no epitome

there was a time when
the delusional
blamed what they termed
“evil”
on “creatures,” “spirits” &
“demons”---
all were meant to terrify
the living whilst at the same
time making them comfortable
in knowing that they had
imagined the most horrible things
that could possibly be &
in doing so,
their world made sense again.

the unknown (source of
their actual fear) was so much
less terrifying when it had a
face &
those who held the mutual delusion,
felt that face was
the epitome of all that could be
deemed
“evil”---
that is to say,
every day that went by
would bring real life hardships
full of diseases they could not detect,
starvation due to crop failure or
the inability to acquire meat supplying
that vital protein which has kept our
minds a’churnin’ for so long & yet,
time & energy
would be spent in the creation of more
tales of fiction &
in the suffering at the hand of such tales,
where new real life catastrophes
had to be woven into the characteristics
of all the delusions, so as to keep them
appropriate---
had there been a threat level imagined,
such as the one dreamt up by dubya,
then it probably would have been painted
on planks less perfect than 2 x 8’s sold at
Home Depot. fashioned in some way at the
entrance to the village,
so as to welcome all visitors
with the right amount of
panic.

there are people who still delight in
the panic of ages past, who feel more
secure in being scared of anything the
imagination can muster, in order to provide
a constant epitome of what they believe to
be “evil,” so as to keep the world at bay
(inside their head), so that comfort comes
when the whole world still makes
sense,
when the whole world is guided by
something,
when the individual has meaning---
it is these very people
who in reality,
are those to be most feared,
when they get their hands on power,
when they get their hands on a microphone &
when the masses who want everything to
make sense,
start to listen to them.