IN GOD’S NAME  (2009)

In the name of the Father
and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit,
we launch crusades to kill,
plunder, and rape.
In the name of Allah,
in the name of Yahweh,
we explode, hijack,terrorize and
drive people from their homes.
In the names of Mohammed, Thor, Jesus,
Zeus, Jupiter, and the Sungod,
we kill the infidels, burn the witches,
torture the heretics, shun the sinners,
condemn the atheists, the Pagans, the Protestants, the Jews,
the Catholics, the Hindus, the any-who-are-different-from -us,
and who are therefore not saved, not favored by the Almighty.
All the while we claim to be created in God’s image,
and profess that
God is love.

SACRED TRUST (Lyrical Iowa, 1992)

My spirit has always been kin
to the fragile, the broken, the suffering.
I have known the gossamer touch of a butterfly
as it lit upon my hair.
A black cat, once kicked about the street by ruffian boys,
has curled up on my lap and purred.
I have been playfully nuzzled by a dappled pony
that had lived in terror of the whip.
And I have been blessed with the love
of a sad and lonely boy
who had known only pain and despair.
I hold sacred the trust
of the fragile, the broken, the suffering.