Imagine That

Imagine that Hiroshima was just the name of a city in Japan
Imagine that the World Trade Center was always a barter fair & free school
Imagine that polyester & polystyrene never got invented & that polyamory never dies
Imagine that those yellow ribbons were tied around the cowardly future of Tom DeLay
Imagine that Buddy Holly never died, and he was our most famous Texan
Imagine that giving teens condoms was never (& will never be) considered a crime
against morality
Imagine that Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes were gay lovers who donate part of their
salaries to fight AIDS
(& then imagine a world without AIDS, where sex is not considered sinful in any
consensual context)
Imagine that factions learned facts, facing the fact that fighting for peace is like fucking
for virginity
Imagine that Christians & Muslims finally understood that they're merely different
denominations of the same religion in love with the idea of one-true-god
Imagine that Christians who call for the kingdom stop shoppin' like it's the blingdom
they really want
Imagine that Bishop Romero never got shot by the death squads in El Salvador
Imagine that teens demanding $200,000 for coming-of-age parties donated that cash to
Katrina relief
Imagine that the first Browns stayed in Cleveland & they won the Super Bowl in 2001
Imagine that the X Box 360 was actually a sacred sex toy
Imagine that Martin & Malcolm lived & transformed that handshake into peaceful black
power
Imagine that the hunters who gave venison jerky to the troops included the message "Kill
Bambi, not Iraqis" in the care package sent overseas
Imagine that Hugo Chavez & Fidel Castro supported civil liberties as much as the
liberation theology of anti-imperialism
Imagine that Tupac Shakur was still alive & kicking the ass of hip hop hypocrisy
Imagine that Janis Joplin & Jim Morrison & Jimi Hendrix still party, put our records, &
live on an island that never was the site of a Reality TV show
Imagine that the person you loved & lost is standing behind you while read this, ready to
touch your shoulder at any moment
Imagine that the term collateral damage referred to the deflation of the global capitalist
oligarchy
Imagine that Bush never got elected, selected, or otherwise connected to the main vein of
control
Imagine that John Lennon never died

--Anu Bonobo
8 December 2005