I’ve seen the blooms of Your tearful anger

hurriedly color tomorrow’s horizons.

Brick by brick, the walls without, within,

fall from lofty position,

land at broken feet,

and the locust’s crop we shall reap

with gnashed teeth and troubled hearts

in the juvescence of an awry Spring.

Where was I?

Where was, and is, and almost-will-be gather

for a rotten ballroom pint,

vomit, hail a cab,

climb apartment stairs,

collapse, and ignore

Your knocking at the gates.

We engage

in post-cosmopolitan play

to forget the coming storm of to-day.

The ice-pick proverbial

performs a lobotomy literal

so a lifestyle liberal

won’t feel artificial

but none of this, Lord,

can last.

Our anthills

Our flats

Our glazed-over plastic eyes

Our evening and weekend jaunts

Our pretty little tapestry

with rainbows and parades

and crafty adulteration

it all soaks in the rain

down at the backed-up gutter

and the trashman

(industrious, hungry)

at the dump

has it scheduled

for incineration

Our hearts, Lord, they call out to You,

as we’re crushed by beasts we thought we tamed.

Those who light Your olden ways are few

while fertile is the shepherds’ den of knaves.

I’ve entered your temple full of awe

to see Your stewards build dwellings profane —

assailed are Your altars, Your just law,

while untruths and perversions are proclaimed.

To see the flag and nation fall apart

as the West begins falling to bruised knees

strikes fear in the just man’s broken heart

and dashes he to Your divine relief!

— But tolerate the madness, we cannot;

save us, Lord; your servants are servants not!