Songs of Progress

Prologue

And Death walked through the fields of amber waving grains

pondering purple mountains and blue skies halcyon majestic

plucking from the fruited plains where pilgrim feet would centuries pass.

And Death sat under the shaded trees, his cape and his cowl cast off unashamed

black eyes gazing across the freedom beats of wilderness

the white doves flocking through the air

the brown deer bounding to and fro

the gray wolves lapping lazily in the summer sun.

And Death saw at his side a small fledgling bird fallen from its newborn nest

laying lifeless its wings spread talons curled

his bone white fingers scraping through the dirt, scooping it undisturbed into his palm

and he breathed his own life breath upon it and returned it to the earth

buried in the ground where all life returns

coaxing its small sparking soul into the earth around it.

From the dirt grew green stalks a beginning of something new

the souls of the dead give life to the mother and rejuvenate all.

The Beginning and Ending of all things

for All things a cycle followed.

No life is unless death is and no death is unless life is.

That is the nature of this Earth world,

and this nature is God

whose heat is sun

whose breath is wind

whose hands of earth tremble

whose blood flows in lava

whose hair grows in green grass and brown trees

whose tears fall in rain and pool in salt oceans

never fully awake and never fully asleep

not fully the mother and not fully the father

always welcoming

never judging

the symbiosis flows in balance

spawning ground of all this Life.

And Death looked to the east at the flaming horizon

as the stirred form of man grew.

And Death grew concerned as the stirred form of man moved west

growing expanding consuming

filling the eastern land

crossing the world ocean.

And the stirred form of man stood on the western shores

in the name of peace and freedom

in the name of freedom from oppression

in the name of religious tolerance

But this name withered to dust as the stirred form of man

spread taloned fingers across the land

and denied freedom to the native people

and oppressed the native people

and forced their religion upon the native people

And Death stood before the stirred form of man raging

You have betrayed your promise!

Harm not the land, nor the sea, nor life itself!

Leave this land untouched by your tainted hands.

Turn back and leave these native peoples be!

And the stirred form of man spoke

This is our land to do with as we please

left to us by God and we follow His laws.

And We do not need you.

And Death stabbed his scythe into the trembling ground,

You need the land and the fruits of its labor.

Why need anything else? Why believe in anything else?

Did this carpenter who nailed himself to a cross

blind you all so badly that you believe in an unknowable promise?

Would you deny all fact all truth all reality for a vague promise of eternal life?

Is that what he really wanted from you?

Have you done what he asked of you?

Have you honored your covenant to him?

And the stirred form of man rose up and cast Death down

driven by the false promise of eternity.

And the stirred form of man carried forward onto this new land untouched by Progress

leaving Death chained in darkness

balance thrown off. Nature corrupted

by the stirred form of man.

Two Hundred Years of Progress

America. Progress made

pushing oblivious natives through oblivion flames

cutting brown barked needle green conifers to their roots

iron girders in gaping earth wounds

oozing black blood and gold

concrete salves on earth scraped clean

steel rimmed smokestacks gushing black soot soiled air

black night turned to inferno flames of an Earthen Hell

Sweating souls in sweat-shopped labor,

land, life, all forgot working for the green-backed bill

but there were some who saw the madness

powerless to do anything else, they wrote in passion rages

in journals books on printing presses in art.

Romanticism redefined not looking back to better times

but bringing balance back to the industrializing world.

But the words fell before blind eyes and on deaf ears

too tired from weary day-work to care about the world

paying for food no longer grown

scrounging for water no longer collected

weaving clothes no longer made for family friends but those with money.

And amid all this William Blake walked the earth

witness to the horror surrounding him.

He wrote about what he saw,

screamed in rage about what he saw,

and still no one cared to listen or cared to see.

And as Blake walked the earth, he slipped into his imagination.

He visited Death in his black cell and sang songs of innocent experience,

and those songs carried with them the pain and suffering of humanity.

He sang of the chimney sweep sold into slavery who did but weep

and Death strained against his chains as he heard the child say,

“When my mother died I was very young,

And my father sold me while yet my tongue,

Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep.

So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep”

Are there others like this boy, he asked.

And Blake told him too many he could possibly bare.

And where are their parents, he asked.

And Blake sang of another chimney sweep,

“They are both gone up to the church to pray.

“Because I was happy upon the heath,

And smil’d among the winters snow:

They clothed me in the clothes of death,

And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

“And because I am happy, & dance & sing,

They think they have done me no injury:

And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King

Who make up a heaven of our misery.”

Oh, fools blinded to reality, he said

How they are blinded by their faith.

And Blake continued to sing

countless songs of the progressed form of man,

until Death wrenched upon his chains of bondage.

Why do they do this to each other?

How could they treat life so badly?

And Blake prophesied of America and Europe and the world.

He prophesied poisoned air and poisoned land,

he prophesied the green earth sacrificed for continued Progress,

he prophesied holy holocausts and seduction to slavery.

And Death hung his head low at Blake’s words

pulling weakly upon his heavy chains.

And Blake continued to sing in printed words

calling proclaiming shouting raging

against the harsh injustices of the progressed form of man,

but his words fell on deaf ears,

and Blake slid deeper into his imagination bubble

absorbed by his imagined Heaven leaving only his writings behind.

Four Hundred Years of Progress

And time passed.

Blake’s writings were forgot, were lost, were found

While Blake lived in his imagination Heaven.

And he watched cut off from the world by his bubble.

The war to end all wars began.

Conflict raging upon conflict

culminating in the fall of the little boy and fat man

a super weapon pointed at the head of the world

a mushroom shockwave echoing around the world

The furnace blast

converging protons and electrons and neutrons

shattered the steal chains of Death

He climbed from his cell and stood

over the world he saw the reality of Blake’s words

But Blake’s words were mere shadows of reality

a vision not dark enough in its infancy

And we are living its puberty

A reality worse than one man’s imaginings

And Death recited Blake who escaped into his imagining mind,

“Is this a holy thing I see,

In a rich and fruitful land,

Babes reduced to misery,

Fed with cold and usurous hand?

“Is that trembling cry a song?

Can it be a song of joy?

And so many children poor?

It is a land of poverty!

“And their sun does never shine.

And their fields are bleak & bare.

And their ways are fill’d with thorns.

It is eternal winter there.”

And many winters came and went,

since then to now,

while Death lived with Blake in his imagination Heaven,

waiting for the world to correct the error

of the progressed form of Man.

And many winters came and went

always with the threat of nuclear winter looming

Technological advancement

The progressed form of man lives in frozen terror

scared and awed by his new found power

these new possibilities of bondage become reality

Scientific advancement leading us to

modernized modernity around the world,

but this technological technocracy

has designed within itself tyrannical new forms of bondage

to which we are almost blind.

They want us to do as we are told

not to think too hard.

The method of the new capitalistic slavery.

Americans bred into a people unable to think for themselves.

We will not know what horrors exist all around us.

Look at what we already are:

slaves to the white worm that sucks flaming embers and blows smoke

slaves to the burning juice that warms the belly

slaves to the silver viper injecting poison in blue veins

slaves to snow drifts lined on mirrored roads

slaves to the silver box chirping in ours ears on our hips down our pants

slaves to the metal mouse click click clicking away

slaves to the snap of plastic pigskin

slaves to the site of men circling fields striking feet on square bases

slaves to the well-grooved comforters surfing channels

slaves to the slick talkers standing behind podiums telling us what is best for us

slaves to the square gray cubicle propped up by picture that remind us we are not there

slaves to the green goggles at night overlooking deserted desert sands

slaves to the black stripped swiped numbers pressed in plastic

slaves to the bar-windowed buildings, our homes our schools so like prisons

slaves to the multitude masses of uneducated

slaves to the ignorant and uninformed

all of us slaves because none of care about any of the above.

And this is our legacy,

the legacy against which Blake warned,

endless cycles of greed slavery slavery greed.

Greed in America.

Slaves in America.

Politics Economics Religion.

Forced enslavement we think is needed

helping the world move forward move forward go forward move back

so like children we rush towards our own demise through our naivety

Our toy terminators taking over the world

the grand gestalt consuming all

and we simply do not care.

Apathy, our silent killer,

promoting how many acts of slavery in the world nobody can count.

And our brave and bold new world

continually invents new slaveries to match those that came before

Still we are slaves to the factories.

Still we are slaves to our own beliefs.

Still we are slaves to our society.

They tell us what to do, what to say, what to think

it is on billboards, in our skies, on our walls,

on television, on radios, on computers

in our homes, in our schools, everywhere.

We must be happy. We must climb the ladder of success

stuck in lines behind somebody more successful than us

We must learn to love everything, love everyone

tolerate accept sympathize with every belief,

even the beliefs that contradict other beliefs

in which we are told to believe.

But how can we be happy when we are unable to even love ourselves

for what we are, what we have, what we do, how we look.

We hate our homes, we hate our jobs, we hate our lives.

And we look at others, those with money.

The green takes over, jealousy, greed we want it all,

but we don’t want to work for it.

Have everything. Buy everything.

Slave to the corporate motto.

So we slave in our unhappy jobs, in our unhappy lives,

doing unhappy work for unhappy people,

and coming home to our unhappy families,

and losing ourselves in the trilling distractions

offered by that square box leading to life outside of this world.

And when we see something too real to bare,

how much simpler it is to flip that channel

than deal with that reality in a meaningful way.

Oh, apathy.

How easy it is to come into our lives

to settle around our hearts

and harden to stone

freezing us to inaction

or worse

blind us to reality.

Let us listen to what we want to hear,

not what we must hear.

The human condition gets in the way

of real progress,

making us see and believe

something that is not there.

We see more truth in fiction than in reality

and this is the problem.

The Religious Argument

Blake saw the fantasy of religion

and it drove him into literary rage.

And what got us started down this path

was this humble lamb, this creative carpenter

who spoke against the status quo of religious zealots

fallen from their ways of loving their fellow man

corrupted morals and values

subverted to hating all of these Gentiles

a wandering poet who spoke of life,

how we should live THIS life in peace and harmony.

But he nailed himself to his cross

and he came back from the dead, so they say,

and now we are living for this fantasy next life

and nobody can tell anybody what that is

an idea lost in faith belief become reality

and it is all wrong, corrupted

giving us all an excuse to be corrupt in THIS world,

because nothing in this life matters.

Nothing we do matters.

Is that not the sign of something gone wrong?

And this is what America is founded upon?

Could this idea of America ever go right?

America based on principles of this carpenter

and his follower’s ideas of God and life and afterlife

enslaving all under the weight of this Good Book

promises of good caring hoping benefiting wellbeing

bringing death destruction plague pestilence

promoting war killing more people.

Secret lies to help us feel better about ourselves

empty promises,

answers to something none can truly know.

Faith is a lie. Faith is weakness that leads to failing,

self-deluded masses grasping faith as air,

believing words written on the pages of an ancient book,

not caring enough to see the world and its reality.

The only truth is Death. We see it every day. It is real.

The doorway to the unknown.

Only by walking through it,

never coming back,

will we know what is beyond it.

Maybe everything maybe nothing

No one can say.

Everyone who tells me otherwise is a slave to a lie.

And here we are so arrogant to say what will be.

Those that come back,

after visions of bright lights at the ends of tunnels,

never truly died, spouting suspect truths

found on the pages of too many self-help books on the afterlife.

And now faith is a corporate entity,

promoting enslavement in corporate handouts

with silver collection plates buying this future vision

where this life matters little,

so it is all right not to be happy,

placing that unhappiness upon everyone else

Every one of us is waiting to die,

to move on to a world that is so much better than this one.

Nobody knows for sure. We take it on faith,

but it is the excuse we use to treat everyone around us badly.

Even when we do not really mean to.

Exclusivity is the cornerstone of our world

even when there are those you say

they follow a belief that calls for inclusivity.

Christians say they are inclusive.

Their invitation is open to everyone to join them,

but they requirement that you believe what they tell you to believe,

sacrificing what you believed before based on a blind promise,

to be reborn with this holy spirit which no one can define.

And that does not sound inclusive to me.

They will not acknowledge:

Muslims Jews Hindus Buddhists Pagans Atheists Satanists.

Christianity is an exclusive religion just like all others,

and just like all others, ignore that all religions, all beliefs

hold a key to the nature of God Nature Wisdom.

Inclusivity requires the acceptance that

all views are a small part to a greater whole.

But the history of violence

between these groups

will never allow for this to ever come

while these groups exist.

The Honest Truth

These beliefs have caused countless conflicts

Because we do not care to think outside the small boxes

we have built around ourselves.

We live in a free country,

but while apathy exists, there can be no freedom.

We have lost all our hopes and dreams

bettering ourselves on an intellectual level.

Our hopes and dreams are now held in the grasp of monetary capitalism

where the hope is making enough money just to survive.

Just as Blake showed, our true hopes and dreams

are reached only through our imaginations

but they have capitalized on our imaginations

telling us what to dream and what to imagine

rather than letting us have our own dreams and imaginations.

We have to make up our own mythologies

to escape the world like Blake did.

He escaped this world and found a better one,

one that we unable to reach,

but he is there looking out at us, waiting,

wondering just what is wrong with us,

wondering why we have been unable to break

through the expanses and join him.

He escaped this world

watching it self-destruct from his imagination Heaven.

He saw the horrors occurring all around him

fired one warning shot after another.

Only a few listened and screamed their whole lives for others to wake up

but the world is deaf to such pleas for insanity in an all too sane world.

Sanity rests in people’s self-absorption,

in their deafness to the chaos around them.

It is a self-delusion as fragile as the bubble of Blake’s imagination.

We think we’ve advanced so far,

put the evil barbarity of old society behind us,

heralded in a new age of modernity

so much better than anything that came before.

We’re deluding ourselves.

We’re lost in our self-absorption, and it’s sickening.

We are sick.

We are the cancer that has infected the planet

and we can’t stop ourselves from metastasizing.

What Blake saw in his own world is better than what we see in ours.

His idea of the horrors humanity would spawn

does not even approach what we actually created.

What Blake touched in his writing

is that very thing we want to reject in ourselves

that side of humanity we refuse to confront.

We place ourselves at the top of the food chain,

superior above all others,

higher than all those lowly animals.

We forget that we humans are no more than animals ourselves,

but we’re much worse than any of those others below us.

We have transcended our animalness. We’ve become monsters.

And we’ve moralized it, normalized it in ourselves so completely

we don’t even realize how monstrous we have all become.

Joy to the world. We bare gifts

mustard gas and mushroom clouds

suicide bombers and smart bombs.

Age after age, we go on

replicating the same disasters,

the same outrages,

the same wars.

Will there ever be a time when people finally walk away from the need for

weapons in our homes

weapons on our streets

weapons in our cities

weapons in our countries

weapons under the water

weapons in the air

weapons in space

weapons everywhere we look.

The end of war can only come

with a changing of the hearts and minds of the people.

Can we change them?

How can we change them, unite them,

when we can barely unite with ourselves?

The constant war of the mind

spills across the world and creates barricades

where neighbors never speak to neighbors,

where people in one city hate those from another,

where all the hopes and a city’s superiority

rests on the shoulders of linebackers and pitchers and catchers.

We don’t talk to the people around us unless we have to

lost in our isolation but desperate not to be isolated.

We’ve lost ourselves to the other, in seeing the other not as the same,

something different alien dangerous deadly and so we kill it

rather than embrace it saying we are one.

But we cannot do it.

So we test ourselves with each passing war.

Testing how many outrages need to be made

before people start saying enough.

Humanity craves for death

keeps pushing genocide always hoping for a time

for that one death, that one mass killing, that one war,

when humanity finally screams enough.

And we still have not reached it.

And when we finally do,

only the Earth will remain to hear it.

And Earth wounded by human hands

where its black blood flows free

from festering metal wounds pounded deep into her heart.

where there will be no northern ice

no fish in the sea

no animals on the land

poisoned soil and poisoned air.

And this will be our legacy

and none of us can afford to care

because we are all trying to survive ourselves

and all that will be left is the Earth.

Epilogue

And Death will walk across the charred earth,

and stand over the empty world ocean,

and stand under the brown burnt sky,

and he will take our souls into his hand,

and breath his own life breath upon us and return us to the earth,

buried in the ground where all life returns,

coaxing our small sparking souls into the earth around us.

And Death will wait for the grass to grow again.