A poem by Donny Lee Duke

Every mind scattered.
People lost their feet.
Their hearts swallowed.
It was the season of the day.
It was this creature they saw comin’.
Even a killer we don’t make stink as bad.
He’s the monster we’re all warned about,
as far as I’m concerned,
the vice president
of soon to find out.
He’s an incredibly unwelcome human being.

I know who you are.
You are not the world is watching.
How littler you are—
world teachings
meant for the derelict
and the hole.
I oppose you with my very breath.
I spit in your eye.
You are loathsome to me.
You are the reason we have sin.
Just stand up and sing, will yah,
like you’re a demigod.

This is contemporary
we have an outcast;
we have someone who sins
in the worst way one can today.
There’s Jesus the bastard child.
His society loathed him
because he carried sexual sin
a birthmark.
God was not his father to his villagers.
Now the Gospels make sense.
Does gay matter?
He carried the cross
to all his contemporaries
before the present time.
They hunted him down
and made him suffer hell’s wrath.
Now you think the pedophile your worst enemy,
not understanding the role he plays.

You’ve been indoctrinated for this.
It’s on everybody’s lips.
It’s not who you are.
It’s not even what you’re about.
You’re just succumbing to the time spirit’s rage,
and you mistake world opinion for very God.
Can I get you to stop this?
Can I get you to be human,
the real thing,
someone who mates with divinity?

You’re lookin’ at
the road to healing,
the way a pyromaniac catches fire
with the one principle aim on his list:
keep fire out of harm’s reach.
Imagine the plight of the pedophile.
Do you think he can do it,
give a child what he needs and not sin?
We’ve reached world conclusion
if we can’t bring it all together
and not act out our harmful impulses.

You think I’m a madman don’t you,
taking the guts of the matter
and putting them on the table.
I am that thing among you
shuttling
what will bring us wholeness to ourself.
We have to live with desire.
No one can take it from us,
not even the spiritual path.
Alone with your desire,
my God the pedophile no way,
you dirty rotten bastard.
And the strength of this prohibition
counsels the opinion of every person
except the mature in heart,
and it’s all wrapped up in hate.

Can we count how many pedophiles are around children?
A spooky answer,
you might imagine millions
all over the world.
It’s a bona fide human condition.
Well what’s the way out of this?
We’d have to recover
a whole way of being human,
holistic.
We’d have to be the right answer.
May I introduce myself?
I’m world poem.
I am the poetry
that brings you by the hand through desire
and takes you to the world.

Although it’s of course for a general audience, this poem was written specifically for Rod Hemsell, a founder of and lecturer at The University of Human Unity in Auroville. He’s a longtime member there and an important voice in the community. I posted the following comment on his Facebook page on a post where he advertises his new book of poetry and photography, although the photos are by someone else:

“I’ve sent you material in the past, and you’ve ignored me. I understand that the time spirit, world opinion, especially American opinion, says you must ghost someone like myself. But I would guess you would not call your book an expression of the time spirit, of world opinion. It’s talking about oneness, the Self in all, not surrendering to jealousy, hatred and fear. It’s precisely here I make my point. I doubt you will talk to me kindly and openly, but you would at the very least read my poem?

I’ve watched two videos of your new book, and I will tell you how what I’ve seen and read strikes me. I think the poetry is good, but it’s not something I can get my hands on. By that I mean it’s high thoughts and feelings, ideals we want to live up to but almost never do, a hypocrisy your poetry speaks about. It’s not down to earth, as much as that seems to be your aim in using the photos you’re using. The photos are beautiful, but I think to express the meaning of the poem they could be more human and less raw nature. I would ask about the inspiration of the book, whether the lines of the poetry came whole into your mind via the inner voice, or did you have to compose them, however much you felt to be under the rush of inspiration. And the photos, did your inner vision choose many or any of them to use with the verses?

Whether or not your poetry comes via the inner voice I don’t know, but I want to show you a poem that does, where much of the media used also comes from inner vision. It’s different that most anything being written today called poetry. It’s also different than the poetry of the past, as it’s an expression, in my opinion, of the muse of poetry today. And it’s written by someone who has learned to receive inspiration in the manner the poetry school of Sri Aurobindo teaches, if I may call it that, speaking of The Future Poetry and all that. What’s really different about it is that it doesn’t speak a level above everything but speaks right here where we’re at. I’m leaving a link to the poem I’m describing: https://harms-end.com/2022/07/24/trace-through-ideas-about-the-city-of-human-unity-the-fifth-read/“

He deleted the comment. I wrote the poem before I discovered that, or I should say my muse did, as it could see his reaction without the aid of the five senses. I’d really like him to read this poem, if not also the one I sent him a link to, hence this explanation of whom it was written for, and I’d really like the reader to see the brick wall I’m facing.