God is a grey aging hippy
whose heavily etched face
shows he still smokes.
A young girl, the cutie tells this loser
that it is not his fault that she’s changed.
He can hang around as long as he wants
but she has moved on. She doesn’t hate him
but will never again love him.

This is the necessary stage
for continued individuation.
However, our new generation of electric network
binds us closer together than ever.
There will never be an individual solution
to our common and growing problems.
We can not live alone.
The creature raised separate
from her species is unable
to recognize her own mirror image.

Without each other we are no one.
God is the collective consciousness
that just got a whole lot more real.
The Hippies were right.
Where’s the whole Earth Catalogue
now that we really need it?

 

James Van Looy has been a fixture in Boston’s poetry venues since the 1970s. He is a member of Cosmic Spelunker Theater and has run poetry workshops for Boston area homeless people at Pine Street Inn and St. Francis House since 1992. His work appears weekly in Oddball Magazine.