Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a
heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation.
It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the
illusory happiness of the people is required for their real
happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its
condition is the demand to give up a condition that needs illusions.
Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
It wouldn’t be so bad if religion
Was, in fact, the opium of people
That drug, after all, provides regions
Of serenity, as do church steeples.
If you trust in god, you don’t have to throw
Off your chains, revolt—the better life comes
With death; residence in the cold, hollow
Bosom of deities and their isms.
How strange, then, that religion’s always fraught!
God, itself, threw Adam out of Eden—
Krishna, himself, forced Arjuna’s slaughter—
Kill infidels (keens Allah), earn Heaven!
Sunnis and Shi’as blow each other up.
Catholics and Protestants still mutter.
Hindu-Buddhist enmity never stops.
Morphine fails to still hearts’ god-sourced flutter.
Naïve Karl—no opiates still the rage
We slaves feel for infidels, plutocrats.
Both CEOs and priests appoint sages—
Construct our maze. We impoverished rats
Certainly escape—not to god’s zion—
To dark loamy holes—black oblivion.
(12/19/10)