[Newspoetry] Ape Forms Organize Religion

[Donald L Emerick]

For some of the basis of the following newpoem,
I submit for your attention the following link.
If you do not care to wade through the PDF text
of the private commission on Faith-based Initiatives,
let me assure you that you have probably already
heard most of the major recommendations when
you listened to GW Bush's State of the Union speech
last week, for his speech writing team extracted
quite liberally(?) from the report whose link I give.

(Who ever said conservatives were not liberals!
Did we really need Ralph to tell us that the two parties
are one in outlook and in spirit?  Just peas in a pod?)

Anyway, to make a long story short,
I try to follow what is happening in the world
of religious chatterings,
to see what comes our way.

* Religious, Civil Liberties Leaders Find Common Ground on 
Faith-Based Initiative
http://www.working-group.org

********************************

APE FORMS ORGANIZE RELIGION

Organized religion would be organized crime
If Organization were seen as a problem of time.
What O needs to exist are economic transfer rules
By which a forgotten past translates, using present tools,
Into some benign future that shows a higher order,
Whose anti-entropic world needs a definite border.

Infinity may be a logical necessity
If logic means testing every idea endlessly.
But O asserts, affirms, declares -- quite faithfully --
That time conceals everything in God's eternity.
If time has some beginning, then it also has an end;
However far it travels, every light ray must bend.

Philosophy means, to some few of us, "other-than-me"
Indicative shadows in primal ambiguity.
But O, My God!, says arrogantly, despite what is true,
"When I have this awesome power, I shall rule over you:
Your folks will be my folks as your ways shall be mine as well.
If you don't like it and should you fight me, you go to hell."

What could be a crime except an offense to the big O?
Dogmas delegate lawful powers to bring grief and woe.
Crime oft ends its own society, which is nebulous,
Pointing to someone else who is also never us.
"I did not make law; I only speak of its past sayings.
I do not break law; I follow just its decreed slayings."

Death is never murder when it happens naturally.
Big O says what is not order occurs accidently.
Randomness offends responsible determination,
Which comes to us as our predetermined destination.
When "everything has a reason for being", who are we
To insist upon the chance of one life-time to be free?

"Other-than-me" speaks to me as "other-than-this-life"
Rather than "other-mind" games of strategy and strife.
What later child could ever know what Big O means to say
Unless Big O clearly says "Big O says-so" is Our Way?
Forget a Liar's paradox -- no liar plays that game,
All of our truth-tellers would say some liars are to blame.

Therefore there exists some roads which may lead you into town;
But all roads go on to Rome, where your toga is your gown.
Rome always lies -- at the end of traversing on O roads.
"All Pigs shall come to Market" is what each Heaven forebodes.
"Need a pig?  Buy a pig", so says a cagey hairless ape,
"Or else, sell one -- your economy needs our careless rape.

If buying and selling are not your style, then be a pig
Or join other hairless apes, like me; it's an easy gig!"
If you have not got a pig, nor want some pig in a poke,
Then could you take your kosher ways as one last Big O joke?
Pork park is pork in a park; a yet's a pig's heaven, too.
All hairless apes are but pigs in some monkey-suited zoo.