I don’t blame people for their need
To hope in an Other World:
Plato’s students pointing above
To ideal forms more real than the
Copies of echoes we strain to see.
Nor is there shame in the generic hope
Produced by hybrid Jewish
Reflections of Plato’s copied dreams
Repackaged for masses bent forward
Awaiting their saviors’ return, transfixed
Upon Tomorrow’s paradise beyond
The absurdity of here and now.
I appreciate the red roses clutched
In their secular cousins’ fists:
Desiring rumored utopian Tomorrows
Made by human hands united through
Belief in progress’ inevitable arc.

The tyranny of faith bent forward
Has skewed humanity’s lines of sight
Over our respective horizons:
As the world crumbles around us,
…shifts under us
…cracks between us
As water turns into seismic walls
As parched earth bakes into borders
As tools are tailored to entomb ourselves
…from undesired distractions
…around the dinner table
Hopeful hands still reach forward
Smiling eyes in rapture
Oblivious to arms outstretched
Displaced in this world
Drowning, parched, and starved
At this moment.

They pity my soul’s future.
I pity their unbelief in this world,
The consequences yet unknown.
If there are gods beyond,
Save us from such nihilists:
They know not what they do
Through faith bent forward
To those who have no tomorrow
Today.