This is how I learned to stop hating
the smug and arrogant, complicit folk
inside the rampant
suburban ubiquitous vehicles.
This is how I taught myself
that my hatred of their crass
lifestyles of mobile and sanitized
sport and corporate offices burned
more energy than necessary
and my low-grade, high-minded hatred must stop
tho it conflict with or contradict the President’s policy.
This is how I realized that, despite
the spacious righteousness in which I transported
my endless and oblique hatred
in an easy-rollover luxury, my hatred
could easily and mistakenly crush
a less vitriolic man in an icy accident.
This is when I learned my hatred,
like war clouds that gather over a blue gulf,
is bad for the environment.
And this is how I came to decide
to call Jesus on His cell phone.
Jesus works in Somerville
at the Somerville Theater
where He takes tickets today for the early show:
THE SUM OF ALL FEARS. I thought He said
the Somerville Fears and I asked my Lord
who starred in the film. In the trailer,
as Jesus described it, a nuclear bomb
“goes off”
and without giving too much away Jesus knew
the kernel of my question was an urgent fear
of nuclear war between Pakistan and India.
What side does Jesus come down on
when millions of Hindus and Moslems
are on the brink of mutual incineration?
This is how I came to know Jesus
is also
politically disenfranchised.