Veil Of Marketing Illusion

Ongoing deep discounts, sales, clearances and special offers build a sense of permanence

Continuous anticipation of quickly-forgotten weekends, holidays and vacations sustains us

The very newest constantly beckons us forward into a quite-obviously, endless tomorrow

A thousand advertisements draw each of us warmly into that timeless consumer firelight

Soothing background music hypnotically imprints us with eternal marketing mantras

Careful spins reformat issues into sound bites that the average 3^rd grader can easily digest

Within this media immersion, we dream ourselves passing thru eternity at these daily lives

Homogenized spokesmen blend seamlessly to envelop us in an easily-accepted and secure cocoon

Our lifestyles have reached a permanent climax in the pleasure-seeking 3 minute present

We pre-consciously dismiss evidence contradicting the eternal happily-ever-after diorama

The circle of family and friends bonds us tightly to a shared dream of unending belonging

The void lies almost totally obscured and unconsidered behind our colorful veil of illusion

We need only strive thru all time at becoming the beautiful models their ads portray for us

The infinite circle of merchant-stoked holidays fosters in us a comforting notion of immortality

Together we tread the great wheel of relaxation, refreshment and entertainment

And our bright mega-churches finance a seamless transition to a familiar eternal paradise

Next week’s episodes draw us forward smoothly without any static-filled interruptions

Stopping to smell the roses as we grab the gusto while living for today totally occupies us

The unknowable actual number of our iterations allows us to assume we perform an infinite loop

Cuddly and warm images help obscure the sharply-tattered edges that we must rightly ignore

The afterlife is marketed as the ultimate in all-inclusive vacations in a truly eternal paradise

Those who pass away are expensively packaged for the exciting but safe trip to come

Our powerful mass hypnosis mostly keeps any consciousness of the eternal void at bay

The rapid pace of change obscures well the tiny hourglass filling in right over top of us

The nattering of bobbing media heads lulls us into a comfortable sense of security

Advertiser-safe news holds our focus adjusted safely inside the blinders they so cannily provide

The cartoon theme of Personal Responsibility keeps the disaffected securely in the game

Sacrificing our reason frees us from agitating contemplation of any cracks in the mirror

There is absolutely no reason to think that this consumer lifestyle cycle will ever cease

We walk this treadmill seeing a well-lit and unending path towards the happily-ever-after

Socialists and creationists equally shielded from the near absolute zero of utter black emptiness

Even on our deathbeds we rest assured of an eternal well-being within these shared illusions

God Granted Me This Fairytale Serenity

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change”

I note, freed of that dark anxiety, the global mass extinction our over-existence nurtures every day

Calmly I accept the reality of a hotter, drier, dustier and dirtier world, where we all must live

No more do I trouble my mind over CO2 levels to which I must contribute but cannot control

I pursue zenlike tranquility, emptying my mind by flipping channels thru potentially anxious nights

Unregulated exotic chemicals in our drinking water can no longer disturb my meditative state

I placidly accept the degradation, poisoning and erosion of our precious soil by industrial agriculture

Loss of habitat does not threaten me, as I twitter safe and warm here in my techno-burrow

I gaze into that hazy and starless urban night with what I can construe to be a quiet satisfaction

There is a blind equanimity to be found in simply ignoring the poverty and suffering of others

Deep media immersion smothers and deafens any anxiety which might falsely overcome me

In a benignly-induced trance, I emptily partake of our grisly and unsustainable food chain

Verily does my true spirit rise above the ever-knottier cluster constituting our irreversible advance

God granted me the serenity to shut the hell up, bend over and take all that which I cannot change

I sagely accept that selfish vanity, greed and insecurity are key traits of modern day leaders

Endlessly repeating the simple mantra of You Cant Stop Progress properly spins my spiritual journey

I quietly condone piling debt on their futures while we waste the resources they need to pay them

I have learned that worry over our huge number of self-inflicted crises is but a false shibboleth

I can rightly get on with the future and leave our guilty past behind in a jumbled, half-forgotten blur

It is with a certain calm that I adapt the insensate gouging of good croplands into cheap stripmalls

My health and happiness have been enhanced by letting go my fuzzy and unrealistic youthful idealism

Trust in the wisdom of His inscrutable way has banished the awful uncertainty which beset me

I am able to drive right on past our decaying infrastructure without even a second thought

A vision of the seas as stripmined, unregulated dumps can no longer perturb my cauterized emotions

No more must I futilely obsess over our sacred, morbidly-bloated, utterly-wasteful military budget

I lost fear of bearing personal-responsibility for my own uninsured health and scam-complex finances

I simply cast aside the burden of wasted anger over our people’s ignorance, illiteracy and attitude

That I must work until at least 70 but will be laid off for good at 50 no longer fills me with dread

With the sublime detachment granted me by my meds I disassociate myself from humanity’s future

I have made a lasting peace with all the eternal, random, angry and empty noise we produce

Internalizing the temporal nature of our vast wastefulness allows me to see far without seeing it

Accepting our unique possession of eternal souls has revealed the wisdom of our divine dominion

Now I can embrace my tenured dull manager who remains willfully ignorant and bristles with venality

I can blandly cope with their artificially-induced stress over arbitrary deadlines on useless projects

I have been imparted the ability to disagree with a silence that they act upon as my tacit acceptance

It has come as a relief to see how easily I place ever more on that big pile of things I cannot change

God has granted me the wisdom to overlook, ignore, compartmentalize or be far too busy for

God Almighty, Sure: He’ll Resurrect Ya’

god almighty, you just bet ya’

don’t need no holy scriptures or blessed servants, truth be told

god almighty, yes indeed

omniscient and omnipotent, mindless, and just plain stone cold

god almighty, don't you forget

no truths revealed or tithes required

god almighty, step right up

no heaven, hell or rebirth awaitin when you’re retired

god almighty, hallelujah

got no mind that could even test your faith

god almighty, listen to them preach

there’s nothing there upon which their story’s based

god almighty, keep the faith

for they ain't no jesus checkin’ up on your case

god almighty, give us strength

heart as warm and deep, as empty space

god almighty, by our devotion

both good and evil as fictional as eternal grace

god almighty, clap your hands

already enjoyed that afterlife, before you even began

god almighty, raise your voices

those religions just fog your vision

god almighty, brothers and sisters

prepare to find out that god aint on no mission

god almighty, hear our prayers

there’s no mind to process what it cannot sense

god almighty, stand behind us

only our imagination covers their false pretense

god almighty, be a witness

our faint prayers got no place to go

god almighty, let us testify

there is no judgment of the river flows

god almighty, deliver us please

peepin only to each other as darkness grows

god almighty, bless us, oh, our lord

just as deserving as your most black of crows

We’ll Never Quite Reach Nothing

Human influence asymptotically approaches nothing as time approaches infinity

Even the effects of our own tiniest efforts cannot ever shrink to absolutely nothing

They can’t ever become smaller than say, the background radiation from the Big Bang

Their gracefully infinite approach to nothing is an enduring tribute to our wanton fervor

Still, even our greatest fall as far, and just as quickly, as those we deem to be the least among us

For, after all, there’s always another half the distance towards emptiness to which to decay

It doesn’t matter if the remainder is but infinitesimally larger than nothing

The ripples of our actions can be divided forever and still retain all their information

Concurrently, the amplitude of their influence infinitely approaches an unreachable zero

But the dilution of our acts is further complicated by their mixing with those of all others

For though they still exist independently, like choppy waves, they can never be separated

So well are they homogenized that they could not be re-distilled

So thoroughly are they mixed that they are effectively perfectly encrypted

Still, the reaction of our great deeds and shameful acts cannot ever amount to nothing

The time frame or the distance that they might have traveled quit simply makes no difference

Even the ever-decreasing density of expanding space cannot quite erase us totally

Verily, none of us can ever be reduced to nothing in the lifetime of this one universe

Our venal gossip passes unchanged through the eons and is still different to each listener

Drunken shouts will echo hoarsely thru time, each retaining every slurred and cursing syllable

Catchy advert jingles tinkle merrily on, unheard and unheeded across the march of time

The empty promises of our leaders cannot totally dissipate despite their utter lack of substance

The far-reaching after-effects of our numbing sports extravaganzas will carry on forever

The wondrous results of our faith-based initiatives will withstand the test of all time

The benefits of our wars of liberation will live on long after these noble efforts are completed

Just so, the marvelous dragon flies crushed flat on you car cannot ever really fully disappear

Even our everlasting beauty and truth persists despite infinite attenuation

Our context-free morals defy the test of time, simply awaiting their own re-discovery

The beliefs we held in some eternal heaven shall carry on, even though they are simply fairytales

And so we see, it’s really not for a cosmic nothing that we eat, sleep, shit, fight, shout and fuck

Namaste, Butthead

    नमस्ते

Namaste, oh, venerated Master of the Universe, the divine in me recognizes the divine in you

Surely you are the Best and the Brightest as evidenced by your truly transformational greed

Greetings, oh beloved next generation whom we have so carefully brought forth and protected

Soon you must ignore us as but irrelevant and doddering, purposeless and lost, old fools

I recognize in your greasy and sweating obesity the effort to attend to that internal eternal

Layers of fat distancing you from the illusory clamor of the too material and very temporal world

Namaste, oh wise and beneficent CorproExecs, meditating inside safely locked compounds

Your lack of morals reflective of the Great Void that you will so soon rejoin once again, forever

Namaste, to our eternally patient and long-suffering domesticated, vegetarian cousins

Our industrially-efficient, franchised holocaust surely earns each of you so much good karma

Salutations oh lawyers, your gifts wasted on forms of deliberate and unnecessary over-complication

Now that you hate yourself and your once-honored profession, I would almost share your pain

I bow to you - Fat and loudly cursing, proudly illiterate, drunken, redneck fellow pilgrims

May your ATVs and pickups, jetskis, snowmobiles, dirtbikes and speedboats always loudly bray

Namaste, rich and well-connected son whose only real job has been as a political sock puppet

Greatest success on your new career as elder statesman, we await your fairytale memoirs

Namaste, my criminal brother, clinging to your brutal lifestyle like a wet rat in a dirty flood

I respect your cruel focus like the looming empty eternity into which we are both certainly slipping

Yaar, I feel that overwhelming force which drives your greedy and so short-term ambitions

I honor your selfish centering amid this turbulent confusion that leaves us with but a hazy blur

I nod in admiration, holy snake oil salesman cloaked in odd vestments and stale traditions

Making an honored, tax-free living pimping worthless divine life insurance on fictional eternal souls

Namaste to my 1 billion brothers shackled to unspeakable poverty and inescapable filth

We could each share about 1/5 of a cent and exhaust the $2M they say I need for my retirement

Namaste revered arms-producing protectors, for holding phony bogeymen away from our shores

We dare not speak against fat annual budget increases lest we be labeled Soft On Defense

I watch in awe there, my target market brother, as you manage to ignore so many issues

Your Zenlike focus upon consumerism blocking out the squishes foolish socialist squeaking

I salute your botox and cosmetic surgeries, your hair dyes, implants and your miracle fat melters

For surely these all help you down that great Middle Way towards a wider cosmic understanding

Namaste young peasants working 14 hour days, sleeping 20 to a room who earn $100 a month

I support your struggle for a better life by charging the cheap goods you make but cannot afford

Namaste, all my fundamentalist brothers of every ignorant, uncompromising and angry stripe

I recognize your merciless, amoral righteousness as a but a short, violent prelude to eternal paradise

May your devotion to the mindless pleasure of explosively-empty corpro-entertainment be exalted

For just how far can it be from the enlightenment gained by daily repeating Om Mani Padme Hum?

We Burn In Each Other’s Hell

‘Quite literally, one man’s perfect heaven is another’s absolute hell’

I’ll always be with her in those early days back when we traveled lightly far and wide together

She’ll spend most of our time at the tiny cottage by the lake where her tulips opened every spring

Saint Mother wants nothing more than to be able to dote upon her dead son, for all time

He most surely rots in hell for his lifelong addiction to violent crime and various drugs

His vision of heaven was just to be left alone with his own solitary pursuits

She had always wanted to meet and to really get to know him intimately

All 5 of the dogs we had thru the years, will, of course, be a part of our afterlife

Somehow we shall be able to always pay sole attention to each of them, all at the same time

The fondest family dream of one of the kiddies was just to all be together once again

For Mommie and Daddie, just seeing each other again would be part of their burning in hell

I wont hear you blatting your fool Harley thru eternity as I slip quietly thru the forests

My children’s mother never forgot me, but I’ll be with the trophy wife who conned me

I always hated my lazy, fat, foul-mouthed sister-in-law, but loved my darling spouse

They got along so well that, of course, she shall dwell right next door to us in paradise

I remembered my brother best when we were boys, bluegill fishing at the cottage

In my kids heaven there is the beery uncle who smilingly picked them up with one giant hand

He relaxed in the garden of delights as promised by his beloved Quoran

We will dwell, of course, in the house of our fundamentalist lord in a puffy Christian heaven

Their Jihadi suicide martyrs lay forever with 17 virgins in a paradise of Sharian ease

From our heavenly vantage point we watch them suffer in a hell where they must always remain

They went on to unknowably more punishing rebirths but with at least a hope of eventual escape

I, however, was condemned to hell forever for my puny acts in but a single wasted lifetime

His favorite team would always reign as champions in his lamely shallow idea of paradise

Likewise, all the hated enemy’s fans would find the same vapid dream coming true as well

Each one true god’s heaven must surely be separated from those of the other unbelievers

But all men shall dwell together in brotherhood and understanding in eternal paradise

The blind shall finally see the human form in all its colors and arrangements

The appearance of the fat, ugly or deformed will somehow be invisible or unimportant

Will his fondest dreams of golf and new cars come true or will he be meaningfully enriched at last?

Must I somehow learn to accept and find I love all those many I could not stand my entire life?

Will the dead know our bygone futures and will we know all the dirty secrets of their pasts?

There must be something in the illegible fine print of their disclaimers that we don’t yet understand

We Rocked The World

We really dried them ugly toads right out and ran over the slow snakes and dull turtles

We bulldozed the non-producing meadows with their hapless bugs and useless flowers

We got baby bunnies on the run and the little fawns shake in fear from our tractors

Our monster dams create great lakes for roaring by drunkenly in our oversized speedboats

We rocked that ominous silence with the empty braying of our powerful machinery

By god, our chainsaws showed all of those old growth big trees just how tough we really are

Replied quickly, ‘who gives a fuck?!’ when they heard that butterflies was disappearing

Casually blew away the precious topsoil thousands of times faster than it had ever been created

Asked just what the heck was it that any freaking polar bear had ever done for us, anyhew

Always pushed extra diesel smoke through our loud mufflers at them squishy vegan cyclists

Exploited the seas with the same brutal efficiency we had trained upon our cows and pigs

Pushed aside the microscopic ocean life forms with a rain of toxic plastic particulates

Realized that ending that liberal global warming scam would pretty much save the earth

Knocked out them lakes and forests with the acid rain from our mighty coal generators

Wiped out worthless desert fish, tiny mice and silly owls that nobody actually cared about

Combined our noisy and drunken recreation with energy-guzzling environmental destruction

Showed our superiority by increasing our population even as we mass-extinguished other species

Fought against climate change by adjusting our thermostats to suit our imported gym shorts

Disdainfully threw out valuable recyclables in brave, libertarian defense of our personal freedom

Said our god granted only us eternal souls, dominion over the earth and a duty to be fruitful

Viewed greedy, unsustainable, eco-devastating development as patriotic economic progress

Went beyond earthly destruction to the massive murder of warfare at every single opportunity

Laughed cynically about their bleeding heart concern over a few miserable little songbirds

Smashed the ancient mountain tops down into their valleys, gouged out the coal and then left

Harshly mocked their profitless recycling, raw veggie diets and misguided environmentalism

Slaughtered the albatross and dolphin as blind collateral damage in our ocean wide strip-mining

Manufactured our food with all of the care the asians used in mass producing plastic imports

Deftly fragmented habitat and cut off migration routes without so much as even trying…or noticing

Adopted as beloved corpro-sports symbols the revered creatures we had exterminated centuries ago

Did not notice the bees disappearance before we had even learned of their importance

Replied disinterestedly: ‘Huh’ when told that millions of trees were dying all across the West

Asked what was wrong with these people who were all so worked up about them stupid frogs and shit

So what if we filled some stupid seals milk with PCBs and messed up a few lame fish with hormones?

Remained blissfully unaware as invasive plant species spread and wrecked entire ecosystems

Made damn sure our priorities were the family, our economy and a strong national defense

Slept securely, having bargained our fictional souls for the imaginary heaven of our own one true god

You’ll Become Nothing In The Void

An insecurity-inflamed petty ego drove you like some vile moth toward the hot media lights

You will get to enjoy an eternal, unconscious respite in utter darkness, near absolute zero

The greed that drives you to such heights during your short, selfish life will abruptly end

Afterwards others will briefly find new baubles to live for, but you won’t be aware of them

The effect of the big lies you spread will quickly recede to the cosmic background level

You will feel nothing of that and neither will you ever be conscious of anything at all again

The  power you wield now shall be taken from you, at the very latest, just at your passing

Not to worry, that nagging need shall disappear, along with all the rest of your venal thoughts

You wont be punished for scamming them with bogus heavenly insurance for their fictional souls

For neither you nor your foolish flock shall dwell anywhere, any longer, for any time at all

Now, your too-clever loopholeing earns you a fortune and the respect of your one-track peers

But, there’ll never be any more over-complicating obfuscation down in the fine print for you

You avoided any contemplation of the infinite for your entire superficial, yet hollow life

You will have no need of thought and no mechanism for thinking, and you will not know

So you died with the most stupid toys and, yes, you actually did win this lame rigged game

But there’ll be no smirking HappilyEverAfter as your lifeless dust dilutes in outer space

You fulfilled that most sacred and holy of trysts and brought forth the next generation

Yet, none will perceive the eternity after all life on earth ends forever along with our sun

You proved war was inevitable and wasted absurd unquestioned sums providing evidence

You won’t even see you have no real weapons, no enemies to demonize and nothing to protect

You called yourselves Masters of the Universe and knew you were the Best and Brightest

That vain perspective will silently implode as you spiral into the abyss of Ultimate Equality

You made bribed deals, exaggerated claims, omitted details and hid in locked compounds

The suffering of your long disease was but a prelude to your infinite sentence to nothing

You mindlessly wasted, destroyed, polluted and consumed as much and just as fast as you could

Now, be spread randomly for unimaginable eons by the cosmic systems you so carefully ignored

You stood under lights delivering their script, usually believing the nonsense that you read

Darkness shall bind you, silence will fill you, and emptiness shall be your eternal state

You trumpeted Traditional Family Values, preaching that regulation would cost them jobs and money

You will not be greedy, you will not be scheming, you will, like me, simply not be, at all

Your schedule will still contain important items you just had to do, but whose time never came

Soon there will be no pressuring deadlines or over-commitments, yet certainly never any boredom

You stepped on them and kicked them down, backbiting and ass-kissing to that corporate apex

But the incessant greed-blinded insecurity driving you will be lost in infinite dreamless sleep

Surely the simple faith of your lifelong poverty will at last receive its just and everlasting reward

Yea, for certain, ye must never again endure suffering, grief, tears, pain, hunger or anything at all

Never Quite Living Within Our Means

Been asking how them 3^rd worlders get by on less than we spend on a damn dog that we just ignore

Discovered we had made our full share of fool, empty noise and then some - Quite a while ago

Financing smaller portions of our happiness lately as it always seems to go stale so quickly now

Got too little righteousness left to keep demanding that everybody else listen to our wise counsel

Even started to consider paying interest on the vast debt we’ve lavished upon our descendants

Trying to find some homemade alternatives to unaffordably eating out 6 or 7 times a week

Laying off the yardmen, oilchangers maids, doggroomers pedicurists, lifecoaches and whatnot

Stopped trying to export morality when we finally realized our own precious children aint got none

Stunned to see we cant afford to keep on doubling our sacred arms spending every ten years

Radicals among us are questioning $100 a month just sos the kids can send unlimited texts

The perpetual $150 cable and internet plans are raisin our outsourced eyebrows, as well

Even wondering if our vast good fortune might not be just dumb luck, and not gods divine blessing

Shrill voices are whining that Middle East war and oil dollars should stay right here at home

Gonna step away from this ratcheting, underwater mortgage we’ve re-fied twice for free money

I’ll get a less expensive lease on a new car and then walk away from that tired, 3 year-old dog

To maintain a competitive financial position, even our banks stopped paying their own debts

We’re savin big on generic cigarettes, beer, hamburg and chips – And, Hell, we’re gettin by

Learning thrift, gambling with my 401k on the market and getting point1% interest at the bank

Realizing we must become experts in complex financial cons and medical insurance billing scams

And now even TV says you cant finance the lifestyle of the rich and famous on a negative savings rate

There are even some whispers that we cant afford to act out as world cowboy sheriff no more

Let em go ahead and repo the snowmobile and jetski and the OHV - They’re trashed anyway

Getting our house in order by slashing education, environment and child welfare spending

Realizing we need to welcome foreign workers to come help pay for our forced early retirements

Cutting costs not having the Chinese build em better than they have to be, or even ever to be fixed

Emerging competitive from bankruptcy by reneging on all promised retiree benefit obligations

Showing financial sense by strategically defaulting on my fortune in mindless credit card debt

Wondering about all those worn-but-once clothes hanging there catching dust in the wife’s closet

Supporting drilling deregelation cause gas prices are way too high for the honest working man

Its becoming clear that Clean Coal is The quick and cheap, green way to energy independence

Started bringing lunch from home now and again, and, Hey, it ain’t even really all that bad

Demanding a smaller government, under God, but you best keep your hands off of my Medicare

Postponing water, sewer and power, school and dam, road and bridge funding until way later

Some are suggesting that even ever more school money will never be enough to replace parenting

Forgoing dental care, prescription drugs and doctor visits sos we can just pay the rent and eat

Yep, finally startin to realize that Within our means dont really mean With no money down

Gone Off in Empty Silence With So Much Unsaid

You had always lived like the time to sagely compose your real message was still to come

But actually you’ve gone off quite silently now, and it seems likely, into eternal emptiness

You felt you waited patiently, still ready to make your statement or to take some real action

Now, it’s hard for others to really know if you were the silent type, or just another empty shell

Gone off in silence but not without leaving a wide trail of random noise and messy litter

As far as we can tell, the space you leave behind still unsullied by any conscious reflection

Your blurry recollections, sloppily stored, simply evaporate, unsorted and un-distilled

That is, finished but not summarized, finalized but not completed, gone but not packed up

Went away unprepared, unwilling and unable to form even a short and sensible goodbye

Borne off, you thought, before your time, with yet so much you had never even started

Carried off of the couch to the hospital, then to the cemetery without even a decent interval

You raised your hand far too late, buried without even having thought out a real question

Gone beyond our limited communications even should you find your true voice at last

We will label it a so-called mute testimony and say it was really all you planned on leaving

Caught off-guard and carried away in silence, or did you actually have nothing at all to say?

Hey! Nobody could ever read the beautiful thoughts that may have existed, but only in your head

You have departed, having tacitly accepted things as they were going, and are going further still

Now you have left it to us impute your beliefs merely from your mundane habits

We can’t know your brilliance and grand emotions from your so very ordinary life

Though your soul may have been filled to bursting, it has all evaporated, without any residue

Your wondrous family surrounds you now, but you call each one by a different name

With the drugs, you cannot realize that they know you’ve already gone off in silence

The past is closing in around you because you can no longer process the present

Though your greatest works still await you, there is only a future that you will not experience

Yet, there still are those many things you would have, could have, and, likely, should have done

In your mind, you kept reserved the future for those special tasks that you were born to do

But the short time you paused was confused by a drugged pain, in impersonal surroundings

The last thing you read was another bill and the last thing you wrote was a check

You did not plan on your self-numbing repetitions halting without some decent interlude

There was only time to cap off your life with a short period of deliriously painful suffering

Torn away so quickly and completely with barely time for the briefest of regrets

Gone off in a silence that we can only try to differentiate from a simple & mindless emptiness