Thought Bonsai: One Hundred Seventeen

1. In conscience's clearance sale,
what place is left for emotion?!

2. Murder upon murder brings victory,
calculation upon calculation brings decay.

3. Either I shall remain,
or you shall not exist!
...Can this too
be called religion?!

4. In the bliss of blindness
lies the eye's affliction!

5. Alas...when
the merit of birth
legitimizes
the sin of action!

6. Divided in compassion,
united in cruelty!

7. Religion never
makes one blind!
The blind sometimes
live by religion!

8. Corpse upon corpse,
that's where the inhuman finds hope!

9. The killing and slaughter
born of greed to live a little better after death—
the responsibility for this can never
rest on the murderer alone.

10. The true identity of the devout is revealed
not inside the place of worship, but outside.

11. A holy war
waged as much to protect one's own faith
as to destroy another's
is nothing but religious fanaticism.

12. One whose God
exists only in scripture and sky—
their blindness is beyond cure!

13. One who seeks people
by understanding their community
only looks
human!

14. Even the five fingers
of the same hand are not equal.
Even five children
of the same mother are not all bastards.

15. Your religious practice
is what reveals you.

16. The weak always
win by wounding
the weaker!

17. The wild grass that bloomed this autumn
will bloom again that autumn too...
Set fire to the grassland all you want!

18. If your god
becomes my dog,
then in truth...I am the dog!

19. If your path to heaven
doesn't block
my chariot racing to hell,
then what sense does it make to pull me toward heaven?!

20. Some light's decay,
some good's fear,
some darkness's victory...
in all this descends perfect night!