"My New Religion" by Yoshin Govender

I was walking in Chicago recently
And I saw a man sitting in a fold out lawn chair

He was all scruffled up like a scurvy furby
Tightly fixtured, but a little bit swervy
Cardboard box draped over his shoulders
Plastered with the words: The End is Neigh
I’m pretty sure he meant to write the end is nigh
But who am I to judge, maybe he just hates horses
And so, this man, just sat there, with a bell in his right hand
And a black cross painted on his forehead
Shivering from the cold, but convulsing with fear
Over what? I’m not entirely sure.

‘Cause I never really connected with religion
None of it really made much sense to me
I mean I had options
I could have a BBQ with Buddha
Or a Mixer with Moses
I could have Lord Shiva on speed dial
And I could have Allah in my Google plus circle

But despite all that, I can’t help but look up and say
Dang dude, that crap’s just too damn mainstream
‘Cause I don’t know if you've noticed
But I’m so dang hipster
That when that tree fell in the forest
And no one was there to hear it
I got that jam on vinyl

So I have a new plan
I am going to craft my own religion
And it’s gonna be like no other

In my religion, we’ll have churches
No no no, we’ll have sacred jazz clubs
And every Sunday will be an open mic night
And people can preach the brassy gold of Louis Armstrong
Or the sweet, subtle scriptures of Ella Fitzgerald
And poetry will be read from war veterans fresh off the line
And criminals who seek a fresh start
And little middle schoolers who tiptoe into the glow of the halogen light
Their little hand shaking as if they were handed a sword rather than a microphone
And then nervously reading their love poem they wrote for the cute girl in English class

Will my religion have a deity?
You bet your spray tanned butt it will
But it won’t be a person
With tiny little strings tied to its fingers
Like little omniscient yo-yo’s
No, it’ll be much greater than that
It’ll be an idea, it’ll be multiple ideas
Like paint thrown at a canvas in a contemporary art museum
My God, is the doctor who beat my uncle’s cancer into remission
My God, is watching my mother breathe life
Into a limp unconscious boy
Pulled out of my neighbor’s swimming pool
My God, it the woman who placed a flower on a bayonet pointed at her head
In an act so pure and forgiving,
That it would be treason to call it protest
My God, can give hope to a sinner with not a single line of prose
And sorry to one-up you, Jesus
But My God can totally walk on Legos 

My religion will go door to door asking people to go sledding with them
But asking them to bring earmuffs and mittens
‘Cause baby it’s cold outside
My religion will kinda stray away from Gay Pride parades
But not because it hates love
But because cowboy boots and short shorts are sooo 2009
And when the thought-locked homophobes and haters come to town
You can be sure as hell that my religion will stand in a barrier
And say, my friend, the heart acts in mysterious ways, I’ll admit
But I don’t need to be a Hallmark card to know what love is when I see it

Because lately,
Life’s a burning, blunting, cyclical spell
Like for heaven, ignore for hell
Swooning, grunting, pushing, crying,
Ripping, melting, grueling, dying
We live in a world where words fade out under a cloud of short hand abbreviation
Burning bridges and equating insanity with wonder and deviation
We tie gags and nooses around ideas and dreams
And objectify death on an old television screen
But I accept my insanity
To think that race is an illusion to make ourselves feel unique
To think that good is evil and evil is good and we simply fear to hear the gray-scale speak
I believe that failure is beautiful
I think that ignorance is demise
I know that every conflict in this world can be cured if someone had the courage to put down their rifle and just apologize.

There’s a lot that I can’t do though
I can’t get rid of Justin Bieber
I can’t fix wobbly tables
I can’t help you chase the cute girl in English class
And I can’t fix every keyboard with one of its feet missing
Sometimes, this world is painful to live in
I know it’s hard to breathe, but smog can go away
When you have enough people fanning at it.
And that’s the reason we’re here
There are 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe
Stretching out 13.8 billion light years
But for now, this world, this dimly lit speck,
It’s all we've got.
So take that stupid cardboard sign off your shoulders
And go build a pillow fort
With everyone on the block
Because the end isn't Neigh
And we’re going to need a lot of pillows.