"What profit is there, Lord,
In longing to live in your tent forever?

Everyone knows that even your tent
Is shredded by the suicide's shrapnel,

Everyone knows that even your tent
Is pounded by the pilot's bombs.

Let no one dwell in their tents, Lord,
But let those who love your name dwell in it

Where it is written in the shelter
Of your fighter jet's wing."

--Brian Clements, Disappointed Psalms (2008)


The new theocratic state (or congeries of city states) puts everyone to work at slave labor in the rice paddies. (Hymn singing is not optional.) Besides outlawing makeup and rational thought, they also frown upon poetry that does not "make sense". Poets flourish on this scrutiny, each trying to outdo the other in speaking plainly.


Forgotten Books.


"Almost all political conflict, especially in the US, boils down to a fight between the Sane Billionaires and the Insane Billionaires."


Grief for Gaia.