Poetry – Give me wonder

Give me wonder

Give me wonder –

I do not need your routine.

Do not break things down –

Build them up!

The sum is greater than the parts.

So fill me up

With discovery!

Celebrate!

Don’t drown me in hate

Or fill me, moribund,

With dead words

From days gone by.

Give me life;

Let me sing.

Fill my eyes with beauty,

Not tears.

I want to cuddle, not kill.

I want to live now,

Not in some fabled future.

Give me love.

Burn your books

And live.

They speak not of life but death.

They have no joy.

They reek of ritual

And are obscene.

Give me light

And breath

And hope.

I’ll live now!

I’ll live now!

Opher 14.1.2016

Give me wonder

I wrote this for ISIS and all religious fundamentalists.

I do not believe that life and joy can be spelt out in a doctrine. Religion is power. Life is sacred in a different way.

We do not have life in order to worship death. We have life to cavort in the wonder and majesty of a universe of marvel.

I do not believe in any joyless god who demands such mundane worship that it strangles the spirit. My sacred is in the sunset, the gorge, the mountain and tree – the things that raise the spirit and allow the mind to soar.

My wonder does not create hatred. It is not cruel. Neither does it make me virtuous or superior and reduce others to the level of worthless scum.

I want the ecstasy of now not the empty promise of some paradise.

I do not believe in paradise. Neither do I believe that any act of terror would open up the gates of paradise, even if paradise did exist.

No sane god would condone hatred, intolerance or violence. If there is a god he would desire joy, friendship, forgiveness and laughter.

The fundamentalists of all religions are wrong. God is not contained in the strict adherence to a set of words written down by men.

Those holy books of dead words betray life. They give the lie to all that lives and rob the world of majesty.

My holy is in life. My holy is real.