Personality

I liked you better
when you had
no personality.
You were a blank slate
for all to see...

And paint upon it
what they wish.
I liked you better
when you weren't like this.

BFE

No graves in Egypt.
No place to lie.
An abominable
backwoods
place to die.

Here ye slumber
far from home.
Rouse ye peoples!
Rise ye bones!

Where shall we go?
Over there!
To a land of plenty.
To a land so fair!

Where the milk and honey
flows like rivers.
No lash.
No scourge.
No need to quiver.

In Egypt:
daily tyranny.
Promised:
perfect liberty.

Rouse ye peoples!
Cast down your yoke!
Escape 'fore light of day
approach!

Let's hide our Exodus
by the night.
Overseers,
escape their sight.

Where we go,
they may not follow.
Why stay here
in odious wallow?

Have you no dreams
of lofty things?
Of lands of plenty
and dine like kings?

Or are you content
with scrounging scraps?
And toiling to keep
the pharaoh fat?

But slavery
is all we've known.
How can you ask us
to leave our home?

Familiar it may be.
Home it's not.
Home not given
it must be-sought.
The devil accustomed,
whilst angel, naught.
Such weak excuses
to stay and rot!

You fear the desert
that you may die.
You say that as if
you're even alive!

Daily toiling
for others' gain.
The children watch you,
and do the same.

This not life,
but a death too slow.
Rouse ye peoples!
Rise!  Let's go!

Toiling in Egypt,
what have you earned?
Is master's head pat
what you yearn?

Walking on eggshells,
avoiding strife.
You're thankful it's whip
and not the knife.
They take your daughters
for night, not wife.
Is that your precious?
Is that your life?

You bleed and toil
and can't say why.
Tails wagging
for some worthless prize.
Cowering from death
without being alive.
Some withering windbags,
waiting to die!

Content with bondage.
Content as slaves.
The years did pass;
my beard has grayed.
And in all the wisdom
that comes with age:
I've never met
more foolish knaves!

The Promised Land,
not all can reach.
But better die striving
than to never seek!

Rouse ye peoples!
Rise ye knaves!
Throw down your yokes,
And be not slaves!

Our masters do flail us
with scourge and stick.
Dear Moses, your tongue
cuts deeper than this!

Fools we may be.
Worse than knaves.
Lack courage
to be naught but slaves!

The stick, familiar.
The scourge, we know.
But the desert is foreign.
How can we go?

As soon as we step out,
pharaoh gives chase.
Then sword,
not milk and honey taste.

We have no camel.
We have no horse.
Their army overruns us
as matter of course.

The desert sands
will be stained red.
Then what's the reason
that we have bled?

Friend Moses--dear Moses:
the hour is late.
Please leave us to slumber,
and do not wake.

In the morning,
let's do as we've done before.
And leave us to
our daily chore.

Rouse ye peoples!
Descendents of kings.
If lack courage:
behold what Father brings!

This staff looks ordinary
But it's something Divine.
If words won't quicken,
behold these signs:

Seas doth parted.
Lands uncharted.
Sobbing... sobbing...
For dear departed.
Hearts not guarded.
Manna imparted.
My peoples this journey
has only started.

Rouse!

Now you're inspired.
Later you'll wane.
Then turn your ire
in wrathful refrain.

You'll accuse me then.
I won't reply.
For in Egypt,
I found no place to lie.

------------------------------

This is actually a prequel to No Graves in Egypt.  Hope it moved you.  Any thoughts or critiques are welcome.

Goods

From mountain high
to valley deep.
Have you any
I may keep?

Here I wander
far from home.
Have you any
I may own?

Fickle lover,
you come and go.
You warm me up,
then leave me cold.

I used to seek
your warm embrace.
Such teasing wearied
from the chase.

The effort expended:
unreturned.
Bones exhausted.
Lungs thus burned.

And what is it
that I may show?
To take along
when I must go?

I'm told: acquire
mansions high.
What coin may purchase
a piece of sky?

I'm told: so purchase
things of dust.
But their very makeup
I do not trust.

Cars and spouses.
Houses!
Houses!
Nimble fingers
to undo the
blouses.

Crying!  Crying!
Hefty sighing.
"Comfort!  Comfort!"
I'm trying...
trying...

From flower to flower.
Leave... return.
Another lover
has left me spurned.

And the dirt, I'm forced,
to give it back.
So what's the point
in chasing that?

The taste of honey,
it is not sweet.
Have you any
I may keep?

Renters here
in borrowed homes.
On borrowed time,
and borrowed bones.

And things on loan
we must give back.
So what's the point
in chasing that?

But there's goods
that money cannot buy.
And to have it
needn't ever sigh.

Something that
can be thus owned.
Not rented like
these stinky bones.

But as coin
must toil to acquire.
Knees thus buckled
and steeled by fire.

No graves in Egypt.
No place to lie.
This is the desert
where I die.

You leave me dumb
and deaf and blind.
So Mammon,
get thee thus behind.

And when I die:
it must be so.
The goods I own
when I must go.