Showing posts with label God poem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God poem. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

He Carried Papers

He carried with him
a pouch full of papers
that showed he was among
God's most select people and
that others claiming to be
select were misinformed,
also doomed. In theological

arguments, he pulled the papers
out and cited them. It started
a trend. Everybody brought papers
representing holy favorable status.
It got to be a real paper-fight.

Which then spilled over into brawls,
mass expulsions, wars, and genocide.
It didn't take long. The violence
ran counter to what all the papers
said. Of course, you didn't need

to be God to see that all these
paper-carrying people were the same,
meaning nobody special or select
but all deserving dignity because
in fact they were all the same.


hans ostrom 2020



Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Imagine Religion

Imagine religion without
killing, without spiritual
extortion. Imagine religion
without obsession about
women, without greed.

Imagine religion keeping
children safe. Imagine it
absent exclusion and proud
certainty. Imagine religion
with warmth, humor, supple
thinking, generosity. Imagine

religion getting along with
religion, good friends in spirit.
Imagine religion with democracy,
with science, with Earth in mind.
Imagine religion that defers
to God on final judgments,
not on preachers' rage. Imagine
religion that trusts rational adults
to make rational choices within
the confines of community,
caring for our home, which is here.


hans ostrom 2020
hans ostrom 2020

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Memo to Religions

Pretty much all religions
need to take a break from being God,
from being chosen, elected, selected,
right and righteous. Religions
are human and assuming God sends
rules and info, religions must therefor garble
the message, if not twist it into a club
used to knock around the faithful.

Religions, please spend the next 100 years
doing practical good, making up
as best you can for your stupidities,
atrocities. Get the hell out of the way
and let people breathe. Dump
the vast stores of wealth, throw
water on the preening, the pompous,
the predatory. Put that goddamned
fire out.


hans ostrom 2019