Two Bibles

So yesterday the president of the United States held his hand

Over not one, but two Bibles on his inauguration,

Possibly insinuating to some misguided souls

As one for his white genealogy and one for his black

I find this troubling on a myriad of levels  

The day being our commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King’s life,

On a Monday so government related employees can take off of work

Despite Dr. King’s actual birthday being last Tuesday on the fifteenth

Was plausible utilization of Martin’s “personal Bible” 

I can correlate the day with what Mr. Obama represents in his blackness

And Dr. King represents in his blackness, however

Dr. King and Mr. Obama are far more than their blackness

So in this I do not intend to imply that in utilizing Dr. King’s Bible

Mr. Obama did so only for its connotation of blackness,

Rather I would imagine it was for equality, peace, and nonviolence conflict resolution 

Mr. Obama’s record of an unclosed Guantanamo, a continuing war in Afghanistan

Drone attacks by the CIA in countries we “have not declared war in”

And most crucial the escalation of the global drug war in America rather than its cessation

Are testaments to Mr. Obama’s choices for violence, murder, and continued poverty

As the office of the presidency so often demands 

As a preacher and a man of Christ, Dr. King’s use of and link to the Bible

Was justifiable, as commander and chief of a nation with freedom of religion

I find it incongruent how any president, witness, judge, or representative circumstance

Of our government should ever include a religious tome, number one culprit being the Bible 

To me America’s reluctance to see this delineation indicates our childish insecurity

When it comes to our existential search, but also our grotesque level of fear

Secure Christians would not demand self-righteous indignation that

One Nation under God, has anything to do with the Bible  

Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine should not even be required to support such arguments

However this freedom of religion is also freedom from religion because of men such as these

Brave enough to stand for what is at its nature equal freedoms 

This is at the essence the message of Doctor King, that in his security of his faith,

He could usurp the criticism of less secure Christians, and seek

The equality of all men created equal and should not be discriminated by

Ethnicity, gender, age, nationality, and echoing into today’s forefronts sexuality and religion  

When we wish a man the autonomy to be a worshiper or a non-worshiper and then

Proceed to use such words as Bible, Torah, or Quran as placeholders for God

We have lost that which we seek to obtain in this link to God at all,

Our internal volition,  

For when you mandate a religious doctrine even by the inscription on

A public candleholder or electrical plate, however subtle or apparently inconsequential

You have prioritized insecure placation over internal fortitude

We have chosen existential acquiescence over spelunking into the grand universal caverns  

I find this to be the vocation of lethargy and to enlist with the procrastinators

I would seek to swear us only on our constitution or our Bill of Rights alone

For this, rightly or wrongly defines America explicitly 

Books written by men in a desert in a foreign country two thousand years ago

Translated and adapted by other foreigners should be for open discussion

By others in other places if so desired, but on this day I find it quite contradictory  

As a matter of state and to a degree the personal confliction in this case  

Dr. King was a man of unflinching peace and nonviolence

The totality of the responsibilities, volition and tacit allowances of

Not just Mr. Obama, but any President of the United States of America

Includes the direct opposite and  

While we may wish their idealistic pursuit

By pushing reality under the hand to the book we are truncating our

Acknowledgment of who we are, what we choose and how we live 

I can think of few better inquiries as to why most seek out the Bible or

Any religious tome in the impetus of our self-actualization;

That any book be the truncation of one’s search is possibly fitting,

But often done with questionable motivations;  

Therein many cases we will accept any answer

Given a personal quandary independent of its validity

Where an answer is preferable to no answer  

I find a preferable form of super-organism of collective humanity,

One that perpetually seeks answers, dives down internally to find the universal

To see a single tome as the cessation of that search, I find to be most sophomoric

So you see two Bibles only brings to mind the excess of a single one