The Agnostic

To say, I don’t know, about covers it all in my book
To say, it is or it ain’t so, makes for wars and endless fighting
Makes for martyrs and murder and all kinds of frightening righteousness

I aspire to not knowing but usually descend to righteousness
Dragging my noisy chains around shouting:  Liberation and Freedom and Cause
That room, my friends, is always full

Else I could sit with the others in that garden off to the side
There with none but the brute, the base, the low
There with the four-legged and the two
There with the winged, the horned, and the finned
There with the snouts, the cold, wet noses and the hard and pointy beaks
There, always feasting and there always being feasted on

We may not know anything, there
In that beautiful and terrible dwelling
But there, oh there, we do know our place

- Adam Hall, March 4, 2011

John Vanderslice - The Minaret

It’s the end of spring and light hangs on
Dripping over geraniums and humming bird wings
In the blaze of summer we’ll tap our weapons out to the cadence of a melody they sang at Normandy
It won’t be the same again and we’ll just walk away it’s the end
We crossed on the ridge and cut their women down
I climbed up on the minaret and occupied the town
They scattered in the woods to gather up their strength
Dripping blood on the road and oh how the animals looked on
They all see how we’ve changed all the rules of the game
I can see both sides and it paralyzed me
An eye for an eye was a way to limit revenge
We’ve done away with all of that
Read how it all begins
It was written years before, same name, same war
I can see both sides and it paralyzed me inside

Hear the song.