We came in legions and hordes
Distraught, distressed and at great odds
Seeking absolution, desperate for healing
For a foul conscience and this numbness of feeling
We came laden with tokens of our listless journeying
Glittering contraptions and acquisitions of mammon’s offering
Clad in the fake aura of earth’s fading glory
We traversed howling deserts: that elixir of vainglory

The chalice of human capability remained empty
The cost of maintaining this charade: prohibitively hefty
We longed to quench the thirst for life’s missing meaning
To be rid of the crushing burden of sin’s unrelenting underpinning
We came shattered and in tatters
Barely surviving the endless drift in death infested waters
Despaired of life, dispossessed of hope
Condemned to be stretched beyond our ability to cope
We reaped the bounties of flouting the eternal warning
Victims in the unceasing deadly celestial wrangling

With the last instalment of strength and inflamed desire
We clawed towards our prospective messiah
That awe-inspiring agent of magnanimous divinity
Though clad in the gaudy vestment of errant humanity
Splayed at his feet and devoid of every pretension
We grovelled in undisguised contrition
Longing for the manna of the indestructible life
Craving the privilege to surmount all strife
Seeking audience with the true essence of our being
And making supplication to the all-Seeing

We were fed with the bread of life abiding
We drank freely of the well of joy unending
Immersed in the pool of peace beyond definition
And buoyed by the reality of love’s ultimate consummation
We took our first faltering steps on the journey to Certainty
Our blurred gaze fixed on things that belong in eternity
With increasing strength and sharpening vision
Raiding the enemy’s enclave became our sworn vision
Rescuing lives stripped of dignity and harmony
Compatriots arrested by sin’s hideous hegemony

Then we discovered the messiah’s affliction of shifting passion
Yesterday’s junk and dung crawling back into commission
Texts and homilies of dubious imprimatur
Contending with Holy Writ as inerrant tutor
Garbled ranting aggregated into the inspired book
Jaundiced justifications approximating gobble-de-gook
Since service to mammon is forbidden
We forged a decree to compel it to do as bidden
Forced into an accommodation as Elohim’s subservient neighbour
Mammon became the anointed token of divine favour

“To best the world” became the frenzied chorus
“They have no right to live larger and better than us!”
We abandoned the fate of perishing souls
To acquire the privilege of expensive soles
We strayed far from the mores of the kingdom
Bewitched by the lure of ephemeral stardom
We must return to the Rock we were hewn from
To survive Armageddon’s looming storm


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