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I go to church each Sunday,
God warns ‘there’s much to fear,
the world is decomposing,
the final end is near’.

I go to church each Sunday
and taste the wine and bread,
though elsewhere on our globus
raw hunger reigns instead.

I go to church each Sunday,
hear preachers’ words rebuff
repentant pauper’s pleading
‘enough is not enough’.

I go to church each Sunday,
watch candles burning bright
although they don’t enlighten      
the demons of the night.

I go to church each Sunday
to wash away my sin,
while prophets make their profits
with wars that do us in.

I go to church each Sunday,
think thoughts incessantly
of all our planet’s peoples
denied equality.

I go to church each Sunday,  
sit peacefully in the nave
while folks afar seek, grieving,
throughout a boundless grave.

I go to church each Sunday
to view iconic forms
alive in lancet windows
that hide unholy storms.

I go to church each Sunday,
discharge the weekly tithe,
while others pay the piper
when Reaper whets his scythe.

I go to church each Sunday
regard the holy bell,
reflecting on the wastelands
where day and night they knell.

I go to church each Sunday,
hear persons of the cloth
disguise the hell hereafter
with wartime victory froth.

I go to church each Sunday,
half perched upon a pew;
with everything so hopeless,
what else can one but do?

I go to church each Sunday,
and gaze upon the steeple,
majestic as the rockets
that plunge on placid people.

I go to church each Sunday
to hear the choir’s song
keep time with banshees shrieking
within a world gone wrong.

I go to church each Sunday
(above, doves fly in flocks),
while far flung realms are flattened
beneath the wings of hawks.

I go to church each Sunday
and pray so oft for peace,
but still the death continues,
it never seems to cease.

I go to church each Sunday
to sing sad psalms of praise,
while distant drones are humming
o’er bodies burnt, ablaze.

I go to church each Sunday,
a quest to save my soul
’gainst warfare’s pride and plunder -
prayer never plays a role.

I go to church each Sunday
my errors to confess,
while countries keep on killing
and suffer no redress.

I go to church each Sunday
the future for to see -
a man-made Armageddon
that ends humanity.
Spurred on by and inspired by my pal M.G.
Terry O'Leary Nov 17
The world today is split in two
… or three... or four... or maybe more,
but nonetheless, one must confess,
all wage their wars as heretofore.

While blunderbusses prey for us
within our world where gods deceive,
atomic war, white phosphorus
and na-palm gel that burns, bereave.

Yes, Tweedledumb oft beats the drum
and pokes the pig and baits the boar
while tongues are wrung as songs are sung
distorting hymns of ‘Nevermore’.

And all the while the hordes defile
forgotten ghosts who haunt the coasts
awash in tears of crocodiles
who’ve lost the least but rue the most.

And Tweedledumber, somewhat glummer,
fills the sheath with claws and teeth
to arm the hacks and maniacs
who’ll dance the dance that death bequeaths.

Though blood runs red amongst the dead,
along the track the holes are black
and filled with human flesh in shreds -
for wily worms, a midnight snack.

In distant days, hell’s breeze ablaze,
death’s final wreath will sink beneath
ould yahoo’s wicked words that raise
the underworld from underneath.

But Hannibal, implacable,
is something weird and far more feared
by captured pawns within the squall
of sorry souls who’ve disappeared.

The devil deals the dead man’s hand
to Tweedledumber, Tweedledumb
who gamble in the promised land,
fill kingdom come with martyrdom.

Both Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber
slaying for more living space
have churned the chum throughout the summer -
carnage in a crowded place.

They worship warships, tanks galore,
cool macho stuff that’s sent to sn-uff –
along the shore the cannons roar,
some loud enough to call God’s bluff.

While passing over fields of clover,
every breath still smells of death
that’s dropped by drones and other rovers
shaming freedom’s shibboleth.

When phones explode and lawns are mowed
while Tweedledumb, the reaper, strums,
royal boats on River Styx are rowed
by moneyed men with calloused thumbs.

When Tweedledumb can’t overcome
the famished flocks midst sands and rocks,
or clear the slum to rid the sc-um
he’ll talk the talk to hard-nosed hawks.

And they in turn, with naught to learn,
will flap their wings and pull the strings
of those who yearn the quick return
of sandbox kings that victory brings.

Yes Tweedledumber makes him happy
sending BB guns and bombs,
maintaining armies tough and scrappy
killing kids, their dads and moms.

Because the Tweedles have no qualms
effacing foes’ knees, heads and toes,
the pious pray and sing sad psalms
the while that thousands die in throes.
Terry O'Leary Nov 15
Have you ever been drunk,
and submersed in a funk,
as if trapped in a trunk
but then asked to write junk
in a poem which stunk
though your mind has been shrunk
by a psychotic monk
who’s been beaten punch-drunk
and if not a slam dunk
as a poet you’ll flunk?
I had too much Pastis tonight...
Terry O'Leary Oct 31
The Holy Land neath hammer blows -
           is this what Jesus prophesied:
when sad-sack’s hanged like mistletoes
           the sightless see a suicide;
when thousands fall like dominoes
           the blind deny it’s homicide;
when women fry in thermal throes
           the gents reject it’s femicide
when rockets slaughter embryos
           the fools forget it’s feticide
when children die and decompose
           the dullards doubt infanticide;
when bodies burn with afterglows
           no one concedes it’s genocide.
Whichever way the west wind blows
           leaves morals dangling, crucified…
Terry O'Leary Aug 2023
The 6th and 9th have come and gone though none have taken note
that faraway, on those two days, an instant blazing blast
had vaporized morality. A bygone anecdote?
It seems such tales are best forgot and buried in the past.

But nonetheless, one must confess, the odds are highest now
that might and means have globalized the final battle field,
such that the victors also lose and perish anyhow.
The rulers in their zeal decide these facts be best concealed.

The warriors bit by bit rearm, their foes to nullify,
with strategies for victories where winners will prevail,
rejecting thoughts of compromise (though nukes are standing by!).
Yet still its grimly obvious that all will finally fail.

Beware you wide-eyed simpletons that follow, with the herd,
the drumbeat of the profiteers that draws us down this path
with prophesies of glory days and other things absurd.
Instead the skies above will burn, the only aftermath.
Terry O'Leary Jul 2021
The wrapes of Grath adorn the path that slammer klingks had tread
when turning spades in everglades to flosticate the dead.
Along the way the snorbels bay at freebled sprutelned
that boogeymen had once again uphove above the shed.

The buildings tall that housed the krawl are pictured carved in stone
and all that’s left is now bereft of wrapes that might atone
for scabs that feed our wrinkled breed, distraught and lying prone.
Yes, flonk replaces merpeled traces deep inside, alone.

There’s no retreat from incomplete, so durbies never dared,
but streaped instead beneath their bed with franjent fangs unbeared;
they knew the past could never last although the trumpets blared,
for doogies, stripped, were ill equipped, no longer bald or haired.

Like cavaliers with gougejent spears, well triggered for a tiff,
slank vankulures with silver spurs embussed for grimp and griff
(no question why, for “we can’t die”, the oft regleated riff);
with little fuss the blunder bus krunged glimpfly off the cliff
and fetid breet of grim defeat gave Grath its final whiff;
the catapult had one result, all life lay lazelled stiff.

The plastic waves that washed the graves, now homeland for the rutch,
though faring worse when quenching thirst with warples in the hutch
were nonetheless, as frunks confess, so pleasant to the touch
exturbing sinks that watered wynx and onetime life as such.

Like burning blotters slurping waters, skindles sipped their fill
from koozing cracks between the tracks inhumed beneath the hill,
then spawned the spores of Grathic wars that profit from the ****;
their victory tales, like crimson crails, reside in dung and dill.

Those scrilly clouds that cowed the crowds neath radiation snapes
left little less than watercress beneath their coffin’s drapes;
yes, those unborn cannot adorn the pallor of the prapes
so scrundlemun tinge bibberun, we ones who reap the wrapes.

Yes, now-abandoned hetzelspan were once in time embroiled
with merikained that firps extained until the weather roiled.
What more, perchance, can happenstance inflict upon the koiled
when pendlesnips are in eclipse and wrapes of Grath are soiled?
This [will be/has been] written in the future (3121 CE) by our evolutionary progeny (in the ruins left, after our apocalyptic demise) and [has been/will be] sent back to us as a warning, through a warped space-time wormhole.

But yeah, we won’t pay heed…

Note that ‘language’ [is/will be] different then… so it might sometimes be a little hard to understand...

(too much koolaid???)
Terry O'Leary Jun 2021
The noblemen control the pen, indeed they own the farm,
but nonetheless exude finesse (and need I mention charm?)
with revenue to sate the few, exulting arm in arm;
for all the rest, they wish the best and certainly mean no harm.

The fourth estate stands proud and straight, emplaced upon a peak,
beside a birch where parrots perch and claim the truth to speak;
while hatching schemes, they’re hawking dreams to keep us mild and meek,
promoted by the gods on high, that clever reigning clique.

They spread their lies throughout the sties to keep the truth at bay
and horoscopes are filled with hopes for those with faith to pray;
the other few wait in the queue, with faces made of clay,
collecting crumbs which have become their dreams of yesterday.

The tube embeds the talking heads (you know the ones, the tools)
who on the screens won’t spill the beans, lest mighty might unspools,
so bend the news reflecting views of those who set the rules
to obfuscate and fabricate their pabulum for fools.

With pyrite smiles and other wiles, they thrive concocting tales
that lead to wars on foreign shores, which help improve the sales
of missile tips and battleships, discounting death that pales
and broken hearts for body parts a graveled grave regales.

You wouldn’t guess, the yellow press, when out to make a ****,
will sell their soul (to dodge the dole) and feed the swine some swill –
a trenchant trope with inside dope that gives the crowds a thrill
(when mixed with tripe, they call it hype) and masks a bitter pill.

The tabloids reek of doublespeak – when did the stench begin?
In olden times, with paradigms, no doubt with but a grin;
but nowadays, in subtle ways, there’s far more discipline:
they scrawl their screeds neath headline ledes that give the tales a spin.

A clever dunce tried hard just once to read between the lies
and thereby found that facts are drowned within a newspeak guise.
Yeah, all that stuff reflects the slough they hide behind their eyes,
although absurd it fuels the herd like  sustaining flies.

Within the fort a special court is hidden from our view
where sits a judge who’ll never budge, called Captain Kangaroo;
as justice bleeds, those evil deeds (like leaking what is true)
will be convicted as pre-scripted by the hangman’s crew.

A blue-eyed wight uncloaks the night and when (by chance, perhaps)
his whistle blows, the airwaves close, high crime stays under wraps,
and those that sin prevail again with feathers in their caps;
the price instead’s the leaker’s head, precluding a relapse.
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