"Religion Wars"

[dune]

The kids play with plastic again,
tweak detonators and go off to church.
God will battle God in this scene.
Gun runners still make a killing.

Munitions from Moscow.
Rockets from the Free World.
Training camps in Bahrain.
Laundered funds from Riyadh.

We must own the holy land.
God won't save us if we don't own
every inch of this brutality and invasion,
these bombed-out suburbs of holy cause.

The prophets knew this desert well.
They knew false gods, cities in desolation,
fathers destroyed, children left to wander.
Ezekiel had his valley of dry bones.

It is too quiet in the desert.
You can hear fossils scream
on its bleak, deadly breath.
You see God in whirlwinds.

The killing must get worse before better,
comes the refrain, steady as autumn rain.
In the name of all things sacred,
everybody must get stoned.

[saw]

powerful poem....in my mind, every stanza well crafted

the first stanza is great, it pulled me into what I was getting into..ha ha
but seriously a nice piece of work

welcome to S8...i hope you will hang around awhile

[dune]

Hi Steve... It's just me, the former "mnaz." That name weighed a little heavy after ten and a half years, so I decided to go a different direction. Name-wise, at least.

This poem kind of "wears its sentiments on a sleeve;" there is (arguably, at least) little art here, no met-a-phor or what for, which they tell me is some sort of cardinal sin in poetry . . .

[saw]

that's good mnaz, I think an artist needs to constantly reinvent himself...ha

metaphor is overrated...ha

[dune]

Yeah, it was finally time.

I think this poem makes a pretty good point, actually. Various world powers have been fucking with the Middle East (primarily a Muslim part of the world) for a long time now; often by proxy (i.e. the Shah of Iran, and Saddam), but also through bombing, invasion and occupation in the half century, including Israel/Palestine. I mean, we sure as hell embraced "the terrorists" when they were cia-trained "freedom fighters" attacking the Russians, right? People are either ignorant of the region's history, or they just don't care. It's probably more the latter than the former.

[Steve Plonk]

Dune, aka Mnaz, this is an awesome poem. Yeah, the area has been in turmoil one way or
another for 1000 years. The grim narration in the poem is not an exaggeration...

[dune]

Thanks, Steve. The focus here is mainly on the last 50-60 years, with an Old Testament echo or two for accent.

The first 2 stanzas are straight out of events of the last decade or three. The third, and to some extent, the sixth, hint at Jerusalem and fundamentalist Christian End Times beliefs. The fourth hints at endless warring over "holy land" as a disastrous form of idolatry, or at least that was in the back of my mind as I wrote it, echoed by the fifth stanza.

I don't know if I agree that the region has been continuously in turmoil for a thousand years; I'd need to study its history. But even if true, I'd be more interested in what caused this ongoing turmoil. A pattern of outside aggression in this "crossroads" of worlds would fit with recent history.

And here's a question: do "religion wars" really exist? Okay, maybe Jerusalem . . . maybe. But the rest of all this bullshit conflict? I say doubtful, at best.

Btw, Levi has written about this question recently over on LK, and I'm finding myself in agreement with his thoughts.