Crimes of the Century That Mattered

Armageddon’s eyewitness wills the next catastrophe into crude being,
Sedates the spoiled child of the brain with regular injections of reality
& robs repeatedly the mass grave of human emotion;
Having already pandered to mankind’s free will fetish
& lobotomized each and every fanatical outburst that blunts the edge of the modern taste into one strictly for vengeance;
Now ready and willing to shoot its way into power just to approve its own assassination:
To shout continuously from plutonium airwaves with the gross grace of the sociopath
To declare a state of martial law upon the blithering idiot who dared voice opposition to the most glaring denunciations of common sense
To enact as law one hour of daily obedience to a television program that analyzes the motives of the common shoplifter
To publicize the fantasies of any dimestore supreme intellect
To disembowel the bastard lore that constitutes one’s own personal history
& substantially rework what was already a masterpiece of posterity merely by adding a series of several past suicide attempts run in slow-motion
To vindicate the naked inspiration of the ignoramus and reprimand with a scrap-iron fist the bulk of humanity for not following suit at once
To become known as the most evil man in the world and then to have anyone who disagrees with this shot on sight--
Always ready & willing to mow down any disagreeable factions with machine guns
full of champagne
& to banter jovially with the operatives of the most heinous systems of indoctrination on the planet and to describe them as men of “fine character” and
“unimpeachable good sense,”
Forever ascribing the predicted value of “simpleton” or “pretender” to anyone whose notions of truth go beyond that which is reported on the nightly news
Tampering with atomic weapons systems and laughing it away beneath the convenient guise of the drunk
Inventing the position of Nuclear Vagabond and staffing it with ingrates unfit for even the most minor public office
Keeping genocidal maniacs alive for scientific study but never talking to them about anything other than the number of sugar spoonfuls they take in their tea
Drinking cheaply from the bar mitzvahs of the soul’s oasis
Redefining the concept of “corrupted morals” just to turn a buck
Skydiving the North Pole to expose the fraud of Santa Claus
Flooding the world with the boiled tears of whatever deity can best be used to ignite social revolution
& then retiring to kiss the ancient sex organs of modernization with a milkshake smile:
To drive demons away from the nude beach reserved for families of imaginary friends
To shroud the degenerate in the kind of sex appeal that wouldn’t even pass a laugh test
To re-familiarize the pauper with his silver-spoon salvation
To compact the collected wisdom of the world’s holy books onto a single grain of rice
& then to sic German shepherds on anyone who chooses it for a last meal
To relegate the central idea of Jesus Christ to the darkrooms of history on the overwhelming evidence that a crucified man cannot talk
To enter the spiritual realm with all the zeal of a common pickpocket only to con the archangels out of the silk from which their voices spring
To always treat even the wisest among us as the proper imbecile he’ll become on Judgment Day
To disrupt again and again the messianic spectacle for which one is too bewildered to adequately question
To stand in unholy awe at the eternal spectacle of the moon and stars,
and to curse no evil heart though millions deserve it,
& then ascend to the heights of the universe and lose sight only of what prevents one from being holy;
All to auction one’s own salvation with the body as opening bid
To take mankind off the gold standard of the soul and replace it with a counterfeit future that springs from a bankrupt past
& then barter tooth & nail for the chump change of the most miserly penitent
Who pawns the price on his own head for base expense to cover the cost of a hot meal;
To mutate precisely, with all the abandon in the world,
toward a newer and more tender future
With the vigor of a saint known by all but exalted by none