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The Homeless Saint



(Portrait from Lazarus Speaks)

All of the cities are ablaze with celebration. The ragged and homeless Saint Labre nods as I, the inflexible spectator, look sideways to avoid his tattered gaze of expectation.

The streets of the world still come alive at sundown, laugh and laugh and circle round and round without a care or vital thought piercing the ragged spirit. The tables are set, no time for regret. The lawns are cut, no time for rain. The streets are full, no time for silence. The children are dead, no time for pain.

Parents of this racket wail their consent with their indifference to murderous war. I've the blood of children on my hands and must put an end to murder evermore or the ground will certainly swallow me up and the sky will collapse upon the reception. Prospering from murder, greed and deception will relinquish my solemn vow with creation.

I declare to you that these things I do not know. I’m not supposed to know. I’m meant to believe. If I knew, faith would cease to have meaning and creation wouldn’t be a god and pony show! This day and age is not mine to devour, not mine to consume. The banquet of horrid lies assembled before me is heaped with greed, with the murder found in equally horrid and complicit eyes.


© 2011 by mark prime

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