You ride in your carriage
Up there in your kingdom.
The air must be thin
For your words sink to Earth
While you blow, blow, blow.
All the while I chuckle inside–
Tongue planted appropriately.
Perspective from above you scan
Without discerning the undocumented words–
The sneers, the cheers for the derided.
You articulate and effuse with utmost conviction.
Meanwhile, men decapitate their brothers
Over what is right and who is wronged.
These incursions, a billion of them–
And now another billion . . .
Make the morning papers
While women and children grieve in the streets.
And you skip a cloud or two
And sip tea on some nearby peak
Yet propose to be a guide?
There must be pipe dreams and belly dancers to consort with . . . .
Why good sage, would you bother
Straining until your neck crinks and snaps
As you chastise us.
Wouldn’t your time be better spent on a higher plane
Finding a virgin for your thus proclaimed chastity . . .
Or ex-nihilo fabrications
That assure to please your greatness.
We are engaged with one another.
And we will find the peace. Selah.
And we will not, with your kind permission,
Break our necks and risk our jugulars.
Reaching up into your atmosphere
While soldiers charge and steal our promise.
With our feet planted in this red clay,
Faces marred with blood
And sweat to cleanse the toxic hate,
We rise this day
To remain on Earth
And risk the severance of your wise advice.
We are human and
We will forever be remembered.
