If You Swallowed

If you swallowed mainstream religion Then, you are a trout- Not a salmon, they swim free; Swim upstream, from somewhere They can't remember And going, who knows where They go in freedom; peace And they return home again, to mate But there are no other salmon there ranting at them Shouting them down from from the riverbanks That they're damned, And that they were damned from the first moment Of conception, in their mother's watery egg sac; Or that they will be better, finer salmon Than their doomed, atheistic neighbors If they will tithe and sacrifice Their first born, with rituals performed In approximation of ancient blood sacrifice Beneath the clear water, they do not fear Nature and sex, as abhorrent and evil. If you swallowed mainstream religion You have the mark of the beast within you now; And only by baptizing yourself In the unmuddied currents of your own soul And refusing ownership by anyone or anything else Can you reclaim your honest, unsullied birthright; Be the man you were meant to be, Before you were taught the fear Of everything that is beautiful, and natural, and right Only man can take a pristine world and make it unpalatable And then blame the whole world for his own astigmatism.