Some babies come squirting out of their mothers
and dress up like preachers and gurus.
“Follow me,” say the babies.
“I know what’s going on.”
Some babies dress up like soldiers
and learn how to kill other babies for crude oil.
Other babies dress up like addicts, saying
“I just got here and it’s too much to deal with.”
Some babies dress up like artists
and spend their days being told to grow thick skin
by babies dressed as critics who never feel or make anything.
Some babies dress up like go-get-’em yuppies
and yell into iWidgets in cars that can park anywhere,
“Diversify the crypto with a three point portfolio,
ice the Suzuki deal and put the blockchain on top of the ethernet.”
Some babies dress up like newsmen
and tell everyone what to think about everything.
Other babies dress up like teachers
and tell smaller babies to listen to the newsmen.
Some babies dress up like rapists, saying
“You’re my thing and I can use you how I want to.”
Other babies dress up like victims
and stand frozen like ice where they were hurt.
Some babies dress up like factory farmers,
throwing pigs and chickens into threshing machines.
Some babies dress up like scholars,
adding “-ist” and “-ism” to the ends of words
that nobody else understands.
Some babies dress up like mothers, saying
“The privilege of chopping myself up every day
is all the reward I’ll ever need.”
All babies come squirting out of their mothers
and start dressing as things they are not.
The babies all march off the cliff together
and, just in their very last breaths,
remember innocence.
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7 responses to “Some Babies”
I’m loving these poems of yours, I just had to say 🙂
Looking at them today, it is hard to believe that the monsters Bolton, Pompeo, Cheney, Agent Orange, O’bomb’em, Dubya, Hitlery and her wonderful husband Mr. Cigar, NuttyYahoo, Trustin Judeau, Micron, May, Junker, Draghi, Duterte, Abe, Kim, Erdogan, Poroshenko, etc. were once babies squirted out by their mothers. It’s hard to imagine little Johnny, Mikey, Dicky, Donny, Barry, Hillary, Billy, Benny, etc. playing games in elementary schoolyards, having a great old time.
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The question that must be answered ASAP is just exactly WHY/HOW did they turn into the monsters they are today? Were there seminal events or personal revelations that eventually got them a free pass right into the halls of power? Did their parents, like the parents that have been in the news lately, “pull strings” using money, favors or promises to get them into Elite schools? (For example, does any sane person think that Dubya would have gotten into Harvard by competing with other applicants on a level-playing-field of academic achievement and excellence, rather than by virtue of his family’s omnipotent political pull?) And how does this education in “the ways of the REAL world” affect the behavior of the “students” who are so obviously unfairly advanced? “Nobody said life was fair. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there and all you can do is to look out for number 1 and scratch and claw your way to the top — right over everybody else, if necessary.”
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What’s even worse to consider is whether the “job qualifications” for their present “positions” REQUIRE monsters to fill them. “No non-monsters need apply.” For example, will a true anti-war candidate, not a half-baked one like AO, ever be elected to the office of POTUS? Could they fulfill the qualifications for that office? So far anyway, the answer is “no”. BTW, just exactly WHO decides what those qualifications will be? Other monsters who received a similar “education” in the ways of completely corrupted Elite world!
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IMO, once-babies Ron Paul or Ralph Nader would not have continued the US’s perpetual wars, yet they only garnered a few votes. Isn’t war or peace the most important question in a nuclear-armed world? Just exactly WHY can’t an anti-war candidate be elected?
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1. The vast majority of voters instinctively “knew” that these candidates didn’t stand a chance at winning, so why waste a vote on a loser?
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2. The vast majority of voters knew that monsters HAD (still have?) to be elected in order to MAINTAIN the present whatever-you-want-to-call-it “system” in which a microscopic percentage of the population owns or controls the vast majority of wealth and LARGE SCALE capital equipment for their own astronomical profit, and perpetual war is absolutely required to maintain that system. Ron and Ralph, as nice people as they are, are not qualified to do what has to be done. (I suppose this should not be surprising in a country whose foundation was thievery and genocide.)
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With recent history as a guide, I think that is is almost certain that humanity WILL be marching right of the cliff of extinction. Of course once the inevitability of extinction becomes impossible for the Elite and their slaves to obfuscate, the masses will seek the cause. What do you think the masses will find as the cause?
‘I posses a sort of sociopathic narcissism that tells me i should be in charge of everyone’ –Trevor Moore as politician on t.v. show ‘Whitest Kids U Know’
Ms. Caitlin Johnstone,,, Your poem ‘I marvel” was a work of pure art/heart. I feel you earned a reward so I will send you something since it is Australian $ I will add a bit over my last donation. To thank you and a blessing on you and your family…..
And some babies emerge with total evil already deeply embedded inside, I have met my share of them. And some babies emerge with total Love embedded deep inside, and I was lucky to meet some of them also. Question? Does this site prevent printing? I wanted to print off “I Marvel” but couldn’t get it to load into printer? Google stored it in my files, but when I click on that it brings me back to your home page and still can’t print? any help appreciated…..I wonder if I wrote a piece from someone who sounds just like Ms. C. J. would it be too much? I would like to introduce more folks to a man who spent over 50 years doing what Ms. C.J. is attempting to do here. Well, nobody slapped me upside so I will spend the time and see what happens…..3:30 A.M here in Alaska……………………………….”Belief” (also a title in Rogue Nation)………………………………….. “We were high up in the mountains and it was very dry. There had been no rain for many months, and the little streams were silent. The Pine trees were turning brown, and some were already dead, but the wind was among them. The mountains stretched out, fold after fold, to the horizon. Most of the wild life had gone away to cooler and better pastures; only the squirrels and a few Jays remained. There were other, smaller birds, but they were silent during the day. A dead Pine was bleached white after many summers. It was beautiful, even in death, graceful and strong without the blur of sentiment. The Earth was hard and the paths were rocky and dusty.~~~She said that she had belonged to several religious societies, but she had finally settled down in one. She had worked for it, as a lecturer and propagandist, practically all over the world. She said she had given up family, comfort and a great many other things for the sake of this organization; she had accepted its beliefs, its doctrines and precepts, had followed its leaders, and tried to meditate. She was regarded highly by the members as well as by the leaders. Now, she continued, having heard what I had said about beliefs, organizations, the dangers of self-deception, and so on, she had withdrawn from this organization and its activities. She was no longer interested in saving the world, but was occupying herself with her small family and its troubles, and took only a distant interest in the troubled world. She was inclined to be bitter, though outwardly kind and generous, for she said her life seemed so wasted. After all her past enthusiasm and work, where was she?What had happened to her? Why was she so dull and weary, and at her age so concerned with trivial things?~~~How easily we destroy the delicate sensitivity of our being. The incessant strife and struggle, the anxious escapes and fears, soon dull the mind and the heart; the cunning mind quickly finds substitutes for the sensitivity of life. Amusements, family, politics, beliefs and gods, take the place of clarity and love. Clarity is lost by knowledge and belief, and love by sensations. Does belief bring clarity? Does the tightly enclosing wall of belief bring understanding? What is the necessity of beliefs, and do they not darken the already crowded mind? The understanding of what IS does not demand beliefs, but direct perception, which is to be directly aware without the interference of desire. It is desire that makes for confusion, and belief is the extension of desire. The ways of desire are subtle, and without understanding them belief only increases conflict, confusion and antagonism. The other name for belief is faith, and faith is also the refuge of desire. ~~~We turn to belief as a means of action. Belief gives us that peculiar strength which comes from exclusion; and as most of us are concerned with doing, belief becomes a necessity. We feel we cannot act without belief, because it is belief that gives us something to live for, to work for. To most of us, life has no meaning but that which belief gives it; belief has greater significance than life. We think that life must be lived in the pattern of belief; for without a pattern of some kind, how can there be action? So our action is based on idea, or is the outcome of an idea; and action, then, is not as important as idea.~~~Can the things of the mind, however brilliant and subtle ever bring about the completeness of action, a radical transformation in one’s being and so in the social order? Is idea the means of action? Ideas may bring about a certain series of actions, but that is mere activity; and activity is wholly different from action. It is in this activity that one is caught; and when for some reason or other activity stops, then one feels lost and life becomes meaningless, empty. We are aware of this emptiness, consciously or unconsciously, and so idea and activity become all important. We fill this emptiness with belief, and activity becomes an intoxicating necessity. For the sake of this activity, we will renounce; we will adjust ourselves to any inconvenience, to any illusion.~~~The activity of belief is confusing and destructive; it may at first seem orderly and constructive, but in its wake there is conflict and misery. Every kind of belief, religious or political, prevents the understanding of relationship, and there can be no action without this understanding.” from J. Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living; First series. Quest book published by the Theosophical Publishing House Copyright 1956, this edition 1967, eleventh printing 2001…..I recently found some of J. Krishnamurti’s speeches on You Tube, worth a listen, I think. Thank you for taking the time to read this, all comments appreciated.
This was beautiful. I’m a mother myself, to 3 now-grown children, and your poetry really speaks to me.
You make music with words.