A Dead Truth Poem by Richard Hovelsrud

Shattered remnants of broken promises that were untrue,
My heart is dead, but my mind is alive.
Dead men wrote this lies, scraped it together,
And called it Divine.

A village in a desert,
Outside the original city of sin,
A small tribe wrote a book of simple truths and wisdom,
To give to their children.

The village was burned,
The tribal elders were killed,
The children were turned into slaves,
The “Book” was stolen,
And their hope was killed.
Simple passages of inspiration,
Became scriptures of jaded interpretation,
Abused and misused was this book of simple truths,
What was originally written as statements of facts,
Were twisted into parables,
And the original literature was declared untrue.

The Tribal elders wrote of a prophet,
Who preached faith, compassion, and love,
You see it was their hope,
That even though their children were hungry and thirsty,
The story of the prophet who help raise them up.

The children of that lost tribe,
never read that book of simple truths,
But instead worked under the brutal tyranny,
Of a King who put the book to his own use.

The King wrote in laws to demand order,
To install fear and demand loyalty,
The Kind added in justifications to start wars,
And forever stunted the people by his claim of original sin,
just another thing he added in.
Commandments were soon written,
To grant permission to condemn the different,
The King called this Religion.