Written by R.S. Janes

There’s evil loose in the world
Not the Biblical, Old Testament evil,
Rubbing its hands together —
Satan need not be bothered.
This is the work-a-day, average evil,
the kind that thinks:
“The only way I can get mine,
Is to take what’s yours.”
And the world itself
Is its mother and father.

The evil of power
Under the banner of deceit
The expression of power
In its true state:
“Make others do that
Which they hate.”
The only way the powerful
Can prove to themselves
They have real power.
But it’s not even enough
Just to make the peasantry
Cringe and cower.

The kernel at the core
Is that others must die
To prove power to itself
The never-ending fable
Yet the suffocating need,
The bottomless belly always needs filling
By the main course
On misery’s table
The two greatest, most harmful
Addictions in the world:
Power and greed
The two things which most disable.

Yet rarely are those who seek power
Questioned at length ‘why?’
(Perhaps because they control
The interrogation;
It’s impossible to be unbiased
When the beam is in your own eye.)
And greed must
Burn the street black
Before anyone notices
This fire-breathing dragon,
Scaly and coarse,
Sucking the soul out of
Life and limb,
Turning a walk in the park
Into a marathon at the
Rat-race course.

What religion does not require
Suffering and sacrifice
As the toll of an
Unyielding King?
Does not rely on
Obedience and money
For its existence,
The essence of its being?
What earthly institution
Does not compel
Compliance and fealty
As its due?
Feeding its gaping reflection of
Raw power,
On the hypocritical coin of
Mammon to renew?

Why isn’t greed
A recognized disease?
Lust for power
A capital crime?
Certainly the effects are as
Terrible from either
As any scourge of our time.
But then both are
Too strong a lure,
Preventing those who suffer
With the sickness
From ever finding a cure.

Until these twin blights
Of human history
Are treated and tamed
The tree’s roots will remain infected,
The fruit rotten, the heart lame
And the Devil will sit
With his feet up on the desk,
Nothing to do
But laugh at our illusions,
As we ruin ourselves without his help,
Eyes closed and hands grasping,
Trying to mold the universe
To our avaricious delusions.
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Copyright 2002-2009
R.S. Janes
All Rights Reserved.