Empty Tent

You come on like a bureaucrat
Rearranging leaves on sidewalks
A windy megaphone neither
Espiritu nor vita vox
A thimble of salvation from
Our Lady of the Mother Goose
Drown babies in the baptismal
Mother Superior on the loose

The history of mystery
Says the victim must be willing
The blood of One is good for all
And yet the blood keeps spilling
Autonomy means I am free
Petition slain before the throne
Member of neither church nor sword
I must face the Judge alone

Bloody up the holy waters
Water down the holy blood
Woe to those who call good evil
And those who call evil good

The harlot and her wayward bastard
Protestant progeny
Nail messiahs to their doorposts
Penitence in a lottery
A shot of judas on the rocks
Bloody sacrificial juices
Wafers crunch like savior bones
Candles burn away excuses

I kneel before the guillotine
Victim to my own sedition
A shipwrecked captain on the rocks
Fleshed within human condition
I cannot make my own way home
These tithes will never cover rent
Spirit take me by the soul
Wind come fill this empty tent

Bloody up the holy waters
Water down the holy blood
Woe to those who call good evil
And those who call evil good

 © John Kennan 4-5-21