is the death of a failed body,

but is unconditional and universal

even a common purpose and destiny

and is God

before we were

and after we are

I’ll be going soon

because it is death that rises up

pours from us

empties into us

drowns us all unconditionally

We cannot save what we are

from within what we are

All we can really make is our dying

but passionately beautifully fearlessly

grown up

and twined together in soul so tightly

that every movement tears our souls

and every other death takes pieces of us with it

I’ll be going soon

and every pain I knew with me

secreted away from who I love

Our bodies are a book of memories in that way

I remember weeks without sleep

days without food

miles without resting

without recovering

Work that never ends

things about me that no one needs to remember

Many things that no one saw, no one felt

because it was all masked by love

and still is

Because they all deserved peace and hope

Because they were my treasures

I’ll be going soon

Death is the proof that unconditional love exists

My ancestors have served in every war since our country began

on both sides in the Civil War

I am from a long connected stream of

soldiers, policemen, lawyers, judges

and even an American President

They served and will serve on

generation after generation

It is our way of life that is the first prize here

and then the loving way of death

I feel already the old wounds on my shoulder blades

that took my wings and dropped me here

with nothing but a love song

and I mean to poke the bear this time

and die unyielding

I know the devil doesn’t want me

I’m an American

One time in a dream

I saw the holy law

My hands were always empty

I had nothing to give

I had already broken all the commands

All that was left was my tattered soul

“Give all you have to the poor

and come follow me”

the Lord said

All I had to risk was my soul

the rest of me was already broken

already condemned

already poor

Who am I to write of God

as if my opinion is worthy?

Who am I to write of the world

as if I understand human beings?

My soul is free

but free in unconditional love

and twined endlessly with others just as free

I cannot undo what I am

I’ll be going soon

I know my greatest joy in death

will be that I will no longer be crucifying Jesus

I’ll be going soon

but I’ll still be here

crucified in every living human journey toward freedom

crucified in every living human ache for unconditional love

crucified in the inadequacy of my words of explanation

On Earth As It Is In Heaven

The track and trace

the true evidence of our body’s existence

is in our children

just as the track and trace

and true evidences of our parents’ and ancestors’ bodies

is in each of us

The track and trace

the true evidence of God’s existence

is in our capacity to give and receive

unconditional love

as that is the essence of God’s choice

Our souls which have come to be

because of that continual choice

are from and of that essence

and always entwined and entangled

with who we have loved unconditionally

and those who have loved us unconditionally

Our souls are never without God

as His choice for love is our first ancestor

and that is also why are souls are our own

to love or throw away

Those who have loved us unconditionally

keep our souls safely

entwined and entangled with their own

and with God

Those we have loved unconditionally

are souls entwined and entangled

with our souls

and with God

The ancestry of freedom and love

is God’s continual first choice for love

Our souls are never without access to freedom

never without access to love

never without access to God

and always able to choose

because they are the essence of God

The anomaly in anomalous monism

is God’s continual choice for love

a choice which made God

and made this something appear

from an infinite disordered void of nothings

Nothings are infinite in number

Too small and too big to measure

without time or space or order

all completely alien one from the other

Through movement, through anomaly

somehow awareness appeared

somehow distance was noticed

somehow desolation was abandoned

somehow something was said

somehow love’s order was chosen

Without Jesus all souls were forced

to endure the same journey

to desolation and back again

over and over

hoping that the choice for love

could be understood

and chosen from the void

But the Son of God

was the first choice

the choice for unconditional love

and He has come and died for us

and entwined and entangled our souls

in his unconditional love

and our souls choose to believe in that or not

There is a permeating leftist technocracy

in the immediate future of our beloved country now

Modern theology has become so lukewarm

that many right minded

and right hearted American Christians

are left with a dull axiomatic fatalistic faith

“Work and watch and keep the faith”

is mundanely ineffective and inactive

“Work and defend your God given freedom

and fight for others’ freedom!”

would be far better

It is clearly not pragmatic

to abandon your Savior

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