Enraptured
By Randy Warren
It seems for most my life,
we’ve been waiting for the day.
The day everything changes,
and all the bad things go away.
We had Harmonic Convergence.
Millennium came and went.
We watched for love’s emergence,
but those dates, made not a dent.
And now with 2012 a-looming,
all of us are now assuming
that we soon will go a-zooming
to our final fate.
But I for one am truly hoping
that we all can stop our moping
and begin our fruitful groping
for another date:
The Rapture.
For those of you who aren’t aware,
the Rapture is that last day where
the dead will rise up from their graves
and all good Christians will be saved!
Their bodies will evaporate,
their mortals souls will elevate.
The trumpets sound,
and all around ... there’ll be no Christians to be found.
And what becomes of all the rest?
Those poor souls who just “did their best”,
and spent their Sundays sleeping in,
and actually enjoyed their sin?
Well, first we’ll form the cleaning crews
collecting jewelry, clothes and shoes,
and other things, too much to mention,
the Christians dropped in their ascension.
And then there’ll be a global pause,
a massive dropping of the jaws,
as all us sinners comprehend
that what for some has been the end
for us is only the beginning
of a Golden Age of Sinning!
A cheer will sound around the Earth,
to herald humankind’s rebirth!
We’ll walk buck-naked down the street!
Have intercourse with those we meet!
We’ll do hard drugs in public spaces,
sloppy grins upon our faces!
We’ll never go to work again!
If China wants to win, it can!
Economy, esch-monomy,
we’ll now have our autonomy!
A new world springs up overnight
where we’ll just have no need to fight.
We’ll finally have our world peace
once everybody gets a piece!
A fun and happy global nation
with no need for masturbation.
Though that action will continue,
but for show, in public venues!
Folks will feel good all the time!
They’ll give up on the social climb.
With no one left to judge our actions,
life will be pure satisfaction!
Money will just be green paper.
Credit cards become pan scrapers.
Ecstasy will be the norm,
As we expand to our true form!
... and yes, one day, far down the line
there will from heaven come a chime
as Christ himself descends upon us
to lay his massive trip upon us.
Hopefully we’ll make him see
that all throughout eternity
all of God’s creatures, great and small
just want to smile, and have a ball!
And even though we only prayed
on accidents while getting laid,
or trying to help our sports team win,
perhaps He’ll see that all our sin
was just us trying to be God too,
and act like God appeared to do
by being all things, dark and light.
Keeping the peace...helping the fight.
Robbing one man to pay another.
Hating Mom...and loving Mother.
We’ll ask Christ, can we take the blame,
when his own Dad made up the game?
And set up rules in contradiction
to our human predilections?
How could we expect to win
when God made us to lust for sin?
Perhaps then Christ will see our side
and come to Earth where He’ll reside
and live amongst us as an equal
and help us write the bible’s sequel!
“The Bible Two – The Fun Begins!!!”
Where it’s all good, and no one sins,
and everything is all okay,
and everybody gets their way,
and every day is Saturday.
and everybody, straight or gay
just laughs and sings and plays all day,
and never once
bothers to pray.
Because it’s all just really good,
and everyone feels like they should
and Paradise is here and now
and no one ever wonders how.
So yes, I’m waiting for the day
when Rapture takes them all away.
Until then, I’ll just watch the sky
and listen for the trumpet’s cry
And hope that when that day does dawn,
and we can finally get it on,
that one commandment we employ:
“Thou shalt always, be in Joy”
Copyright 2010 © Randy Warren
According to his bio, Randy Warren is an ascended master of the material illusion. He has come to Earth to assist in smoothing the transition into the new age. While here, he enjoys many forms of expression, including poetry. Feel free to contact him and offer him money for his myriad talents.
Just spent an hour and a half on the phone with Azami - our first contact after she departed from Burning Man. She called me from this payphone in Berkeley, Calif., at the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Allston Way. I was in my home.
Fifth annual event takes place Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 11 and 12.
The Great White Shark is nature's most perfect killer. GumptionFest is a grassroots arts festival in Sedona.
Graham is the longest serving slam poet in Northern Arizona.
she cut me above right eyebrow
and as the future-me
GumptionFest V: Raiders of the Lost Art takes place along Coffee Pot Drive in West Sedona on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 11 and 12.
The festival features some of the most well-known names in the Sedona and Verde Valley art scene, from singer-songwriters, performance poets, rock bands, painters, sculptors and fire-spinning performance artists.
Talent levels are not important: participants should range from full-time professional artists and musicians and published poets to recreational artists, part-time photographers and those who pen poems in private journals.
Kick-Off Party
Captain Squeegee, from Tempe, is a seven-member progressive blend of multi-instrumentation and conceptualized orchestrations. The Phoenix New Times described the band as “‘Fantasia’ music, with lead singer Danny Torgersen making like Mickey in a swirling maelstrom of flying horns, dancing guitars, broken melodies, and mad-prophet vocalizing.”
Eccentric world beat music group Amitahba includes Sedona musicians Vusi Shibambo, Andre Fearonce, formerly of The Beatnigs with Michael Franti, bassist Lindsay Buckingham, drummer Alex Ogburn, guitarist Keith Kavisic, vocalist Terry Bryant, Leah Lamat and guitarist Michael Casella.
Singer and songwriter Brandon Decker, musically known only as Decker, writes songs that delve into the human heart and the human condition. Not quite rock, not quite folk, his acoustic-based music draws upon a variety of influences, from Leonard Cohen to Tom Waits, from Cat Power to PJ Harvey.
Born in Stuttgart, Germany, Ralf Illenberger started performing in 1977. His first album “Waves” was released in 1978 and nominated for the German Record Awards.
Guitarist Dave Harvey and cellist Courtney Yeates will perform together.
p Syllabus combine elements of post-rock, ambient, experimental, funk, and jazz to create a unique experience of musical exploration and discovery.
A series of head-to-head poetry slam competitions will be hosted by five-time National Poetry Slam competitor Christopher Fox Graham.
Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry consisting of 17 syllables in three metrical lines of five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables. Slam haiku need only 17 syllables; lines are unimportant.
Members of Pyroclectic will perform their fire-spinning performance art after the sun sets. The Prescott fire troupe was featured at Prescott’s annual Tsunami on the Square festival and was a member of the Fire Conclave at Burning Man 2010.
Organizers for GumptionFest V: Raiders of the Lost Art are still looking for more visual artists, photographers, dancers and dance troupes, musicians, bands, theater groups and poets who want to be a part of the festival for either one or two days.
for those of you expecting the typical "ode to a musician" slam poem
Dave,
I love her most in the midnights
with her
Haikusters can read their haiku’s titles before they read the haiku. This technically gives the haikusters more syllables to put the haiku in context, but the haiku itself must still be only 17 syllables.
Wile, 30, a resident of Sedona from 1995 to 2006, was last seen at his home in Glendale on the morning of Aug. 14.
Perry is a wildcard poet, who hails from Elgin, Ill., but has made a nest in Phoenix. Performing on Mesa National Poetry Slam Team in 2006, 2009 and 2010, she is coming up from behind with tricks in her sleeve and sharp teeth in her smile. Not to be taken lightly, she’s been the Women of the World Poetry Slam representative twice, for Phoenix in 2009 and Mesa in 2010.
The slam will be hosted by Sedona poet Christopher Fox Graham, who represented Northern Arizona on the Flagstaff team at five National Poetry Slams between 2001 and 2010. He has hosted and competed in poetry slams and open mics in Sedona since 2004.
It seems for most my life,
Jeremy Richards is a writer, actor, and radio host living in Seattle. His work appears widely, including in “The Spoken Word Revolution Redux,” The Poetry Foundation, McSweeney's, The Morning News, Rattle, and on National Public Radio's “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.”
Jeanann Verlee is an author, performance poet, editor, activist, and former punk rocker who collects tattoos and winks at boys. Her work has been published and is forthcoming in a variety of journals, including The New York Quarterly, FRiGG, PANK, decomP, Danse Macabre, and The Legendary, among others. Her poems have also been included in various anthologies such as “Not A Muse: The Inner Lives of Women” and “His Rib: Poems Stories and Essays by Her.” Verlee’s first full-length book of poems, Racing Hummingbirds (Write Bloody Publishing, 2010), earned the Independent Publisher Book Award Silver Medal in Poetry.
Educated in theatre performance and creative writing, Verlee was co-author and performing member of national touring company, The Vortex: Conflict, Power, and Choice!, has been commissioned by universities for a number of guerrilla theatre events spotlighting domestic violence under MSCD’s Theatre for Social Change, and was a charter member of New York City’s annual Spoken Word Almanac Project. A fan of letter-writing campaigns and constructing protest signs, Verlee is also an ardent animal rights and humanitarian activist who has organized and participated in numerous social actions.
Emanuel Xavier is an American poet, spoken word artist, author, editor, literary events curator, and actor born and raised in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn, N.Y. He is a significant voice to emerge from the Nuyorican poetry movement using political, sexual and religious themes throughout his work. His background is Puerto Rican and Ecuadorian. 
