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current.
by John Davis author info
two days after the new york premiere gala
for the proverb "you can never step
in the same river twice,"
angry religious leaders
and conservative educators
met at a thinktank hidden
from the public for their own safety.
"we can't let this dangerous
relativism pollute our culture."
"this is all the fault of the liberal
media."
"if we allow this to happen,
we may as well flush
the nation down the toilet."
"this is all a result of misinterpreting
the constitution."
"no it's all a result of falling
away from the biblical view of rivers."
they considered impeaching the president
& cutting funding from arts programs
whose artists depicted rivers
as mutable entities & posting
the ten commandments in classrooms
alongside the statement: "rivers
are always rivers."
a national council of churches
was formed to ensure no god-
fearing churchgoer would stumble
into satan's deceptive philosophy
& they wrote a manifesto
entitled "back to the fundamentals
of rivers" in which they proclaimed
that the only real rivers
are those which act like the tigris and euphrates
and the jordan from the bible.
after all, baptism wouldn't work
if rivers weren't the same as they were when christ
was baptized in 2000 yrs. ago.
believing in any other kind of river
meant going to hell.
talk radio hosts decried the collapse of family values
and encourged parents
to keep thier children away from the muddy
issue of rivers alogether, saying that a good old
fishing pond worked in the '50s
and it should still work now.
a former secretary of education
anthologized acceptable views of rivers
entitled a book of virtuous rivers.
congress set up the "house-nonconformist river
beliefs committee" to root out the dangerous
poison of tranisent river philosophy
from hollywood movies and dimestore novels.
still, the nation
hung on every thrilling
word that fell from the lips
the famous sitcom star who came
out on prime time tv
as a transient riverist
& though the police dogs
& spy satellites scrutinized american thoughts
& those who believed in nonstatic
rivers were interred in "holding
(concentration) camps,"
at four past midnight
in full moon illumination,
you could still find
dangerous and brave people
standing, feet in rivers,
letting the water flow downhill
over their toes out to sea,
noticing with the chemical elation
of enlightenment:
"this is not the same river it was a moment ago
& now it's not
that river
& now it's not
that river
& now it's not
that one."
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