The Great American Poet

we commiserate

the last function

of the last poets

generation after generation

some kook convinces people

we are in the end times

the ice caps are melting

shit is never going to be the same

sooner than we'll want to believe will be the times

when you will see what you and yours

can live through

with

I want to take the future in my arms and hold tight

bring them right here

right now

and press STOP

The Seventh Day Adventist's

started with a largest revival in the history of the USA

tens of thousands believed the signs had been seen

good chunk of the population in the 1800's

gave away earthly goods

went out in the hills on a fall night

awaiting the end

October twenty second

no Great Pumpkin appeared

Aaconvenient revelation sure came though

saved a few scraps of the church

the cash flow

to the ministers

goes on to this day

I read Christ's original apostles

expected the End in their time?

guesses all and foolish to any God as sure as shit

generation after generation

thinking their problems

were the worst ever was

certain the end was 'nigh

came with plagues and charismatics

Searching the skies for angels

listening for Gabriel's horn

Messiahs rise and fall throughout history of course of course

nothing new

Joseph Smith was killed for land grabs

Now the Mormon's just call that the 'troubles'

Built an army so large the US government

threatened them with war

if they did not disperse

they wanted a Mormon country out there in the desert

live with harems

tell themselves they would become God's one day

create universes

while the women served their man

blacks and Native American's were kept out

until it was putrid to any thinking person

and a 'new revelations' came down

said CONVERT THESE BLACK PEOPLE

now the largest growing demographic

in a world where your sci-fi imagination

is the only boundary

to the universes the MEN

can build

The endless pattern makers

terrify me now

I looked in the eyes of a religious zealot just once

a man intelligence had in a cult

killing for the cause

hopped up on some mind mania

I had never seen before

to kill where he was aimed

classified and still out there

Yeats said, 'The best lack all convictions,

and the worst are filled with passionate intensity. '

Hawthorne wore the shame of having a grandfather

who sentenced innocent women charged as witches to die

in a time when his peers looked at such behavior as barbarous

Christianity as foolish

Religion dying all over the world

tradition over faith

passing on of ethics with a heaven and a hell

passé in intellectual circles

a UFO cult

killed themselves in brand new matching sneakers

after getting really good with computers and then cutting off their balls

they thought they were catching a ride on a space ship

hidden behind an asteroid

they all had five dollars

in their pocket

they lived in a huge mansion

slave labor undercut competing programmers

people hate the world

pretend themselves into another human geography altogether

unknown, cryptic, deadly

a survivor who was not there for the mass suicide

was sure he had missed

his ride on a UFO

NOW science says

7-9 degree rise in a hundred years

the end, the end they say is near

where is the horror?

report comes out in the Chicago Tribune

I expect the world to stop and go WHAT THE FUCK?

THE WORLD IS ENDING?

instead of listening to 97% of the scientists

social media is filled with the denial that comes of cowardice

yes

there was a tipping point

awhile back

most missed it

could have been forty some years ago?

a self perpetuating greenhouse doesn't need

anything else from us now

we hope it hasn't started

ignore science

until the refugee's finally reach our very doors

A sane species would prepare

have leaders that cared

the rich rule and they are more interested in escape plans

to private cities and mansions underground

the government will be gone in the end

every man woman and child for themselves

the zombie flicks on tv good training for what is to come

Lord, spare us the worst of ourselves in this time

spare us the worst of ourselves

Read long ago about a poet who kept a skull on his desk

to remind him he wrote for the future and I thought that way for awhile

now the future isn't going to be there

we write for the now

pretend the end isn't coming

the problem ignored and best forgotten

to keep the conversation lively/to avoid social shunning

a mystery a horror story an adventure

anything but what all the poets seek

the maligned, discarded, avoided stinking filthy fucking truth

I'll be a sentinel

commiserating

the last shepherds

as they gather the sheep

and close the barn door