Jack Pelham

Do you understand that
The moment you start to introduce
New material for the consideration of the typical audience,
The minds of most of them begin immediately to
Look for a reason not to consider it?

You can lay out the feast for them, friend,
Preparing it with great care and excitement,
Thrilled to be serving and to be giving them
Beautiful things.

But before you do this, please understand
What the people of this world are like.

Here are four various economic systems, explained in brief fashion from my point of view.

Capitalism is where people swim at their own risk as they try to earn for themselves what they want—despite the fact that there’s always danger to the society from the powerful among the greedy and corrupt.

Whatever the day ahead may hold,
There is such treasure in these quiet moments—
Before the world has awakened—
In which I may sit and reflect
On whatever needs reflecting,
And to search out whatever
Needs searching.

It’s an interesting question:
Whether those who are so good
At not listening now will hear
A word of what God says to them
When they meet at last—

Reading time: 15 seconds

I’m afraid it’s going to take longer
Than your allotted fifteen seconds
To convince you that you should
Increase your attention span so as to
Accommodate those matters that are
Packed with more meaning and importance
Than you can glean in such a short time.

The very fact that humans cannot all agree
As to what is just and righteous
Should stun us into a great pause
Regarding why it is that we each seem
To consider these matters to be simple enough.

There are three reasons (at least) that I can’t serve on the School Board. The first two are because I’m a freak, and the last one—well, I’ll tell you at the end, if you read that far.

When they swear me in, they’re going to ask me to take an oath to support the Constitution. But I’m not going to take an oath I can’t keep. And if I don’t take it, they won’t let me hold the office—even though the people voted for me. And what they expect of me is simply to lie like everybody else. But I won’t. So that makes me a freak.

Some are all for being good
Until it comes to standing up
To the bad people of this Earth.
And that’s where they draw the line.
They take no for an answer
And retreat to a lesser
Fallback position—
Still heroes in
Their own
Minds.

Even if Artificial Intelligence takes over the world,
God will still judge you for what you have done
While in the flesh, whether good or bad.