I Hate Myself and I Want to Fly

dedicated to the brilliant Michael Stipe and REM

*

Some people say they
believe in Jesus:
funny how so few
remember how he said
it was "nearly impossible for a rich man
to enter the kingdom of heaven."
I kind of like most
of what they said he said

But I'd rather not go
ANYWHERE
when I'm dead;
except amid the oaks of Stearns Cemetery
one more time by my sweet grandmother,
I might like to go to bed

I've lived in my ancestral Sweden
where in obeissance to tradition
the government keeps marvelous
marble churches and warbling priests
in neat, reverent clothes...
but only the old and dying go

"why?," do you ask?
Well, as the young Swedish know:
let the dead
worship the dead.

I have friends who swear by Mohammed,
ones who love what "Krishna" said,
ones who won't on flesh dine,
even ones who wear the Wiccan sign;
Me, I laugh with the cosmos
and with crows and sinners dine

I've lived in Thailand
where amid palm jungles, fertile rice farms,
and beaches of hot sand
they worship the wizened Buddha...
and "enlightened" monks read
his teachings in an ancient tongue
(then give far simpler advice in one more young)
and they all leave reverently
as they have for millenia...
and what of it?
It's not that I'd make anyone
give up the faith of their fathers...
but I have moms and a dad,
faiths and fathers I have none

But as I said
I advise no faithful reader
to against the faithful lift a sword,
for of white-lies the world is full
without which this earth
might have long since sunk
into dirth, blackness and gore

Personally, there's phenomena aplenty
that boggles my wayward mind
like relative time and atomic particles
from common sense and logic free;
but I know too much of nature and history,
and humans and their societies
to think that religions and "higher powers"
are anything but pillars
holding up various social orders

And just now I do not care:
my goal is wealth and primal happiness,
and to restore this young old body
which is a bit worse for the wear

Looking back at just
the more recent opportunities I've wasted
is like driving down Main Street, Eden,
in the back of a cop car
knowing you could have made it happen
and it wouldn't have been that hard

But though I'm maybe a little sad,
I actually don't feel half-bad
(though mind and body scream with pain)
my spirit has a radiant smile,
but of my eccentricities
there's no use to explain

Yes, I'm trying out sobriety
but it means far from everything to me,
it's about other, larger things
I more deeply care

to push further into
this brave, new free world
!!!I dare!!!