IN SEARCH OF THOMAS PAINE D av i D S pa r e n b e r g IN SEARCH OF THOMAS PAINE Poems & Prose of Conscience David Sparenberg An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi ebookpublications - all material is copyright of the Ovi ebooks publications & the writer David Sparenberg C Ovi ebooks are available in Ovi/Ovi ebookshelves pages and they are for free. if somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book IN SEARCH OF THOMAS PAINE IN SEARCH OF THOMAS PAINE David Sparenberg Original Poetry & Prose on Resistance, Rebellion & Liberation Thomas Paine the Conscience of the American Revolution Author of The Rights of Man & Common Sense David Sparenberg An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi ebookpublications - all material is copyright of the Ovi ebooks publications & the writer David Sparenberg C IN SEARCH OF THOMAS PAINE CONTENTS Sounding Human Rights First Democracy In the Human World Faces Walls A Political Act of Murder As We Say Tao The White Rose Candle A Man Stands Up Choices Warrior’s Choice Gestalt of the Dialogue People Freedom Turning of the Tide We Dreamed Ourselves Awake Lavender Road & the Eloquence of Life Liberation David Sparenberg An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi ebookpublications - all material is copyright of the Ovi ebooks publications & the writer David Sparenberg C IN SEARCH OF THOMAS PAINE SOUNDING There is a tremendous rumbling coming over this world. Only those already dead in their souls do not feel it. It is felt in clouds, felt in seas, felt in mountains, felt dark in roots of trees, felt even in buried stones—the monkish memories of old Earth. There is a pealing of thunder coming over this world, louder than the trumpets of war. Only those who pre- tend to be deaf refuse to listen, multitudes of walking dead. Stop, all you who are alive and ensouled! Be alert, you awake and breathing! What is coming? What is this sounding, percussive over the world? Is it death? Is it freedom? David Sparenberg Death is winnowing. So too is freedom. Too many deny the God-gift of our humanity. Evil becomes pos- sessive. Time now for good people of the Earth to rage. Not rage in madness or surrender to preachment-politics of fear and hatred. But rage in the passion of hurt love, of love abused and life betrayed. Rage against suffering from injustice. Rage against greed and hording of power; against the cannibalism of anti-man devouring Earth, undoing creation. Rage, rage in the deep resistance and affirmation of a Dylan Thomas rage. With voice of the resonance of love sounding inside, and between us. Give me and give to those who are akin and my friends a faith profound and equal to our trust. Empower us in trusting. Yes. A faith of rivers: let it be rivers large and small. A faith horizontal with providing, vertical with the witnessing chivalry of trees, playful and prayerful with imaginations of clouds, inspired by the monkish illuminations of stones, baptized with needs of oceans for salted purity and ceaseless song, emboldened by the stout, enduring hearts, and minds of mountains— IN SEARCH OF THOMAS PAINE the mighty cathedrals of nature, Zen in their snowy crowns, wild on their Shinto slopes. There is a sounding—listen! Listen! Yes. What is it? The sounding. Gathering. Is it death? Is it freedom? David Sparenberg HUMAN RIGHTS Nobody has the right to take me out and shoot me. To put bullets in my head and body, there against the already bloody wall. To end me here because my opin- ions differ. Nobody has the right to snatch me up in the night, drag me off, interrogate and torture, and leave my bat- tered body to rot in cold fear and darkness. Or toss my scarcely breathing remains out in a sack, along some grim, black road. To do this and more because I open my mouth, because I dare to denounce the criminality of silence. Ah... Nobody... Nobody has the right to feed on my flesh, to savage my heart, to rip out and devour and suck dry my soul. Or to feast on my family, my children. To preach and to practice hatred against those whose speech is unfa- miliar, and who look and pray, eat and dress differently. IN SEARCH OF THOMAS PAINE Nobody has the right to do any of this. To commit these crimes against my humanity, or against you. Since the behaviors of anti-man are without rights, they are not right, the doing to others must be wrong. Yet such wrong is done! It is political. If we look with open eyes, we find cruelty, brutality politicized, every - where. Violations, everywhere. When then do good people stand up together? When does resistance become solidarity? What of justice? What of decency? How and when does the nightmare fade and the dream awaken? How and when will his- tory end and democracy, not the sham and illusion, but the true power of democracy, of self-governing peoples, prevail? Remember what used to be said: “Send not to know for whom the bell tolls .” And: “If not now, when? If not here, where?” * *Attributed to English Metaphysical Poet John Donne & Tal- mudic Rabbi Hillel the Elder, a contemporary of Jesus. David Sparenberg FIRST DEMOCRACY I am here. This is me. My hands at the ends of my arms twirl, making circular motions. My soul is lively, my spirit thrives in motion. My feet at the ends of my legs form patterns, pictographs of where I have been, my direction, where I am heading. My footsteps fol- low me and I am remembered. Earth: I am walking. The way goes out like this before. The way goes out like this behind. I am part of what is out before. I am part of what is behind. I am part of it all and all of it is part of me. Earth and the life of Earth surrounds me. Conjoining as far as the eye can see—to be conjoined as far as my legs will take me. IN SEARCH OF THOMAS PAINE Truth is in good Ecosophy. There is truth in these words. There is Gospel, meaning Good News, in the urgency of what is said here. Crookedly the paths meander, passages curving through space and time. Pleasure is to be found along the journey. Wonderment springs up at intervals, nests, and ceremonies of the wayside. Occasions of lamen- tation. Rituals and spontaneities of joy. Deep in the repository of my soul are stored fins to swim in rivers to the oceans. Deep in the repository of my soul wings await to fly on winds. Quiet. Listen. The sounds of fluttering, all but lost amid the per - sistence of breath and heartbeat (and the disastrous distractions of mechanical thunder). All but lost in the clamor trauma time has become. My hands make circular motions. Watch now. I fly atop trees, between the metamorphic circus of atmospheric clouds. My heart, which can betray or affirm us, fills with songs of freedom. The whale knows more songs than I do. Bless the whale for singing, for the flights of birds and cosmic dreamers. My hands make circular motions. I help to shape what- ever greets me; what greets me gives shape to who I David Sparenberg am. Shadow too records memories of life’s commu- nions, broken treaties weighted off against enchant- ments of connections. I am here. This is me. Out along the Red Path, learn- ing from experience, gleaming from the harvest of first democracy—from first day, hour, minute, breath, when eyes opened, mouth opened, tongue licked del- icate lips, fists tightened, unclenched to clutch at light and air—experiencing what it is to become a human being, Earthling, a person, a presence on the Living Earth. Whatever I touch touches me before I get there. Turn- ing toward is communication. This is how it is here. How truth is lived on this Living Earth. Do not let truth vanish. Do not let Earth die. IN SEARCH OF THOMAS PAINE IN the HUMAN WORLD ’ In the human world’ we have heroes and villains and cowards. Those who defend life taking risks above and beyond self interest those who destroy life and those we do not care who play games of selfish detachment and indifference. The Human Condition Is Conditional. Everywhere where existence is and always in an instance on any engaging or immersive day choices are mad making us what and how and who we are. David Sparenberg Being Human We Make Choices. And choice define us on a level collectively as a species within the relational interweave of this time unfolding evolutionary Earth. And in consciousness the vulnerable intimacies of each singular life. The Human Condition Is Conditional. We make choices. Everywhere where existence is and always n each instance on any engaging or immersive day choices are made making us what and how and who we are. IN SEARCH OF THOMAS PAINE Being Human We Make Choices. And choices define us on a level collectively as a species within the relational interweave of this time unfolding evolutionary Earth. And in consciousness the vulnerable intimacies of each singular life. The Human Condition Is Conditional. We make choices David Sparenberg FACES The world is full. Filled with hardships. Filled with courage. Filled with suffering. Everywhere There are human faces. Everywhere the pathos Of conscious mortality. Everywhere the pathos Of human faces. The world is full. Filled with struggles and denials. With longing voices And despair. The rising and the falling And the wasting of life. Filled with broken hearts And filled with mending souls. IN SEARCH OF THOMAS PAINE Filled with the scattered Lights of hope and happiness. Filled with the heavy shadows Of sorrow. Filled with everyday heroics (because it is not easy being human). Filled with sleepless nights. With fears and stories And with dreams. With endless loneliness too. The world is full. David Sparenberg WALLS I am stupid. We are all stupid. We worship the idols of human stupidity. We build walls. The alternative is intimate and easy. People everywhere are waiting... Individually, people everywhere are waiting. Not for the promise of perfection or utopia. Not for absolute answers to the questions which tease and torment us all. Not to be saved from foolishness, our shadows or from our neighbors.