Video Poems

LamentationsSocial CommentarySpiritual Beings Having Human ExperiencesVideo Poems

What is Truth?

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What is truth?

Pontious Pilate famously inquired while looking truth directly in the eye.

He knew.

But when he heard them say
away with him, away
crucify him
we have no king but Caesar

he washed his hands of the matter
and did what pleased them

that trial has never ended
every one of us sits on the jury

we are all Pontious Pilate
conscious of the quiet but unrelenting
testament of the defendant
and the deafening resonance of the prosecution
contending with the same question
“what is truth?”

(I wonder)
who is it that would smile when we say that
that we are incurable cancers to the planet
who would inspire the kind of art that exclaims
that this is all there is
who would spawn such a take
that beauty is bygone
and goodness is a disgrace
who would be happy to have us embrace the nothingness of nihilism
who would slither in with such a worldview
who would be objectively jubilant to have us believe
that there is no objective truth and that
we should modify our morality to fit our behavior
instead of vice versa
I guess its vice versus virtue

we all know the truth
even though sometimes we wish we didn’t
sometimes we pretend there is no wrong
so that we can condone wrong
or convince other people to go wrong
so that we’re not alone in the wrong
but dawning the darkest of sunglasses
does not extinguish the light
right is right even if nobody is right
and wrong is wrong even if everybody is going along

maybe that’s why they convicted the innocent
and banished him to the cross
why they lashed and laughed and mocked
and chanted for assassination
truth can be relative if God is recanted from the equation
with no higher being to set the standard for the people
anyone can call evil good, and good evil
there’s no infraction a rationale can’t be rationed out for
no principle they can’t have it out for

the silence is deafening when you mute the immutable
Nietzsche noticed this and noted it with caution
see, the preachers of the post-modern doctrine
are not the first to allege that God is dead
but there’s still nowhere to go after the funeral
in this post-modern concoction
“who will wipe the blood from our garments
what water is holy enough to cleanse us
what festivals of atonement shall we attend
what sacred games shall we invent”
pray tell

how do we declare rape reprehensible
if it’s just one set of molecules knocking into another set that’s less able to defend itself
or slavery disdainful if it’s just an array of atoms arranged in chain-link fashion that happened to trap another
or the iniquity of murder if it’s just one clump of cells determining that another clump of cells doesn’t deserve the dignity

who will wipe the blood from our consciouses
well, if we consecrate ourselves gods and goddesses
then instead of climbing a mountain fo find truth
we can just drag the mountain to us
and demand that its majestic peaks crumble into dust
never mind the civilizations that we might bumble or crush

but
jumping out of 40 story buildings because gravity is a social construct
doesn’t change the nature of the pavement
these shattered anatomies are shouting
that something’s amiss

God forgive this audacity
God forgive us for thinking that we can never do anything that warrants forgiveness

God forbid this navel-gazing
I’m not saying it’s always easy to look up
to discover
but I can say this
we can search for truth
or we can search for comfort
only one of those two will bring the other

my truth is what makes me feel good
THE truth is what makes me do good

my truth will let me be
THE truth will let me become

my truth might get me through the day
THE truth will get me through this whole life
and beyond

my truth will waver, and change
THE truth will not be shaken by my inclinations or your opinion
it cannot be lobbied, or slackened by sacrilege
it will not falter, and will never be altered by activists

my truth will reveal my entitlements
THE truth will heal, enliven, and enlighten when
darkness swarms
when distortion becomes the norm
when the obvious becomes too dangerous to speak of
we must never underestimate the effects
because when truth is the first casualty of an ideology
freedom will always be the next

truth, beauty, and goodness are true, beautiful, and good
and I shouldn’t have to say so

we are not biohazards
this is not all there is
truth is not what those regarded as important tell us to believe
or groupthink that the mob has compelled us to believe

we do not need to pay the toll that they would take
rape and slavery and murder are wrong
not because of protons or electrons
but because souls are at stake

there’s nothing more important than
discerning the difference
between what truth isn’t
and what it is
because when you have no king but Ceasar
you have no truth but his

ladies and gentlemen of the jury
find courage
do not wash your hands of the responsibility
standing up for truth is worth it
even if you’re persecuted for trying to preserve it

fear not what men may say or do
fear not what we were made to be
because when you know the truth
the truth shall make you free

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Social CommentaryVideo Poems

Higher Learning

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I came to this university with an open mind
and a fire burning in my chest
I was on a quest for higher learning
now here I am

I’d like to thank my professors
for teaching me to be a free thinker, where I’m totally free to think…
what you want me to think

I loved my favorite class so much
it’s hard to put it in words
Destabilizing Hegemonic Cishetero Amatonormativity
in Birds
changed my life

thank you for teaching me problematizing
instead of problem solving
all this time I could have been trying to cure cancer
instead you taught me to point at someone and say “you’re the cancer”

I asked you to help me unravel the great philosophers
you dazzled me with 100 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion officers
I was going to say
that their 15 million dollar combined salary didn’t actually help educate anyone but
they did keep over 100 chairs from floating away

you taught me to lower my gaze
whenever I tried to think for myself
you censored me
and lowered my grade

thank you for exposing the lie of objective truth
I mean, I came to University to participate
in the universally respected pursuit of wisdom
and the transmission of knowledge

to learn to differentiate between the intellectually fashionable
and the perpetually applicable
to partake of your sacred manna

I was starving for your esteemed insight
and you fed me propaganda

I came to you seeking a guardian of reason
and you discarded reason

I came for critical thinking
you gave me critical theory

I wanted to build on a shared foundation
you told me there’s no such thing
thanks to your advice
I’ve learned to turn openness from a virtue into a vice

I wanted a liberal education
I wanted to see the world
I was told this was the place
you showed me that the only way to see the world
is through the lens of gender, sexuality, and race

E Pluribus Unum lol
thank you and your syllabus for disproving
such nonsense
thank you for teaching me to look at diversity as a device for division, I was naive to think that diversity could be beautiful, that we could learn from each other and build a society together, strengths and weaknesses weaved into a tapestry of unanticipated breadth, depth, and majestyno – your way is better
we must deconstruct

we must reject the great books in favor of the great grievances
I used to think the American dream was
the opportunity for each to achieve according to his or her determination and honed expertise
no ma’am – now I know
the American dream is a government program

I used to think morality stemmed from natural rights
now I know that morality stems from status and likes
and trendy ideologies

after four years
I can’t tell you anything about molecular biology or chemistry
or the importance of nucleic acids or adrenal glands
but I can tell you that abortion should be legal, free, and on-demand

I didn’t learn anything about what truth is
but I did unlearn what 2+2 is
you say I’m smarter for that
and I believe you

I believe you
that what happened to the universities in Germany in the 1930s
certainly isn’t happening here

I didn’t study much history
but the one thing I learned about its atrocities
was that I could not possibly be guilty of the same foibles that foiled those civilizations
the same infirmities that put millions in infirmaries
no
those are past people – savage
I have surpassed people
make statues of me
that mobs will never find reason to ravage

thank you for bringing me up in front of a class of people
for struggle sessions
thank you for bringing my friend up – he agreed
that it was so virtuous of you to tell everyone that because of his skin color, he’s unlikely to succeed

they say oh, the humanity
I say oh, the humanities

thank you for replacing facts
with post-factual narratives
and for your relentless attacks on America

thank you for never letting anyone with a dissenting sentiment speak on this campus, or any campus
I know that what you’ve taught me would stand against whatever they have to say so you’re right
it’s best to just keep them away
thank you for the safe spaces

thank you for the guest lecturers that you did allow who spoke so graciously about “fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in their way”
that always made my day
I never once questioned why that was acceptable
but having someone come and speak about, I don’t know, the Constitution, or freedom, or fulfilling one’s potential
that was forbidden

they say that you should be ashamed of yourselves for what you’ve done to free speech, free thought, and truth seeking
and for shaming anyone that dares break from
the mold that every one of your ideas are shaped from
they say it’s crazy that people feel less free to speak in your classrooms than they did in the authoritarian states
that they escaped from

I say, well… I say whatever you want me to say

I came to this university with an open mind
thank you so much for closing it

thank you for what you’ve become
for what you’ve done to me
to my generation
to western civilization
for putting thousands of years of human progress on the brink

what a legacy
I think…

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Spiritual Beings Having Human ExperiencesVideo Poems

For Anyone that Hasn’t Seen an Angel

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this is for anyone that hasn’t seen an angel
or a burning bush
or an empty tomb
for anyone that never got to touch the wounds

for anyone who was never struck down on the road to Damascus
but is struck now by this road and its vastness

for anyone searching for wholeness in the ashes of brokenness

I read a blog post once where an atheist claimed that it’s the believer’s job to prove that God exists
as if God would create a world and proliferate a gospel
thoroughly and utterly based on faith
and then make that faith meaningless by showing His face
in the sky or something

and I thought why?
why do we always ask to be shown a sign
why should we live life like anxious bystanders
always asking for a reason to join the dance
instead of having the time of our lives

why do they try to make me doubt it
they can’t prove love
but they keep making a lot of songs about it

you know who only believes in what they already know?
robots
I am not a zero, or a one
I am infinity
I’m thankful for possibility
thankful for the opportunity to learn
how to see things that aren’t in the latest edition of a textbook
and that won’t be erased in the next one
for the wonder that moves me
to do things I might not otherwise do
to become what I might not otherwise become

to be on a road that I’m convinced is longer than my patience
to go and see if my principles are stronger than my temptations

or else
what would be the purpose
would it even be worth it
if there were no foggy intersections to disentangle
no uncharted adventures
no precarious unknowns to step out into
it’s scary but those stones that form under our feet
are the pedestals of testimony
a test that only could have been passed through faith
a testament to the test that we’re meant to take

God is not the one meant to be proven here

we are witnesses to wisdom
testifiers of truth
orators of the grandest of glory
doubters will never know the full story
and they don’t want to

I’m not saying I never have doubts
but I’ve found that when I doubt my doubts
when I use doubts as opportunities for building
instead of catalysts for destruction
is when the mountains start wilting
and as the light bends over the horizon
my soul arises from asylum
my eyes are widened, enlightenment arrives
and I receive the utmost instruction

the beautiful thing is
no matter how much I come to know
God is still bigger than that
which means there’s always room to grow more

I’m happy with the evidence of things not seen
and the substance of what I hope for
because this journey is everything I was molded for

for everyone searching for wholeness in the ashes of brokenness
when everything else has failed
when it feels like faith is all we got left
maybe that’s because faith is all we got right
and if we got that
we’re gonna be alright

I guess what I’m trying to say is
thank you
thank you for all the angels without wings
thank you for all the times you burned bushes in my chest
with a flame so powerful
that I felt like I could sprout wings
thank you for my savior that busted the tomb
for gathering up all my sins
and repealing them
thank you for touching my wounds
and healing them

thank you for not showing me your face in the sky
thank you for showing your face in my life

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Social CommentaryVideo Poems

America- Hold ’em or Fold ’em?

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In the language of playing cards, the founding of America was like being dealt three of a kind when the best hand that history had ever seen was king high.

Since then, we’ve had to set some mistakes straight and flush some loathsome practices that didn’t adhere to the uniquely lofty standards that the country had laid out for itself.

We put it all on the table.

Through battles of blood, centuries of sweat
and triumphs of tears, America became a full house.

Still not the perfect hand, but pretty dang good. And by being a model for the rest of the world – a beacon of freedom over dark oceans of tyrannical dominion, countless millions have had their hands improved too.

Now, sure that they can do better, a growing faction in this country believes that if we would just fold this hand that we’ve worked so hard to construct – if we would just burn it all to the ground, what’s sure to be dealt next is a royal flush.

This of course is the worldview of those that have never viewed the world. The communal dream of all those oblivious to the nightmares wrought by their ideological ancestors. The delusion of all those willing to wager that with the proper amount of government coercion and political correctness we can surely perfect human nature.

This is the single-mindedness that arises when
roasting reason over the glowing embers of the enlightenment.

This is the wisdom of burning books instead of reading them.

This is the sagacity of sanctioning despots
instead of defeating them.

This is the new normal when our elite overlords form all the accepted aphorisms, and hoards of corporations just keep repeating them.

This is building back better, when the fact is
it’s only better for the globalists, big technocrats, and socialists.

This is living by lies
instead of calling their bluff.

This is reprogramming with the wrong code
This is what progress looks like when you’re hellbent on making it
but you’re on the wrong road.

This is trying to roll a thirteen with a pair of dice.
Forgetting again, that there are no round trip tickets to a fool’s paradise.

This is the vision of blind loyalty to ideologues. The oh-so-wise paradigm
of eviscerating organized religion but glorifying organized crime.

This is the fallacy of betting on bureaucracy
you can’t redistribute morality
especially when you don’t have any to offer see
this is just playing the same game with a different dealer.

Gambling on the gambit that we are not standing on the shoulders of giants but levitating on the precipice of collectivist bliss.

If they understood history, they’d understand that the odds are infinitely long
when you try to immanentize the eschaton.

In other words
Utopia is not in these cards.

So about that –
place your wagers carefully on the next hand
because when it’s revealed
I bet you’re going to want the full house back.

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Social CommentaryVideo Poems

The Resistance

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Sundown. October 1st, 1943
The secret police of Nazi Germany – aka the Gestapo
began slithering through the streets of Denmark
their seething jaws agape to seize all the Jews in their wake
to swallow them whole
and force them toward their forlorn fate
in concentration camps
but to their consternation
despite having the names and addresses of every Jew in town
their prey was nowhere to be found

Because two days prior
Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, a German diplomat
had tipped off the leader of the Jewish community
who spread the word to the rabbis
who spread the word to their congregations
and over the next 48 hours
schools, businesses, hospitals
churches of all denominations
persons of all occupations
became alibis
together they devised a makeshift network of escape routes
and hurriedly funneled the Jews to the coast
and onto boats
and to freedom
over 7500 souls made it across the sea
to asylum in Sweden

Some 95% were saved from the Holocaust

What made the Danes do what so many others didn’t?

well, for them
the answer to the “Jewish question”
was that there was no question
from what they could surmise
people were people
no amount of politics and propaganda could persuade them otherwise

the resistance wasn’t against Hitler
it wasn’t against Germany
or the Axis

the resistance was refusing to adapt to the practice
of otherizing
resisting the all-too-ubiquitous urge to purge

that slithering snake didn’t die
in a bunker under Berlin in 1945
it’s alive
everywhere you see someone drawing a line around a group
and blaming them

the resistance is not woke-ism
it’s not Trumpism
it’s not progressivism
it’s not conservatism
or any ism

in a world of
carefully concocted narratives
and caricature crafting
where race rousing vultures circle
above the cadavers of cancel culture
where the technocracy makes its hay
by making algorithms that make us hate
the resistance
is refusing to take the bait

refusing to be divided and conquered

if the Gestapo came to your door
and said
where are the democrats?
where are the republicans?
give us the Christians
give us the atheists
we’re here for the black people
we’re here for the white people

dear viewer
if you would point and say there they are –
take them
if you would make degrading hashtags about them
or take to Facebook or flock to TikTok and berate them
if you would put them on lists and castigate them
no matter the group being pursued
if you wouldn’t help them escape then
you might have been on the side of history
that you always thought you never would have partaken in
and history is here
to find out

there were those that were exposed to this resistance
that was shown by the Danes
and they actually changed
with just a glance into the courageous, sacred eye of the human spirit
Nazi sympathizers found their ideology hard to justify
they realized
that what they had been sold was a lie

they became rejuvenated
they no longer believed in the extermination of a whole people
they were no longer deceived by the evil
of dehumanization

this
dear viewer,
is The Resistance.

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Spiritual Beings Having Human ExperiencesVideo Poems

What Child is This?

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what world is this
where beasts and evil roam
where moth corrupt
and we walk alone
through crowds gone mad
as vagrants scorned
where drought and dread and dust doth blow
and it just doesn’t feel… like home

we press on through the wretchedness
across the valley of the shadow of death and its
all we can manage
to slosh through the sickness
and crawl through calamity
we are all witness to the fall
what humanity is this
that the sky would forsake with such (fury in) hues of hot gold
these bodies baking and burning
shaking and swerving
as we make this journey in shoes with lost soles
behold

what oasis is this
where we can kneel and taste
of water so pure
and partake of bread
that we will never hunger
and find comfort in our salvation made sure

what truth is this
that would come forth to relieve us
amidst all that would deceive us
what warrior is this
that came through the gallows
victorious
against all that would defeat us

what light is this
so bright and glorious
what commandment is this?
love God and my neighbor
but also my enemies that curse me
what medicine is this
that purges me of my own pestilence
that nourishes me in my negligence
that encourages me in adversity
and emerges in emergency
and furnishes me with breath in my breathlessness
whose death is my deathlessness
and whose rise is my righteousness
what child, what child, what child is this

in a world whose heart would harden us
where we would become lost
in the middle and the margins of
what savior is this
so sweet and marvelous
who would believe from the start and
agree to embark for us
who would grieve at how hard it was
but still kneel and (soak) the scars for us
whose pleading would pardon us
whose bleeding in the garden would
be the healing of every broken part of us

hail, hail for the Word made flesh
whose sentence cemented us in the story
and whose paragraphs
would be the parallax that let heaven’s glory merge with our quest
for the verve in our chest
for eternity’s best
they impaled with nails
and pierced with spears
for the break in the veil
we cheer Him with tears
we’re certainly blessed
for no matter what the world thinks might be king
this, THIS is Christ the King
whom shepherds guard and angels sing
praise be to the babe
the son of Mary
the son of God
that sacred fateful morn
joy, joy for Christ was born
and we are saved

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