Father Moloch

 They in their purple and their crimson

faces painted like a mural in a brothel,

their tired hair piled high and

hands in an attitude of most 

Holy Sacred Prayer did

take their children

to the temple of their fathers

and their fathers' fathers, 

there to be fed to the brazen beast

as was the custom

and their great privilege.

And you could not say them wrong

for they would have no ears to hear it

nor did they have eyes to see

their babies' faces

as the priests took their spotless virgin

offerings--and no god intervened.

Gathered and Checked

 If you go out not knowing

when to be checked

the world will see you wrecked

because you sway out there

not with a chip on your shoulder

but all made up of chips--

stacks to gamble for, stacks to bargain with,

and this life will just

chip, chip, chip away.

Your most loving friends will

gather you up in their loving arms,

but O! Up in arms you will 

surely be gathered by them, too.

Get your chips on the table--

you may be gambling with the world

but you can still enjoy the game

depending upon who you play with

and if you know when not to play.

Scrolls

If you unwrap these

charred skins

depicting a scene of war

you would read of

a world: a universe

of trapped and 

channeled woe, a tale of

persecution

for the wrongs of others

at last

with nowhere left

to go,

And you might think

them ancient,

the scarred remains of

history's flow.

But they breathed life

the same as ours

only sadder

but a little while 

ago.

 

This Butcher Low-Fallen

 His landing was hard 

they said, euphemistically 

in a place where words 

are made to hide truths,

not to reveal them,

and he was 

brought down

as his prized meats 

were still hanging--

because he was a butcher, caught

in the blades of history

sliced for others 

to dine on as he once

ate and ate and ate.

Who is served by this?

Who knows? Just

get ready with your plate. 

Afraid New World

 There was no room for emergency

in the emergency room

so she settled into her car

as life emerged from her,

and then life left

her infant, too.

What were the doctors supposed to do?

If you said first, no harm

then no harm done,

but that math isn't fooling

anyone. It's attention diverted

from the harm of inaction

when fear has gained traction

and pro-life is merely

forced birth,

and such births will happen anyhow

and that the baby died doesn't matter

to the screamers now-

having happened in a car

not a clinic.

Call me a cynic, but if you call this 

an act of God, or

an act of fate,

I would say no--it was the state

that barred the door

that tied the hands

that choked the heart

that buried the child, 

all mummified in red tape. 

Tape as red as blood. 

The Piece of Work

 There he shrugged 

boasting of his mission

while a great task lay before

the staring eyes of the world. 

Plucked from his river

bed soft as a baby otter

he sees the injustice of the world

and having taken his place

in the house of Pharoah

his mind too narrow

to do more than snap,

he isn't going to do crap

to remind of us of

his imagined avatar

but to be sitting in a stalled car

overseeing an exodus.

To Those in the Stands

 You who sit by the fragrant smoke, 

you, punters, never having carried a spear, 

hear me in this arena, for I speak

of the man who has fought here

and never left.

Shame on us if

having placed a mantle of duty

upon old shoulders, 'tis we

who wince at the weight 

and mock his white hairs.

You complain you are in

the shade of a colossus

from under this banner,

as he stands in the heat.

Were we ready to shoulder this burden

as if young Atlas ourselves?

Who with such speed and certainty

came to stand in this gap? 

(Who are these, the 

grasshopper champions who wake

having slumbered so long

and can do nothing but spit?)

Our generation has shrugged at

the heft of the world--

who would now leave it

to these idle hands? 

To your feet! 

A Herculean task awaits--

stables are in need of clearing 

and hydra-headed woes 

have need of your torch.