051221b

 

five moons wax and wane

Jewish holidays times 5

are exhausting

032021b

 

 Armageddon at the Pearly Gates

A flash, a bang,

line stretching 

all the way back to Earth,

Served today: 7.4 billion

(including unbelievers)*

*Universalist administration at just the wrong time

072620

this must be heaven

golden streets lead straight to this

railed smoking pit

050320b

Heidi


I know you're going to hell, she said
but she was cool with dating me
God would fotgive and forget
she was sure
but only if I asked
she was going to ask
so that was ok
I was cool with it too
didn't need to ask

042020e

kinda miss carols

nothing commemorated

on this timeline

022120

Quite an Impression

The body of some unknown god

Plummeted from the sky,

impaled itself on the stoplight

In the center of town,

Head crushing the drugstore

(Woulda killed Mr. Snyder

if the store had been open),

Right knee clipping the front of the Pure station,

And, I guess,

Smashing the storage tank

Under the pump,

Cos now the whole town smells of gas.

Not much left of the 7-11 either,

But the five and dime next door was no big loss;

It closed years ago,

Only thing is, can’t get through the intersection at all,

And now we have to detour 40 miles

To get to the Walmart

Across the county line.

Meanwhile,

This thing shows no sign of decaying,

And we've got no equipment

That could move it,

So its name is Mud

Far as I'm concerned,

And it's just too bad

That I don't even know

If this is my god,

And He's dead,

Like Nietzsche said,

Or if this is some other dude,

Who didn't create my universe,

And I still have to go to church on Sunday,

Even though now the drive

Is 20-some miles longer,

Which is costing me a lot of gas money,

And what kind of God

Could allow this to happen,

If He isn't dead?

013020

We have entered those well-remembered times
when the politicians ooze and crack
staked out in the fields
where they can do the least damage.
The priests in their ivory robes
glide through the villages
bending down to upturned faces
tapping those who are worthy
of uplift to the Cathedral.
We bow our heads
pray the rains come soon.

103119

The dead rise tonight
we put them to bed tomorrow
conflating tradition
is the new
what we do
but then again
the Catholic Church did this
when they were The Church
merging local tradition and holidays
with their Calendar
perhaps it has always been
what we do

072219b

floods isolate the new Ark
the carnival attraction celebrates
the story of an impossible flood
and a daring rescue
of everything but unicorns
but heavy rains in Kentucky
mean you can't get there from here
I hope that thing will float

032719

the brass gears of God
turn exceeding slowly
sand of souls

010518

lone planet, lone star
50 million light years from anything
no wonder they developed

a solitary lifestyle
and sun worship

although
the Cult of Nullity
enjoyed widespread popularity
until every adherent
who could be found
was dispersed to the winds

The cult was suppressed
but continued  to resurface
through the dark and lonely years
centuries
millennia
until the star
cast off its outer portions
and vaporized the planet

this was noted
in distant galaxies
millions of years later

071218b

fossil reefs
in North Alabama
who put them there
to fool us into thinking
the sea occupied that place
long long ago
which has primacy
evidence of our senses
or someone waving an old book
if you even have to ask
you are headed the wrong way

052518

fireballs of Christ
zooming through everyone
refinery BOOM

012818b

The Goat With A Thousand Young Fights Back

I am pissed off, and it takes a lot to make me angry. Normally, if someone gets me even mildly irritated I simply eviscerate him and slurp his intestines while he watches. There's nothing like instant and total revenge to keep one's temper under control. However, there are some trends in verminous society that are really getting my goat (no pun intended).

Being a bloodthirsty and immortal deity just isn't what it used to be.The difficulty is, of course, that everything is so computerized nowadays. In my youth the world was a wild place. I could suck the bowels out of a living herdsman or fur trapper in the comfortable knowledge that I would not be disturbed. Oh, every now and then some ungodly monster would fly down from Fomalhaut and kick the living shit out of my gargantuan ebony butt, but that was just the cost of doing business on this maggot-infested

clod of Dirt. Basically, the pickings were good.

That all changed when the vermin started to get civilized. Soon, everyone knew his neighbor's business. If his neighbor was disemboweling virgins in order to summon me to preside over a cozy little orgy, why, the people next door simply felt that they had to interfere. I pretty much had to abandon urban areas for a few centuries. And then there was that sweet, sweet period in the 60s and 70s in which your neighbors didn't know you and the Government didn't either. It was all too brief, but I had access to places I'd been shut out of since before the Reformation. No one knew if they were hallucinating or if I really was gnawing on their vitals with my detestable tubular snouts-until it was far too late.

Nowadays, your neighbors still don't know you from Crowley, but every time someone sucks the marrow out of a 4-year-old, or rips the heads from a few strayed tourists, the government hears about it. And they're as bad as the Elder Gods for sanctimonious prying and interfering. Even worse, with the cheap construction so much in vogue now, if a few dozen of my acolytes scream Ia! Ia! Shub-Niggurath! the sound cuts right through the walls. Some busybody inevitably calls the cops to complain about the noise, or about the blood dripping from the ceiling tiles. Dirt is getting so crowded that there's nowhere left I can snatch a bit of solitude, much less munch on a few victims in peace.

But I have a plan to solve my little problem. I realized recently that I'd become too stuck in my ways. I need to change with the times, and I know just what to do. I'm thinking of incorporating as a religion. I'm already an object of worship, and I have supernatural powers, so I fulfill all the technical criteria. Incorporating will have all sorts of tangible

advantages to complement the spiritual virtues with which I am already plenteously endowed. I'll be able to build temples anywhere (or my followers will) without any interference from the State, and we won't have to pay a cent in taxes. Best of all, if the present Administration has its way and prayer returns to the schools, all I'll need is a good lawyer. I'll be all over the places of learning like maggots in a corpse. I'll be

summoned at the autumnal equinox, by court order, to every public high school in the country. It'll all be part of the fairness doctrine. And remember, I'm a parent. School boards really listen to parents. Yep, if things go the way the stars prophesy, I'll be feeding high on the hog. If I can get into the middle schools I won't just be eating well, I'll be picking my teeth with virgin fibulae.

I must confess that it will be a relief to get a space at the public trough. I have plenty of mouths to feed and they're not easily satiated. This is just the beginning, too. I may be able to pick up a few acolytes among the young and impressionable. I just need to work on my schtick a little. Downplay the extraterrestrial horror and carnage (save that for

initiates), maybe do a little rap routine for openers, chorus of dancing girls, serve refreshments at all summonings. Yeah, this could really work.

Ia! Ia! Shub-Niggurath! Ia! Ia! Oooooh, yeah!

122217b

sea of gods


anyone whose last worshipper
is dead or apostate

washes up on the beach
by morning
bloated and unrecognizable

072517c

"Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily..."

Consensus molds reality. Why isn't there a manifest God? No consensus! For every Baptist sure of Christ's divinity, someone else fervently believes the opposite. Even two people who sit together in church don't worship the same God. They may suppose they do, but ha! Six billion unique concepts cancel each other out. But you can game the system.

I decided to create the perfect partner for myself. I didn't worry about official records. No one really cares about those. I made a Facebook page, Twitter account, LiveJournal, personal website, even a couple of T-shirt designs at Café Press. I invented a small business complete with everything except a product. (She's a consultant; I left it vague.) Building a girlfriend from the bottom up, so to speak, kept me occupied. I posted elaborate descriptions of our dates. Natalie was so busy, I told my friends, that she didn't have time to meet them in the flesh. She confirmed this in stressed-out posts on her blog.

Soon I was the biggest problem, because only I knew she wasn't real! As time went by, more and more people added their increments of belief. Then my sister emailed.

"Invited Natalie for lunch," Charlotte said, "it was so nice to finally meet her." Um...what? I hadn't even answered Charlotte's invitation. That night my mother texted that she and Natalie were planning a joint shopping expedition. I stopped writing messages "from Natalie." Didn't matter. Everyone kept getting them, except me. I suspected a joke, even thought about ways to catch the perpetrators.

Then I realized I'd fallen into a trap. I couldn't believe in a conspiracy. I had to believe all these messages were from the real Natalie. Only then could that become true. I took a few days off. I didn't eat or sleep. I posted reminder notes from Natalie all over the apartment. I dug out unused Christmas cards, addressed them to Natalie and myself, and put them all over. I constantly repeated things like "don't forget Natalie wants low-fat milk." Pretty soon I was so hungry and so short on sleep that the distinction between reality and myth almost completely disappeared.

--

I woke up on the living room floor, dizzy with hunger. The TV mumbled. I smelled pizza.

"Dinner's here," Natalie called. "Hurry up, I have to be at the airport in an hour."

"Coming!" I struggled to my feet. Better wash my face for our first date.

Publ 2009 Daily Cabal

072517

Orwell Was Right


GOP programmed
to believe anything
Russian atheists
are God

062617

Fly away, now

The ladybug leaned against the window frame and crossed its lower right leg over its lower left. It took a drag from a nearly microscopic cigar and blew an even smaller smoke ring.

"Yep, this is all mine. I made the whole shebang," it added, by way of explanation, seeing John's look of confusion.

John had written about talking pigs, etc., but never a talking insect. Was one kind of talking animal more or less improbable than another? Somehow it seemed that talking mammals were more plausible than bugs.

"Hello! Anybody in there?" The ladybug pointed at John with the cigar.

"What? All what? The whole shebang of what?" John clicked save, though he'd written so little that losing the file wouldn't matter much.

"Everything. The universe. Didn't even take a week." If an insect ever looked smug, this one did.

John shook his head vigorously to clear his mind. "Ha ha. It almost sounded like you said you created the universe. But you know, we already know who did that. There's a book about it, maybe you've heard of it." Having come to the conclusion that he was hallucinating, John had decided to play along.

Mistake.

"You think I'm stupid? Of course I know about the book, I wrote it. Surely you don't think your primitive ancestors were equipped to handle the information that they had been invented by a bug. You don't seem to be doing too well with it yourself." The ladybug stubbed the cigar out on the window sill and tossed the butt out the window. John winced. He hated litterbugs.

"You know, that's bad for you. Bad for the environment too. North Carolina and Virginia should never have gotten started cultivating tobacco in the first place. And, what's up with evolution? Is it real? Are birds really dinosaurs? And, if you're a benevolent God, why do bad things happen to good people? Is it really so we can have free will? Because, you know, I don't think that's a legitimate justification."

The ladybug seemed to sigh. "I don't think you've been paying attention. That benevolent god crap was something humans made up because they can't handle the truth. Who said I was benevolent? Why should I be? Arthropods are "r" strategists. Have enough kids and some are bound to survive. Benevolence is neither necessary nor desirable. And it's not like you're real. All I have to do is snap my --"

SLAMBO!!

John scraped the bug guts off on the edge of the sill and tossed the book down on his desk. It was time for a drink.

Publ. Apr. 15, 2010, www.dailycabal.com

060317b

Rapture

They shuffle past, eyes closed,

somehow avoiding curb- and light-pole mishaps;

the last notes in abandoned journals

all refer to “The Singularity;”

are they dreaming a shared nirvana?

Will survivors notice attrition by starvation?

One stumbles, falls, doesn’t move again,

other trudgers pay no heed,

moving unsteadily but without cease;

their travels seem brownian,

evince no regularity or purpose.

I keep expecting some manifestation,

some intrusion into the world,

justification of the term Singularity,

not just these empty shells.

"Intelligent Design" tries to insinuate itself into Alabama schools

"Critical Thinking" Bill Standard Creationist Ploy

As they do every year, religious extremists in the Alabama state legislature are trying to introduce religion into the public school science classroom. The current fad is to appeal to "critical thinking." It sounds innocuous, but it is simply a cover for creationist dogma. The problem with applying critical thinking in this context is that many students are not knowledgeable enough. Many teachers, whose required training doesn't include much about evolution, if anything, also lack the background. Further, the current incarnation of creationism, Intelligent Design, is a purely religious concept. It doesn't belong in the science classroom. By all means encourage critical thinking about scientific principles!

http://yellowhammernews.com/politics-2/alabama-republican-sponsors-resolution-encouraging-classroom-discussion-intelligent-design/

Alabama has many real challenges that the state legislature is equipped to address. I wish they would stop embarrassing the state. By trying to conflate science and religion again and again, and do their jobs.