Where We Went Wrong

We Went Wrong

When Once We Wandered

Winding Ways.

We Quit Going Out Together.

So the Dark Lions Found Us

Easy Meat to Take.

We Did Not See The Dark Lions Coming

Though One Wonders How We Missed Them.

They Warned Us We Were Weak

Then Showed Us

Wild Fangs

The Kin of the King

of Dark Murder

Who Knows No Shame

Who Calls His Crimes Righteous

Who Thinks His Guilt Is Innocence.

The Dark Lions oped Our Flaccid Hearts.

They Skipped Our Weak and Wobbly Ones.

They Went Right for the Strength of The Strong

Because Someone Told Them

Once They Hamstrung the Strong

The Wobbly-Legged

Would Not Be Far Away.

Part Two

Lions Lusted Lasciviously,

Long-Leering

Larcenous Loins

Unleashed a'last,

Let Loose Their Lash.

Our Pride Fell to Their Prides.

We Looked to Our Purse

While a Ravening Host

Wrapped Around Our Wind Pipe

Choking Us Down to Death.

The Alpha Predator

Uses Her Fangs to Tear

After She Kills.

She Kills With Her Weight

and the Weight of Her Fiends

Set on the Throat.

When Light Leaves

the  Frightened Eyes

of Her Prey

Submission is Complete

Then Her Fangs Employ.

It is No Crime

To Be a Victim

It is a Shame

To Let the Next Ones

Stumble O'er Mangled Bodies

And Not Cry Foul.

Part Three

When the Killer Started

Some of Us Did Take Up Arms

Against a Sea of Troubles.

The Righteous Man Told Us

The Institution was Worth More

Than One Mangled Man

So Keep Quiet

Before You Ruin Everything.

Time Went On.

The Institution Became Like Anselm's God

"The One Thing Greater Than Which

No Greater Thing Could Be Imagined."

We Became a Vicious Little Circle

of Once-Believers.

Every Death was Explained as Insignificant

Next to the Good the Greater Body

Could Do.

Until We Finally Supposed

We Could Have a Church Without People

And a Convention of Churches

Without Churches.

So, Some of Us Rose Up Again.

We Told the Haters-Out-Front,

"You Don't Do Much Good

Because You Don't Do Good Much."

This Time They Didn't Even Look Up

From Their Eating.

Covered with Gore

They Just Pawed and Growled.

Their Orgy Made the Old Days

Seem Almost Honorable By Comparison.

There is Something Ennobling

About Having a Lion Eat You.

At Least She is a Queen.

There is No Dignity

When the Jackals Come

the Fickle Trash-Eaters

the Sunshine Patriots

and the Sometime Heroes.

I'd Sooner

Line a Lion's Entrails

Than Have My Poor Rotted Corpse

Cleaned Up By a Laughing Hyena

With Smacking Lips

Permanently Curled

Around a Hideous Face.