Peace

Poem with five titles

In my poem
with five titles
I’ll start off with

The Declaration of Incompetence

I already wrote an essay called
The Declaration of Interdependence
Modeled after the original

But that was when I was being nice
Since what I really wanted to write
Was the Declaration of Incompetence

And in my poem with five titles
I will declare the incompetence
Of the US government
to protect anyone from any single terrorist

since, as we know, they are creating terrorists
faster than they are eliminating them.

I’ll declare their incompetence
To create peace

Since they are flat out ignorant
About peace, and haven’t a clue
As to how to create it
Unless you think that going to war
Is a great place to start

And let’s also note
That they do not revere
Celebrate, remember or pay
Anyone who ever stood up, lay down
Or sat in for peace.

I’ll also declare their incompetence
To represent the best aspects of the American people
Since they are so good, right now, at delivering the
Most obvious, jingoistic, narrow, and
counterproductive responses to world events
That could ever have been imagined.

I will also declare now and forever the incompetence
Of the both the fundamentalist Christians
And the Jihadist Islamics
In their relationship to God.

I understand that they believe in God.
But I don’t think that they are getting close to God,
Seeing God, or becoming more Godly.

At the root, these religions are failing to connect
Themselves to God in any real way.
And therefore, they are incompetent

And are relying on the tiniest possible scope
Of human, not divine comprehension,
When they go out to kill and die for God
Who, as we have established, they neither
Know or connect with

I tell you, you are no good at
what you think you are good at.
And your religion sucks, since, as we have seen,
it is not working.

Fix that, and then we’ll talk

I’ll also declare the incompetence
Of our educational system
That can create good working
But not enlightened citizens,

A legal system that punishes
But doesn’t prevent crime,

And a medical profession
That catches the fallen
But is blind to the fall

Then, in my five title poem
For peace

I’ll use the second title,

Passive Fist

Where I’ll explain how
Peace is not just some sort of quiet
Time between wars

But is actually the deep, profound silence
With burgeoning, infinite power
On the surface of which
A million atomic bombs,
Exploding, all at once

Is just a whisper
Barely noticeable
In the vast cosmic array
Which is its expression
And it’s completely dependent
Slightly decayed, derivative,
Merely apparent epiphenomenon
In every virtual second
Or nanosecond

In this peace, your war in Iraq, your world wars,
your thousands of wars in human history
are lightly blown ripples in a silent pool

This is the peace that we have
Behind us, to counteract
The warring tendencies
in our little world today

This is the peace that is available
To make war into
a old, cruel, tired joke,
No longer in circulation.

This is the peace that we can rub
All over the faces of these so-called
Realists, and say, your military solution
Is not now and never has been realistic

Never once in history has a war caused peace.

Why should the fact
that you are completely ignorant of that
make things any different this time?

Those that do not learn from history
Are condemned not only to repeat it
But to become it

Hear me, I hold a flower
In my passive fist
So tightly

You cannot unclench this hand
You cannot stop this peace
You cannot sanely laugh
And belittle
the power
of this passive fist

And yet the flower I hold
Is still planted in good soil
And is delicately growing to the sky

Then, in my
poem with five titles
I’ll handle that pesky Iraq question, with the simple title:

I say we walk.

I say we walk out of Iraq and don’t look back.

I say we admit that we were wrong
And simply, one night, all disappear.
Take the planes, leave the tanks,
take the soldiers,
And simply go.

I don’t really care if Iraq has a democratic government or not
I don’t really care if Iraq has an Islamic government or not
Or even if Iraq gets Saddam back.

None of that matters to me.

I just don’t want another American
In or out of uniform
To get shot or beheaded or simply blown up
doing what shouldn’t have been done
in the first place, nor do I want any
Iraqi Islamic Jihadist or even Al Qaeda
to get killed either

Let them have their religion.
Let them have their country

They didn’t attack us.
We don’t need to be attacking
Or, at this point, protecting them

I say we walk
And let them sort it out.

There will be no loss of pride, I assure you.
It is now long since gone.

Then, in my poem of five titles, I’ll say:

Never Again.

Never again,
once we have cleaned up
this ridiculous Neocon
administration and
kicked the religious right back
To the last pew
where they belong,
with the other
Reformed alcoholics
And everyone else who
Looks at an intelligent man
With suspicion

Never again
Will we be sleeping and
Let such backward, boorish, and
Blunt people get in power

Never again will we be the
Brusque, brutish, bully of the world
Never again will we
wander around
Having fun and
making what money we can
while these primitive types
plot and scheme their way into place

never again
you see, because
as the last title
in my poem with five titles,

I’ll use a silent title
That no one can hear
But the effect of this phrase

Will be that I will be
In my own life
As if a radio
broadcasting peace

Because I am so full
Of peace, made of peace,
Living peace, being peace
Feeling, tasting,
Brimming over and radiating
infinite peace

And then I will be doing the only thing
I can truly do for peace

Not just voting for some
peace candidate
Once every four years

Only to have my vote wiped out by someone else
Who is at war with themselves and others

Not arguing positions of international affairs
and economic policy

not really being part of the
governmentalist view
of human happiness

such as democracy, the cure for everything
and by the way, could we put a pipeline here?

Just me,
being the peace
Knowing the peace,
Radiating infinite peace,

In this, the section of the poem
With the silent title
You, too, could ask yourself
How am I feeling, right now,
Right here…

Do I feel peace?
Am I at peace?

Is every ounce of my body
My mood, my feelings
My mind, my soul,
My heart, my life
Brimming with
blissful peace

You could ask
Am I part of the peace
Or a piece of the war.

Join me, now
In doing the one thing that you can do
Not once every four years
Not just another vote

In creating peace
In your own world
24/7, every second, every hour
every day of every year

join me in the silent
peaceful title
of this poem

it’s the least that you can do
it’s the most that you can do

it’s the most
being that all you can be.

Be the piece of society
That is being the peace
Be the being
that is being the peace

Be the silent title of this poem
With me
Let’s all, together,
Be the peace
That wants to be.