Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Day 10: Prayer Poem

The strategic adversary is fascism... the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.

Michel Foucault

Your kingdom come,
but I’m sorry to rain on your party. 
I think we need new metaphors and rituals for accession to office. 
Your will be done, 
Yet, perhaps we should destroy the Palace 
and build it elsewhere 
on earth as in heaven?
Should we rebuild it on the same level as the ground?
Give us our bread (and butter)
Maybe rebuild it lower — 
to signify that assumption to office is not a booty,
a prize one rises to 
and seizes for one’s self
but a lowering of the self to service?
Forgive us who trespass
But we should have a ritual similar to the "washing of the feet" in the Christian bible
Or maybe a ritual as vulgar as the
Chinese bride whose breasts are mashed by guests for cash?
We forgive them who trespass against us too.
After all, submission to the people’s will is a tricky thing — the vilest and most ill-mannered collective unconscious on the planet 
and you, 
a puny creature with the huge ego to fill it.
Do not take us to test.
It is not easy to understand what is happening, 
you have been chosen to work on a task
and you’re throwing a party.

Deliver us from evil.
Amen.

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