Once upon perdition :re-edited:
The apostate looked out his window,
and started to believe
As genuflecting pylons
sent ramifications through the trees
Chaos questioned reason,
hoping for a guilty plea
but the world was too far gone,
so began the killing spree
The Crier rang his leper bell:
“Our town’s a godless apparition”
Filling hearts with envy
of a once-dreaded condition
Now the King prayed for calm,
in a pagan act of contrition
After his son died at birth,
he had proscribed all religion
Atheists came from all around,
excommunication filled the air
Roots faced horizontal,
trying to feed off despair
Anxious to leave town,
fallen gargoyles block civic square
Steeplejacks grow disoriented,
from looking up at disrepair
“That hole’s not deep enough,”
winked the jester to the knave
He could never resist a shortcut,
even digging his own grave
As the madness continued,
hermits set fire each other’s caves
Shedding light on the void,
by burning alive its willing slaves
With the apocalypse gathering pace,
populations slowly died
Some genius came forward
a real madman in disguise
Said, “We need a scapegoat—
a martyr, an ultimate sacrifice”
He was crucified for being too clever;
they much preferred no advice
And whilst writing this story,
that apparently makes no sense
the queen was in her chambers,
hanging herself from suspense
Children butcher themselves gaily,
having learned how to fence
As for putting fear of God in us,
the wicked come crawling to repent
At last when heaven reopened,
an eclipse tried darken that day
Never to see man overcast again,
Sun went nova, boiling all life away…
By
David Kavanagh
Copyright ©
David Kavanagh
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