The Tao Of Righteous Destruction And Glorious Slaughter

We know no better...

A soldier impales himself in a pit of bamboo spikes smeared with feces

A government spends billions to build things meant only to destroy

Boys are taught to kill like true professionals and to die honorably together

Houses are burned, children are orphaned and crops are not sown

Invisible heroes rain drone destruction from thousands of miles away in safety

Improvised explosive devices shatter tough young faces

Generations of work is turned into rubble and leaders read stirring speeches well

Young girls must learn prostitution instead of doing schoolwork

Grandmothers sob dirty channels into their cheeks in rags, amid devastation

Now the people have been committed and unquestioned support is required

All our precious resources are poured into the creation of destruction

Soldiers absorb lasting images of all kinds of death in quick, stray glances

Plants, animals and ecosystems are senseless by-kill of the blinded carnage

The opposition is demonized and the people whipped into a vengeful frenzy

Rape and looting are, all too often, the first spoils of the victorious

Infrastructure is destroyed to deny them water, food and warmth

As he retreats the cunning opponent destroys everything in sight

The wise conqueror also decrees a scorched earth policy as he advances

Many years later simple farmers lose their legs to forgotten landmines

The dead and unmoving become another part of the filth of mass destruction

All too often innocent victims plead and scream, asking merely why

God is forsaken by those who realize that such folly knows no reason

And as their insides mingle with the mud their eyes still search for something

No one can stop these things, they say, for it is simply human nature

Men with grotesque wounds have not the sense to remain quite still

The enemy shouts in a harsh foreign tongue filled with evil overtones

Jesus gains more followers praying for his mercy as their brothers fall beside them

We must destroy the enemy homeland that is also part of our own one and only blue earth

A soldier spots a child’s doll, face down and crushed beneath a tank tread

Grimly marching on, he briefly loses track of his duty at the sight

The children do not go to school or eat enough to grow up strong and smart

Refugees stumble exhaustedly onward in a daze that began unimaginably long ago

Fresh screams again pierce the silence which follows yet another huge explosion

          Birds no longer nest and soldiers crouch to piss and shit in deathly fear

The helpless and the evil are destroyed right along with the innocent and the wicked

          And all those who remain must ask why it is they, themselves, who are still alive

Soldiers grow ill in winter, always marching with frozen feet and hands

          Their blood freezes, mixing with dirt and snot upon their uniforms

Women sleep in barns as the society they knew crumbles all around them

          They are raped and beaten in revenge for the horrible acts of other men

Dehydrated, hungry mothers try to nurse the sickly wartime sons of rape

          Dogs and horses are shot and eaten whenever they are seen

Wise generals may spare cathedrals in praise of the god who lets this happen

          Noble leaders will spread any lies required to maintain the mass psychosis

Families and economies and universities and minorities be fully damned

          Everyone must pull together in the glorious and holy name of this destruction

The enemy would eat our children alive and our leader rides a great white horse

          Every soldier would rather be at home in peace, but yet, they will always fight

As the next young recruit loses consciousness, finally just asking why

          Far away one more child is orphaned and another mother gets a flag

Minerals and capital are expended at even more profligate and wasteful rates

          The ravenous machines of death and ruin must be fed once again

Toothless grandfathers are merely clubbed aside with heavy rifle butts

          Brave pilots vaporize milk factories with the blessings of their nation

Exhausted and confused in a hostile land, marine shoots a begging woman

          Official press releases unwaveringly show the progress of our side

Military leaders study and practice conquering and killing their whole lives

          War is always the last option but is always the first placed upon the table

Generals are trained not to concern themselves with the reasons for their orders

          Politicians demand solutions and, of course, the military can always produce a plan

Kill, poison and lay waste in the name of freedom, peace and security

          It is our monstrous creation arising from science, religion and politics

Leave the doddering priests and lying politicians to rationalize and explain

          They shall vilely call upon the people for patriotism and faith in god’s unknowable will

Enshrine a tradition of killing and dying with even heavier funding, every year

          Ennoble painful death in dirty, far-off lands for the common man cannon fodder

Teach the little boys to fight and to hate and of the glory that is war

          Strip the young man’s identity until he gladly dies as part of a killing unit

Always promote some bogeyman who would soon destroy their families

          Sanitize, censor and spin the news from the far-off front

Take the gas from your farmers and have the tanks burn enemy crops

          Secretly monitor your own good citizens and throw the foreigners into camps

Poison and destroy the good green earth that we swear to god we are fighting for

          Spare no treasures to ensure that the hated enemy be vanquished

Honor the crippled veterans once a year and let no one question their noble sacrifice

          Spy upon your allies and be always researching potential war scenarios

Take the dregs and give them guns, build up their pride and send them off

          Teach the officers how to let them die as lamentable but disposable parts of a larger plan

Tell the boys that they can become men through death and destruction

          Leave behind land mines and defoliants and hated bastard spawn

Ignore the baby wrapped comfortably in the dried blood of her mother

          Burn any vegetation that might hide an enemy or shelter little birds

Use prayer as a weapon and a shield and be far too sure of your own one true faith

          View the world with a very simple moral clarity and act as god’s vengeful sword

Let any other pressing issues slide but never permit the war fever to grow cool

          Let the poor go off and die but keep your sons safely home in business school

Foto-Op for ten minutes the friendly wounded in some convenient hospital

          Lobby for ever more spending to protect our brave boys overseas

Take the election contributions from the stouthearted defense industry

          Push fat, no-bid, cost-plus, multiyear contracts back their way

Arouse fears of terrorism to enable the removal of cherished civil rights

          Characterize the brutal, harsh wartime as the country’s finest hour

Maintain a strict, rigid and centralized chain of military command

          But let leaders deny knowledge of atrocities and war crimes committed in the field

Whisper that god is love yet call on him to deliver his divine retribution upon the enemy

          Divert trillions from society only for developing better ways to kill and maim and poison

Have the best engineers use all their cleverness to create machines built only to destroy

          Appropriate the crops to keep the army marching under state control

Publicize rumored atrocities and fabricate unconfirmed reports to leak

          Press the generals for body counts and reclassify your own wounded

Break the enemy’s spirits by destroying the symbols which sustain him

          Dangle beautiful, unreachable women before the rabid, dirty troops in the field

Release touching stories of children born to fathers killed in combat

          Regretfully cut survivors benefits while reducing corporate taxes

Increase domestic surveillance and call for greater sacrifices for our freedom

          Glorify the people’s struggle while callously killing them off like insects

Employ the most gifted advertising firms to produce slick propaganda

          Under-report your casualties and inflate the enemy dead

Be ever on the lookout for homeland treachery and, in the end, trust no one

          Continue sacrificing even in certain defeat merely to satisfy your brutal egos

Make sure the citizens know it is truly black or white, everyone must be for us or against us

          Hide away your millions while demanding ever more from the people

Call the farmers from the fields and send the women to the factories

          Send the priests to the front and let the old men guard the prisoners

Shame and silence the critics who would question our morality and motivation

          Damn the brave suffering of the common man with trite and faintest praise

Wink and nod around the brutal tactics never mentioned to the public

          In the field, do what it takes to stay alive, then lie awake in the night

Smear the mud from your wounds as the morphine starts to take effect

          Try and catch up with jesus jogging with his cross somewhere far ahead

Fall down and do not rise as the enemy comes with bayonets

          Light the bodies soaked with gasoline and get warm by the bonfire

The old soldier sheds a tear as the young man prepares joyfully for his war

          Many years later there is still pain from a foot no longer there

Women cannot grasp why sons they so carefully raised hurry off to kill and die

          I fled with nothing when they came with hatchets and machine guns

They raped my sister and now she and her bastard son are both hated as outsiders

          They are simply animals and it our duty to slaughter every one

The only lesson is that someday strange men will come and burn down your homes

          Try to live in peace but sacrifice the occasional son to a distant war

War is always the last resort but is always the most important option

          Those who would live in peace are but easy targets for potential tyrants

Even when not fighting we ravage this good earth, but with war we do it so much better

          One simple lesson every generation learns is that we love to kill anything which moves

Sometimes we fight for generations and successive brutal monarchs

          The very young can easily be warped and drugged into killing without mercy or regret

Families save their entire frugal lifetimes but gladly waste their offspring

          The best we can hope to achieve is an expensive armed neutrality and eternal vigilance

Then men write stirring books about the great wisdom to be found in the fog of war

          Mothers, it seems, raise their sons only to kill and die fighting for trumped up causes

The soldiers took our chickens and gave us cigarettes while our father hid

          Their muddy boot tracks remained for days, out there by the barn

A small child does not understand the higher purpose that cost him a hand

     Picking through the rubble of their former home, desolation overtakes them

Food is rationed, materials commandeered and the people’s dreams must be cast aside

          These epic struggles demand heroic sacrifices, time and time again

Villagers grew tired of years of war but their wise leader stayed the course

          When it finally ended their economy was reduced to bartering for trash

Father never talked about those things despite the books and movies

          There screams inside the church lasted for 20 minutes when it was burned to the ground

All along the road, lifeless corpses lay, posed in a variety of symbolic gestures

          I took his shoes and these photos soon after he writhed to death

The defoliant changed the meadow and the calves are not the same

          Many children are dreadfully deformed but the authorities still refuse to see

Father left long ago, men took away our mother, now we forage all alone

          Grandfather had his teeth kicked out and now he sits in silence

In late December we huddle with the remaining livestock in the barn

          We haven’t bathed in months and our clothes are filthy rags

We surprised a soldier as we hid and he shot my brother in the face

          He swore loudly at us for a moment and then broke into grimy tears

I was ten and given drugs and guns and learned to kill as a game

          The patriotic pilots flew all night to level our village from far above

We provide the finest medical care for those we send off to be blown apart

          They can barely wait until their guts are sewn up rejoin their brothers in the killing

Grandma starved to death in silence, we kept her in the cellar until March

          My little brother got no mother’s milk but licked the gas off of the grass

When uncle lost an arm we all got headbands made from his extra shirtsleeves

          We thank god every day for the courage and wisdom of our leaders

Everywhere the boy saw patterned bullet holes and imagined their targets

          A steady stream of refugees was beaten, robbed and bombed

The prison camp nearby was filled with vile vermin who looked very normal

          We threw stones at them and traded sawdust flour bread for their gold

The earliest memory of my youngest sister is during the gang rape of my mother

          She says the carcass of our cow bloated in the yard for many weeks

I got some fever in late November and coughed right on through the spring

          We became proficient at making sandals from the tires of blown-up jeeps

We walked two hours one way to carry drinking water in red plastic gas cans

          A jagged piece of metal gashed her arm and a bad infection spread and took her

Limping home shell-shocked years later, he found his wife married to a merchant

          His children did not know him and he had no property or benefits

The jungle grew quiet after the villagers hunted down and ate everything that moved

          Skulls stared in wide-eyed bewilderment, awakened from their mass grave by a bulldozer

Fighting for peace the enemies found strength in different, but equally vicious, one true saviors

          Cars sat burned and abandoned as propaganda leaflets rained from the sky

Count their blessings out loud for them and ration the flour and the sugar

          Triage the terribly wounded and let the merely sick remain untreated

Blame the enemy for the shortages but drink wine and enjoy fine cheeses

          Call upon god to bless the country and be content while gazing in the mirror

Pay no attention to a tiny voice that cries as you empty your sweet weapon

          Drink heavily and engage in loving fist fights during your short combat leaves

Store up so many quick memories that must return at night for many years

          Watch the crows gather in nearby trees when the helicopters leave

Find no peace at home and wonder why there is no one you can talk to

          Remember how they nobly shit their pants as they lay dying in the dirt

Try and escape the look you saw just before the fire bombs went off

          Ask again what you learned as his brain spattered out upon your shirt

Feel the horrid guilt inside because all of them raped you again and again

          Stroke the hair of the son of you and one of those nameless criminals

Ignore the rubble of your home in the utter numbness of your random survival

          Stand in line for hours on the rumor of any sort of relief supplies

Walk for weeks with nothing, in foreign lands, with hatred all around you

          See finally that spring has returned and wonder how and why

Take back no lessons that might prevent this horror from returning

          Resolve to put an end to war - after rebuilding your own great army

Return to what you fought for and find that you are an unwanted stranger

          Dose yourself with drugs and alcohol to forget that you are still alive

Earn huge salaries from the airlines after bombing peasants back to a new stone age

          Beat your wife and children, lose bad jobs and keep loaded guns within reach at home

Make noble sacrifices of other boys though your life was never on the line

          Testify in that wide-eyed silence of rags and dirty battered feet

Be called a foolish child for asking why the world cannot learn to live in peace

          Wonder why the women or the children never started any wars

Make war an institution but leave peace in some fuzzy happily-ever-after

          Smite the heathen foe in the name of your loving and merciful god

Sanction torture of the captured enemy using high tech and evil cunning

          Desecrate the opponent’s beliefs to humble and demoralize him

Feel good about the destruction of schools, homes, factories and farms

          Report with satisfaction on cutting off electricity and water supplies to other families

Do not stop short of using poison, chemicals or diseases as valued weapons

          Shoot whatever moves in an angry fear over shadowy guerilla tactics

Maintain order through that absolute paranoia of all successful dictators

          Pay lavishly for enemy intelligence from agents that you will never trust

Film military parades and joyful family reunions but keep the coffins hidden

          Perish without a purpose as simple collateral damage from their friendly fire

Find simple relief in the end of war and embrace merest grinding poverty

        Publish books in praise of heroes though they, themselves, have nothing to say at all

Be sure the young boys grow up fighting but not thinking very critically

          Leave the hard questions unasked until way too many years have passed

Piece together new lives with different families in makeshift neighborhoods

          Dream of the dead and mutilated and try to forget the awful noise

Catch malaria from the mosquitoes bred in the potholes left by the bombs

          Sell rusting tank parts for scrap metal without apparent emotion

Get trained, go off and kill anyone who opposes you without a shred of reason for several years

          Then, overnight go home and become a good husband, loving father and patient citizen

Consume even more precious resources rebuilding from the latest wanton destruction

          Give thanks to god for victory but never ask why he could ever let it happen

Race to rebuild armies and military hardware while disavowing violence

          Sell weapons as capitalist commodities with a blind eye to their use

Feel the weight of human suffering but be tempered by a false righteousness

          Let the old ever sentence the young to foolish wars in endless cycles

Let the population grow, the weapons proliferate and the resources dwindle

          Use diversity of languages and customs to foster hatred among them

Pull the teachers from the schools and the students from the universities

          Let them experience for themselves the lessons that cannot be taught

Do not seek methods that might end wars but find ways to make them worse

          Never let it disappear and always ensure that yet another looms

Our Leaders: Environmentalism Costs Money and Jobs

It was coal mine safety I remember they said so long ago

Which would maybe protect us just a little

But they would cost so much and take away so many jobs

to clean up the air and remove the lead from our gasoline

would be overly expensive and result in widespread unemployment

those who warn us of losing jobs and growing poor

are often those who gladly, in point of fact,

send our jobs away offshore, executing an old formula for more fat bonuses

Now they say they cannot afford to control emissions

on your favorite SUV

for clearly neither they nor we are responsible for atmospheric conditions

and requiring some sort of mileage standards

for their blimpy behemoths

is tantamount to a denial of our precious civil rights

we must let the coal-fired power plants exhaust mercury into our children’s brains

for upgrading them would provide but marginal benefit, just to a few

and would cost millions and throw many out of work

we must always remember the main point in this corporate-funded debate:

it is about jobs for the people and wood for deserving foreign consumers

not about some non-voting birds or non-interest bearing old-growth forests

let the market decide the fate of the cetaceans and the wandering albatross

bycatch regulation would make seafood more expensive and

rob the automated factory fishing fleet, portrayed in corporate publicityas the noble, independent fisherman, of its ancient livelihood

depriving the petro-chemical industry of the profits

derived from fertilizers and insecticides

under the flimsy guise of protecting farmlandmight make our factory bread more expensive and cost corporate farmers their lands

cleaning up the exhaust of those mighty diesel trucks

to possibly prevent unproven lung disease in our little children

would clearly be cost ineffective and steal more of those precious jobs

joining in the effort to reduce greenhouse emissions

could potentially damage our powerful, but sensitive, economy

and certainly would cost too much money and put many people out of work

forcing consumers to pay more for gasoline

to increase efficiency fix the roads and reduce our dependence on terrorist havens

would surely be quite expensive and bring about even more unemployment

the destruction of the panoramic beauty of the Grand Canyon

is a smaller price to pay than

the huge costs and potential job losses required to stop the massive nearbycoal-fired power plants from polluting once-pristine Western air

we must ease bureaucratic restrictions on mining, drilling and development

which are stifling entrepreneurship

thus enabling Big Oil to export our Energy Independence
and to provide employment for all our citizens who seek it

if we do not unlock petroleum resources in every corner of our great land,

following the mantra of accessibility and multiple use,

gasoline must grow ever more expensive and threaten our very way of life

making rules to curb urban and exurban sprawl created by outside investors

stifles free enterprise, denies local control and limits property rights

makes housing less affordable, thus curbing all of our opportunities for employment

permitting giant hog farms to foul our groundwater with their untreated wastes

keeps the price of pork quite low for the American consumer

and gives a few of the ex-small farmers steady jobs suffocating in the smelly mess

forcing developers to rebuild abandoned and outdated suburban shopping centers

is not nearly as cost-efficient compared to bulldozing formerly open space

and would surely raise rents for store owners and reduce their hiring rates

allowing citizens to cheaply purchase exported American drugs via Canada

could pose serious health risks and threaten the noble BigPharma research process

which could only make medications more expensive and send more jobs overseas

for at the end of another day of the greedy and self-serving

who anonymously risk their egos to grow rich in the corporate shadows

what better way to cow working consumers and government officials than

to threaten them with higher prices and the loss of their precious jobs

Finally Lost My Wack Libtard Idealism

Lost sight of the person I once had wanted to become

Got comfortable with seeing bulldozers roaring everywhere I went

Got used to living in a greedy plastic land of marketing make believe

Gave up on those homemade, love-based, back-to-the-land, juvenile delusions

Forgot completely about swimming in clean water anymore in the summer

Grew able to ignore the polluted air since I was always behind dirty windows

Lost connection to the land but tuned into the stock markets

Came out of the forest and became a temporary stain on the pavement

Stopped looking for some small-footprint, self-sustaining lifestyle

Lost sight of the ideals that were instilled in me so long ago

Grew to find happiness in buying cheap new imports and saving nothing

Quit walking in the woods but made new trails with my noisy dirt bike

Learned to look for speculative potential behind all undeveloped land

Adopted a conservatism which promotes exploitation in all directions

Surrendered happily to every childish urge presented by the media

Succumbed to a fantasy lifestyle financed by expensive credit cards

Gradually lost empathy with the poor and totally forgot the underprivileged

No longer plant trees on Earth Day but I do know which SUV has more horsepower

Lost sight of happiness in the endless rush after pleasures I never remember

Look right on thru the endless suffering of my less successful brothers

Don’t worry about safe, homemade, organic food cause I eat out all the time

Forgot how to think critically and do not listen to that quiet voice inside me anymore, either

Don’t care that I lost track of the cycles of the moon and the seasons

Remain ignorant of science but freely quote from hundreds of Hollywood releases

Gave up on the redwoods and no longer fear for the baby seals

Let the rain forests go and what good, really, were those polar bears anyway?

Not going back to the land except on my powerful overpriced and financed OHV

No longer question the morality of war if our born-again leaders find it necessary

Quit worrying about a planet that I do not own and cannot control

learned to overlook my extra 25 pounds, double chin and metabolic syndrome

Found it so much easier swimming deep inside the school rather than against the tide

Gave my children everything in hopes they would always find me cool

Spend thousands on an illusion that I am not like those who came before me

Lost sight of the person that I had wanted to become when I finally grew up

Barely notice that I stay at work too long and commute way too far

Gave up any sense of responsibility for leaving behind a better world

Find it easy to sit semi-comatose flipping channels instead of reading books

Narrowed a broad curiosity into eToy price comparisons and stock watching

Haven’t taken up a new sport or picked up an old one since I don’t want to know when

No longer strive for a mystical connection to any land, weather or animals

Don’t really recognize the person in any of my old pictures

Sometimes try to consider what I might have thought of my new self, way back then

Caught up in watering, poisoning, fertilizing and mowing the stupid grass I so detested

Grew embarrassed of recycling when my Conservative betters deemed it a sign of weakness

Foolishly dress like a ‘Professional’ to keep a job I actually loathe very much

Don’t bother checking miles per gallon or tailpipe emissions but I know my 0 to 60 times

Quit worrying where the food comes from or where the garbage goes

Forgot about acid rain, global warming, overpopulation and toxic chemicals

Convinced now that greed is enshrined in our infallible constitution and the holy bible

Trying to make a difference no longer keeps me awake in the night

Long ago put down the musical instrument I once found so important

Wake up with thoughts of who I must backstab at work instead of who I should try to be

Quit living in the moment and simply work for short, mindless breaks

Never walk quietly and all alone in the moonlight anymore

Lost sight of all the reasons I once had to strive for a better world

Focused quite clearly on myself and what the kids want right now

Sometimes wonder who this person is that I married so long ago

Grown quite accustomed to the sight of miles of brand new and identical Burbs

Content with family adventure at some new and distant shopping mall

Anti-depressants and alcohol help to smooth out the bumps and the glitches

Feel cheated cause I didn’t spend hours at electronic games like my kids get to do

Accepted Jesus as my personal savior and abdicated all of my rational responsibility

No longer see well enough to scan those far off horizons for spiritual clues

Don’t bother to stop for the rainbows I only see now through my bug-splattered windshield

Look forward to salty snacks snatched from cellophane bags

Use my remaining thinking skills to analyze overblown corporate sporting events

Pretend to look rich to those just like me on vacations none of us can actually afford

Dress up like an outlaw on my financed Harley on weekends, insured by the AARP

Expect to maintain my accustomed lifestyle from the Social Security I so richly deserve

Paid off my credit cards again by cashing out more unearned home equity, then filed Chapter 7

Made big money cashing out my home & leaving the community my kids can’t afford to live in

Lost sight of the great wheel and was to quickly thrown off the corporate merry-go-round

Don’t feel like that aging person I don’t recognize in unexpected glances in mirrors

Am not a litterbug but don’t recycle since it doesn’t really matter

Love my second home but am mildly appalled by habitat destruction

Take fashion cues from my kids marketers, adding lame twists of my own

Quite often need a morning Ibuprofen just from sleeping wrong

Don’t walk the sidewalks anymore for fear of being seen as squishy

Financed a new and bigger house after the kids simply ruined the old one

Plumbers and electricians, roofers and carpenters make me uneasy

No longer unaware of a tee shirt in which the sweat has dried in its place

My search of the unknowable ended in small tithes and a blind trust in Jesus

Staunched my bleeding heart with a swab of Social Darwinism

Now we pull together with the tough love of compassionate conservatism

All the attractive women call me Sir and recommend what their fathers like for me

Spent the money my parents left me on a facelift and a new sports sedan

Found some drawings I once made but quickly regained my petty focus

Lost sight of stars that had guided me, but not just because of all the light pollution

No longer see important images in those great western skies

Now prefer the non-stop, empty din of the media to culturing peaceful silence within

Would not mind seeing all that empty wilderness if I did not have to walk to get there

Lay in bed trying to figure out how I can make all that money I need real quick

Learned that if I cannot really afford it, at least I can still put it on the credit card

Bless Our Only Home And Damn Our Hurtful Ways

Bless the peaceful morning light that’s always been there to help us to awaken

Damn the gutted, blighted and abandoned urban landscapes

Bless the children’s upturned and smiling faces

Damn the slobs gaining weight while only producing sewage and litter

Bless the waves that strike the cliffs and lift the salt in smoky spray

Damn the factory fishing fleets with their gruesome toll of ByCatch

Bless those who work so hard and cheerfully to make us well again

Damn the greedy and self-serving whose so-called freedom rapes this land

Bless the myriad creatures in the ever-changing web of life

Damn the corporations that clearcut and dam until the salmon can no longer spawn

Bless the sick whose courage is a lesson to the healers

Damn the myriad poisons in the food and the water and the carcinogens in the air

Bless the birds whose gentle voices wake us to each and every newborn day

Damn those who take all their Wreckreation in gasoline-powered noisemakers

Bless the evening rain gently tapping on the window panes

Damn the overpopulation bringing deforestation, drought, famine and war

Bless the music so mercifully given us from whatever source it flows

Damn the angry voices with their loud, hoarse but empty shouts

Bless the farmer who grows our food and is the good steward of our land

Damn those BigAg soil killers whose only goal is higher stock prices via greedy oligopoly

Bless the patchy fog that gives a new perspective to those deeply green foothills

Damn the dogs of war, forever sapping human and economic resources

Bless the tiny life forms of that miraculous microcosm existing both within and outside of us

Damn the loud, the thoughtless, the blindly hostile and the obnoxious

Bless the protective silence that envelops us in the night

Damn the free market for letting mothers starve just to feed their children

Bless the source of our scientific discoveries and engineering skills

Damn those who loudly market Viagra instead of curing malaria

Bless those who count their blessings with a quiet, internal smile

Damn those who live just to show off every new bauble that they buy

Bless the heroes who find the ways to help the poor to help themselves

Damn the fundamentalists wound too far and too tightly up their literalist cocoons

Bless the mothers who use up their own lives to nurture their own children

Damn those whose twisted faith keeps women covered, pregnant, barefoot and ignorant

Bless the snows that fill the streams that water the crops that feed us all

Damn the shortsighted eco-embezzlers who profitably drain irreplaceable fossil aquifers

Bless the sound of distant thunder in the velvet darkness on an autumn night

Damn the incessant roar of the interstate and the fumes that fill our homes

Bless the changing of the seasons in the great wheel of the world

Damn the vapid tourists, always whining for the sun to shine

Bless our faithful dogs who wake with the great joy of togetherness, every morning

Damn those wielding political correctness simply to gain control over those they fear

Bless those who brought the hot, running water and electricity to our homes

Damn real estate plays and the same tired development plans used everywhere

Bless the European lands from which my forefathers had to emigrate

Damn all their sycophant spokesmen and their orchestrated fairytale press releases

Bless the ancient Bristlecones, watching centuries pass by, nearly at the timberline

Damn the ‘quick fix’ and the ‘just for now’ that, through management ineptitude, never cease

Bless the mighty bluefin tuna cruising the blue depths in warm-blooded hunting packs

Damn the Healthy Forests, Clear Skies and No Net Loss initiatives of so-called Conservatives

Bless the big families and their memories and the places that they lived so long

Damn Harleys, dirt bikes and ATVs, snowmobiles, jet skis and giant RVs

Bless those of quiet faith which runs very deep but remains mostly hidden

Damn drive-thru food, 50 oz sodas and their castoff packaging rotting on the ground

Bless the patterns in the clouds and their reflections on the many northern lakes

Damn the casinos and the slot machines, the blackjack tables and the roulette wheels

Bless the pedestrians, folk musicians and those in old but sturdy clothing

Damn augmented anorexic real estate pros in sunglasses with their tinted BMW windows up

Bless those who can fix and will repair, who maintain and do not deceive

Damn a market system that makes desired resources more expensive until they are simply gone

Bless the predawn hour when things can be brought into some decent perspective, for a moment

Damn the endless pressure to do things for the sake of some shoulder-climber’s fantasy schedule

Bless the mystic harmony in the math behind the orbits of the planets

Damn those who would recast science as simply another dumb-downed political debate

Bless the idealistic young people who challenge our beliefs and assumptions

Damn those who use drugs and terror to make orphan children kill

Bless the gentle steer for providing us with his good nutrition

Damn the soulless farming gulag that drags tortured victims to our tables

Bless the quiet music of the creek in its endless variations upon so many themes

Damn those whose presence is always accompanied by so much unnecessary noise

Bless those who can tolerate uncertainty and can still live with some doubt

Damn the irrational faithful who survive only upon regurgitated sound bites

Bless the new discoveries that help us to comfortably enjoy more while using less

Damn the wasteful, the inefficient, the oversized and the polluting

Bless those who can prototype and breadboard, innovate and discover

Damn those who mindlessly take for granted household electricity and hot water

Bless the little girl who smiles up and says so easily, ‘I love you, Daddy’

Damn to a living hell those who recruit suicide bombers in the name of god

Bless the cooling breeze that arrives with the shady afternoon thunder clouds

Damn the hot, dry wind that blows endlessly during this perpetual drought

Bless the innocent and peaceful beauty of the open countryside

Damn the smash and grab developers whose greedy work destroys the very dreams they sell

Bless the powerful salmon who feed the killer whales, eagles and the giant Kodiak bears

Damn the toxic factory fish farms producing tainted flesh made available in designer colors

Bless the rich and crusty bread which sustains us

Damn that plastic-wrapped, soulless white crap brought in semis from the baking factories

Bless sustainablility, interdependence, fewer people and a smaller footprint

Damn your mindless, consumptive, wasteful and inefficient so-called Progress

Bless good cops, volunteers, firefighters, medics and committed social workers

Damn the lobbyists, lawyers, bankers, politicians and advertisers

Bless the real farmers, dispatchers, nurses, doctors and garbage men

Damn the stock brokers, insurance, real estate and car salesmen

Bless the teachers, researchers, astronauts, inventors and smoke jumpers

Damn the evangelists, preachers, priests, imams, mullahs, rabbis, reverends and ministers

Bless energy independence and distributed micro power generation

Damn big oil and electricity, dirty coal and foreign dependence

Bless peaceful silence, open space, clean air and intact ecosystems

Damn eternally our spending ever more on the demented industry we call war

Bless those who strive to find harmony with the earth and its systems

Damn those who sculpt with bulldozers creating identical chain convenience stores

Bless the fullness, beauty and complexity of our short human lives

Damn a life experience drawn only from Hollywood movies and video games

Bless physics, astronomy, cosmology, paleontology, ecology for the wonder they invoke

Damn drive-thrus, frozen meals, supersized drinks and disposable plastic forks

Bless those who take the time to try and make us think for ourselves

Damn those who try to sell us on their own short-sighted, selfish and stupid agendas

Bless the patient, merciful, forgiving, understanding and the sympathetic

Damn the road-raged, stressed-out, hyper, insecure and the caffeined-up

Bless the handicapped child who always tries so hard and smiles so sweetly

Damn the lazy & willfully ignorant as they graze vapidly in front of their media altars

Bless the built-to-last, easy-to-maintain and the better-than-it-has-to-be

Damn things ill-conceived and poorly-made – All things made to break and be thrown away

Bless the long and killing freezes of the cold dark winters

Damn the defenders of our liberties, scoffing though every year is warmer

Bless the clouds and moon, our sun, the planets, the Milky Way and beyond

Damn religious wars, slavery, forced prostitution and drug kingpins

Bless the ponds and lakes, creeks and streams, rivers, seas and oceans

Damn those awful things that we just keep on adding to the rain

Bless the change in sunlight that marks the slow flow of the seasons

Damn the 8-to-5 all year long with daylight savings time added for our so-called efficiency

Bless the myriad adaptations of the life force of which we are but one tiny groping pseudopod

Damn our fictional fabrication known as the soul, especially for granting it only to ourselves

Hurry Up And Damn MAGA

Hurry up and get the government out of the ‘business’ of habitat preservation

Make haste and put jesus front and center in all our courtrooms and legislatures

Let’s rapidly streamline these burdensome and costly mining and drilling regulations

Our opponents partisan stalling is at the root of our most serious problems

Quickly dump these time-consuming environmental impact statements

End the charade today and let’s get all the oil we can from anywhere we want

The people deserve to see our complete vision enacted in its entirety

Quash this talk of a right to privacy and get on with unaudited secret surveillance

Hurry up and gerrymander all the voting districts with unbeatable majorities

Abruptly end Title 9, handicapped access and all this BS affirmative action

These endless rancorous debates are paralyzing our government bodies

Quickly now, terminate all entitlement programs and end corporate taxes

This very afternoon let’s abolish these meddlesome Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts

Immediately allow all vehicles anytime and anywhere on all our public lands

We need to rid ourselves of this poisonous atmosphere of political acrimony

Cut to the chase and allow mineral extraction wherever, whenever and however

Spin off our under-utilized forests via open bidding to encourage unfettered development now

Hurry up and get prayer back into the classrooms right along with Intelligent Design

Too much energy is being wasted in polarized, non-productive arguments

Right now - Post a 30 day eviction notice on the door of that godless United Nations

Quit stalling and just pack the court full with those who share our enlightened views

Immediately ban all forms of artificial contraception and sex education to those under 25

We can eliminate many conflicts forever by finally making some decisions

Quickly institute mandatory prayer and bible study in all our public schools

Make a rapid purge of the liberals controlling our colleges and the media

Let us use sound bites and prayer to make the tough decisions we need never regret

Right now lift all emissions and mileage regulations from our new vehicles

Abruptly end government-funded public radio and television for good

Hurry up and abolish the minimum wage and ban all forms of unions

We must make our decisions and write them all down and get on with things

Make a quick and final exit from species preservation and re-introduction

Immediately empower confidential government policy-making boards led by industry executives

Simply quit subsidizing or even encouraging recycling and conservation completely

Marginalize these whining squishes now so we can make clearer plans for our future

End race-based quotas and assistance to the children of poverty after lunch

Abolish these stifling offshore drilling restrictions before leaving today

Use endless rapid repetition of slickly-packaged simple messages to establish guiding truths

Put all of the public-housing and property-stealing national monuments up for sale tomorrow

Quickly make it impossible to obtain information outside of official sources

Govern best by doing less, trusting in God, the marketplace and anonymous corporate donors

Immediately put a cap on punitive damages any way industry sees fit

Right away re-classify all politically sensitive documents as secret

Quickly eliminate the EPA, lay off its workers and cancel its mandates

Silence the foolish gun control whiners forever with court decisions and new legislation

Terminate these non-productive federally-funded climate studies immediately

Right away start teaching Traditional Family ValuesÔ and the Bible in our public schools

Let us do these things with candor and energy and record our results

Eliminate this misguided national endowment for the arts as fast as you can

Abolish quotas on technical visas and give bigger tax breaks for outsourcing jobs

Drop all these socialist controls and give the free market complete control of the healthcare industry

Hurry up and let consumers decide the fate of remaining old-growth forests

Quickly make it official practice to edit and censure federal research papers

Immediately further the spread of democracy at will via military force

This incessant quarrelling is tiring and stands in the way of our real progress

Replace all burdensome government oversight with non-binding self-regulation

Speedily stop the endless appeals on extraction and development projects

Starting now, give all aid only through the faith-based charities of our supporters

Enough of mere drips and drabs, riders and amendments – full speed ahead!

Quickly stop the debate and simply ban all abortions. Period.

Right away we need to give new owners full control over their leveraged wetland properties

Let such actions replace empty rhetoric and the results can be recorded for posterity

Provide permanent relief of excessive tax burdens on the wealthy right now

Make it official today that all poverty benefits simply trickle down from the rich

Let it all come to pass and let everyone be judged for their part

Offer black convicts slavery and prejudice reparations in the form of one-way tickets to Africa

Speedily make implanted smart card IDs mandatory for all migrant workers

Give us a chance to bring our democratic, faith-based vision to full fruition now

Rapidly free our corporations from uncompetitive pension and benefit burdens

Fast track an amendment for annual increases in military spending into our sacred constitution

We have a clear vision going forward, just let’s quickly remove the obstacles in our path

Hapless Heartland Homeboy

I’m a six-pack cowboy ridin the range between beer joints in my loud pickup truck

I work a hard outside job for my money while shrugging off yet another hangover

smoke my Marboros because they’re made fer us tough but lonely cowboys

hawk up green slyme and casually toss my butts straight down on the ground

don’t trust them slick liberal boys in ther fancy new york suits

grew up in crowded apartments but replanted my roots to the country

been divorced three times and I’m way behind on alimony and child support

Budweiser is still the king of beers and NASCAR is the greatest sport ever

support our boys overseas protectin us from them sick terrorist sonsabitches

love that Oscar Meyer bologna on white bread with a little Frinch’s mustard

got a friend who cooks up good meth in his trailer down by the interstate

My girlfriend sometimes even cleans the toilet when she’s on that stuff

lost my license on another DUI and I still cain’t afford no car insurance

had three teeth pulled but it dinit hurt too much what with the Vicadin and beer

not really a part of the trash I live and work and play and sleep in ever day

My story don’t sound too bad when I’m sitting on a barstool durin happy hour

need new tires on the pickup and the muffler and the bumper are falling off

get 127 channels from the dish on the big screen I financed down to the mall

was late on the rent again but did charge the little lady a new weight loss plan

tore up my old credit card and got me anothern with no interest - fer 3 months!

lost my last job because of the goddamn terrorists and them yellow librals

Found a really old speeding ticket underneath the truck seat after my arrest

got them presents on sale late on Christmas eve over to the Wal-Mart

Left that puppy behind at the last rental after it shit all over the house and yard

got two boys who cain’t read but damn shore know how ta fight

They don’t do too good in school, but then, it looks like I turned out all right

smacked the old lady in the eye after we got home late from drinking

Then she used up our whole dam phone card bawling to her fat, slutty mother

got some dents and primer paint on the pickup but it still looks like a fightin vehicle

Boy, the sound of that country music makes me wanna drain off this last beer

like to look down on women’s legs in their little cars from my pickup’s seat

Praise Jesus and fuck that evolution cuz I ain’t kin ta no damn monkeys

like to fish and hunt and love to go camp in the great outdoors

save money by changing my oil in the woods right nexta where I dump my trash

got guns to protect me from when them black helicopters come

I say we get the USA out of the damn UN and the stinkin UN out of the USA

making less but gas and rent and food and cable cost more all the time

have to say I’m pretty satisfied with the way that things are goin

rolled all my bills into one monthly payment and the bar still cashes my paycheck

My 14 year old daughter run away and got knocked up by some ugly truck driver

want to trade in my snow machine on a Harley as soon as it warms up

There’s yellow shit underneath my toenails and scabs that don’t heal on my arms

I never took no welfare but I gotta say we did camp out for a while last summer

We took baths with paper towels in the restrooms down ta the Conoco

slapped the wife around for buying kids clothes at the Goodwill

don’t buy much flour or rice but we do eat a lotta Doritos and Reese’s Cups

don’t see no big-boy pickups in fronta Starbucks buying them gimmick lattes

Health food aint nethin but expensive BS fer queers and dumbass liberals

think my eyes are still good cuz I don’t set there reading all the time

Got my tax refund early from a payday loaner and bought the kids a xBox

couldn’t be cooped up in some office all day long at some freakin’ little desk

I’ll take the freedom to piss all over a different construction site every summer

I say God Bless America! and you cain love her or you cain just go ahead and leave her

Do’t cared that all my clothes are made in China and my gas money funds them tearwrists

don’t give a shit about no pollution and Hey! What has any damn polar bear ever done fer me?

The old lady’s got a little sugar but she’s still two full tons of real fun

took the kids to Vegas on vacation last time I got unemployment

Jimmy Jr split his head wide open while I was inside playing blackjack

caught somethin nasty from the waitress down ta the Dew Drop Inn

Told the wife I got bit up when I was out hunting with the boys

almost bought me a pre-fab but thanks ta the liberals, the gotdamn loan fell through

My sister has six kids and her old man run off three years ago

gonna get me a little spread and one of them fancy ridin lawnmowers

My dumbass kid just got his nose pierced and has a tattoo of a skull

keep a pistol o the passenger seat on my way to work, jest in case

The brother-in-law went to jail for gettin beat up in a bar by an off-duty cop

like to relax by sliding dollar bills down inside exotic dancers panties

The house is full of roaches and the fuckin’ landlord just don’t care

got drunk and dropped the turkey so I slapped the shit outta the kids

Went down to the tavern and left the boys in the truck with Big Gulps

forgot about the damn school play and bawled the wife out for being late with dinner

There’s hairs all stuck in some dried up yellow crud on our bathroom floor

won’t smoke no cheap-ass generic cigarettes just to save 50 cents a pack

always buy me a couple of lotto tickets, just in case, you know, heh-heh

swore off going to any church but I talk with jesus most every day

Thick, curly hair is growin at funny angles out my ears and my nose

don’t own no damn computer and I say screw the whole fekin Internet

So, let’s round up all them Mexicans and make the Homos string ‘em up

pissed a little blood on Sunday morning and got this cough that don’t go away

The kids got sent home from school again becausa them damn head lice

still like my beer but you can jest toss them vegetables out for the rabbits

My buddy broke a bottle on my forehead and we still don’t remember why

I’m 5’9” and 160 lbs. of evil little fuckup and I threaten bicycles with my pickup

Just the other day I run down two stray cats who couldn’t move fast enough

got grease under my fingernails and I’m white as a ghost under my wife-beater shirt

got no more butt left but I’m working on a real nice little beer belly

pitch them McDonald wrappers straight out the truck as I lick my dirty fingers clean

fity oz Mountain Dews keep me goin through them tough afternoons at the job

don’t know no percents, fractions are real small and I don’t count my change

Sumbuddy’s gotta have a money angle on this bullshit global warming stuff

got a bald spot under my ball cap but I don’t need no goddamn Viagra, baby

My mom has a little trailer where she watches Survivor and sips her Bourbon

chased a deer for an hour on my snowmobile before we run outta beer

Without no health insurance, we just take the kids down ta the ER whenever they get hurt

Abortion’s a gotdam sin, flag burning surely a crime and the 10 commandments are the law

I say we nuke them mothfakers first and then maybe later try to sort it out

we got to stop the queers and liberals from overrunning the whole damn country

Let’s just go over there and take all their shittin’ oil and shut them the fuck right up

To hell with recycling - until you pay me for it, I got better things to do

often fall asleep on the couch and snore with my mouth open and the TV on

don’t own no suit, cant tie no tie and don’t wear no fancy damn cologne

got leathery wrinkles on the back of my skinny, sunburned neck

like to whip somebody’s ass and I don’t want no more Anger Management class

got me a real job building townhomes for some dumbass urban numbnuts

don’t do no housework but I make some mean burgers on the grill

Too much school turns you into some kind of friggin’ pussy

warm up the truck for ten minutes outside the apartment when it’s cold

Rentin videos and a bag of potato chips are cheaper than a babysitter

try to splash the fuckin joggers when I drive by em in the rain

why would anybody in their right mind ever go for a stinkin’ walk

got a thing going with Lois who sells us doughnuts at the job site

like to build me a deck off the modular and put up one of them bubbly hottubs

don’t take no gotdam vitamins or put some silly shit on my hands

school says Ricky needs glasses but it ain’t none of their damn business

some fucker tried to trick me into a payment plan for braces for the kid

the old lady’s veins are all swol up and her ankles are getting real fat

we got us a family bible standing up by the DVDs in the entertainment center

you shoulda seen the tits on that blonde in the magazine in the portapotty

like to trade in my old pickup on a brand new Silverado if I could get the credit

gonna buy me a boat and take the whole family fishin’ out to the lake

ruint the carpet at the last place but the landlord screwed us so we didn’t clean it

got $18 and a half a tank of gas that’s gonna last me ‘til this friday