Paper Gods

Nothing but paper gods.

Money, fame,
the love of many,
glory before
the entire world;
it all looks good
on paper,
but it's all just
paper gods.

The gods of
the sacred texts,
the gods that create
minor sects,
the gods who ask
your life and money,
the gods who promise
milk and honey;
all just paper gods.

There are those
who disbelieve,
and those who
feel much aggrieved
that god won't kill
the ones they hate.

There are those who live in fear
of god's wrath and demons near,
and religious psychopaths
claiming to do god's work,
all passionately oblivious
that they are serving
paper gods.

Religious mystics claim to know
that the river of god forever flows
through the universe of eternal being.
Perennially creating and destroying,
always devouring and deploying
the effulgence of god cannot be
apprehended with the papered
over eyes of this human condition.

So we invent our passionate delusions,
we worship and praise with great effusion,
hoping our efforts will please the
distant and mysterious something we call god.

We hope and pray in dramatic profusion,
and deny and ignore our internal confusion
about the silence and absence we perceive
from the paper gods we serve.

Living and breathing,
our hearts ever beating,
we are the reality of
god's kingdom come.
No future, better version,
no paradise, or promise of virgins,
we are the leaves of grass
sown by god's green thumb.

Wad up and smash them,
rip up and trash them,
those paper gods we
cherish and hold.

Understand and embrace them,
uplift and replace them,
our brothers and sisters,
the faces of god's soul.

© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012