Nutopian Creed

"Time wounds all heals." - John Lennon

Industrial sinkhole, bleak jobless bleat -
Plastic erections corrosively eat
Away at all the plans from youthful dreams
And jumble thoughts from consciousnesses' streams.
First morning light unmasks as rays unfold
Across a sweetly honeyed marigold,
As every dreamer opens, blossoms, yearns,
No government should dare suppress sojourns.
Who holds entitlement to any lands?
Migrations will not stop by despots' hands!

The natives in the western hemisphere
Allowed the Europeans coming here
To grow and share the bounteous expanse
Without demanding who would lead the dance.
But then a doctrine reared its ugly head
And manifest a westward destined spread.
In iron horses and covered wagons,
Careless takers uprooted native hogans,
Rotting meat from leather stripped buffalo
To starving natives dealt a fatal blow:
A sacrifice to leather goods that gold
Insisted must be made so they'd be sold.
Soon rights to corn fields' harvests whites usurped
By filling reservations on dry earth
With natives, owners' rights demurred to guns.
Religious freedom did not mean heathens -
Go onward Christian soldiers, convert more.
And those refusing? Lead them to death's door.

Soon even sovereign nation's land they wrest:
California, Texas, the whole southwest,
Were spoils to be bought or had by force!
This was, of course, god's manifested course.
Why did he care which Christian government
Should manage taxes on this continent?
From Jackson, Taylor, Seward, Roosevelt,
Men heard proclaimed this was the hand god dealt.
As Mexico receded in defeat,
So residents, subjected to deceit,
Found home, respect and honor sacrificed
To fleshy hues revealed as most white.
Indigenous: native and Mexican
They slurred inferior American.
Tell Debbie Reynolds, "How the West Was Won"
Was not by song but at the point of gun.

Potato famined Irish migrants came
As well as Jews who fled Hitler's endgame.
On Ellis Island dreaming dared once more
Imposed on huddled masses to explore
A path to freedom and equality,
But all were met by ethnic bigotry.

Show me a land where all can speak their mind.
One's thoughts even had to be the right kind!
If one was on a Presidential list,
Enemies, they'd extract you like a cyst.
But one refused to let himself be hushed
And spoke out that the rights of man are just:
That freedom from armed conflict is a right,
Correctness finds no measurement in might.
No harbor statue stands for liberty
When people are sent back across the sea.
For merely singing songs of love and peace
The Lennons were harassed by state police.

Indifference lives in all the attitudes
Which stand opposed to long held platitudes,
No selfish deeds will ever light a road
To any presumed heavenly abode.
Erecting walls will not keep capital
From oozing through your fingers, after all,
If all one does is save, economy
Will dam up into scum ponds stagnantly.
Americans cannot, by right of birth,
Too ostentatiously display net worth,
When poverty and homelessness abound
Migrations will seek out a higher ground.
One wants one's servants, gardeners and maids
But will refuse to pay a living wage!
Extol America, the paragon
As every hope, ignore "What's Goin' On."
Denying disaffected any hope
Just gives the terrorists extended rope
With which to hang you in the coming years.
Protectionism still allays your fears?
How do you think you will escape effects
From climate change as nations that it wrecks
Will mostly be in northern latitudes?
With technological designs subdued,
Which higher culture will survive intact
When humans cannot find food already wrapped?

All planetary life came from one tree,
The Earth's gene pool stewed from a soupy sea;
Every branch stems out from African skies,
With migrant footsteps, Earth, we colonized.
No one arose to bar us from pursuits;
Life wandered freely, tasting varied fruits.
No artificial lines appeared in sand
Demarcating regions to one command.
Behold order's nature expressing life:
No human alterations built by strife
Can interpose in permanence a scheme,
Since humans lack a universal theme.
No god, nor country ever has unslaved,
Believers march to their freshly dug graves;
In capital, humans misplace their trust
While capitol leaders slightly adjust
Their careful edicts, old myopia,
And fail to offer up Nutopia.

This is an edited version of the poem which was originally published by Eleventh Transmission in their March of 2008, Volume 2 Issue 3. A link to the archived publication is provided on the right hand column.

This poem pays homage to Pope.