Evangelistas

I was watching TV the other day, something I don't do often. I don't subscibe to cable or satellite TV, and I am a channel surfer. I was clicking around the channels, which include several "Christian" broadcast stations, and one of them had on a group of old white men, sitting around a table talking about the sins of the world. It brought to mind people like Jim Baker, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and others of that ilk. It gave me an idea for this poem:


Rich Old White Men Wearing Expensive Suits

Rich old white men
wearing expensive suits
pontificating
on the evils
of liberals and gays
and single parent families
preaching about
the coming final battle
good versus evil
as if they wished
they could make it happen
a prerequisite
for the second coming of Jesus
in spite of all the people
who would be killed in the destruction

Rich old white men
wearing expensive suits
strut across the stage
yelling and waving their Bibles
putting the fear of God
in those who feel the need
to fear something
taking people’s money
to pad their lavish lifestyles
and to promote
their own brand of poison
they fund schools and missions
that obliterate and subvert
the true mission of their Savior
that every man woman and child
should be loved and honored
as if each one
was the Creator in person

Rich old white men
wearing expensive suits
never stood in a food line
slept on a sidewalk
filed for unemployment
they never wore a uniform
feared death in battle
lost a limb or a loved one
to a roadside bomb
or a sniper’s bullet
though their dollars
have often purchased
land mines and sniper’s bullets
they never picked cotton
cabbages or fruit
never swung a hammer for a living
never sweated to make a mortgage payment
or worried about health care
But they will take
an old woman’s last dollar
let her think she’s saved
and tell her Jesus loves her
until she loses her home

Rich old white men
wearing expensive suits
are destroying my country
club people over the head
with their Bibles
use Old Testament Law
for a New Testament religion
that bombs medical clinics
and shoots doctors
invades hospices
trampling family’s grief
there is no New World
to which we can escape them
seek refuge from persecution
like the Pilgrims of old
freedom of religion
freedom from religion
freedom of thought
freedom to live however we damn well please

Rich old white men
wearing expensive suits
we can only wait for them to die

Life in America

Life in America


Put down that plastic
and step away from the sales counter
Visa is not your friend
Capital One
has a place for you
on the rowing bench
below decks

Your house is in foreclosure
the cost of gasoline
is going up again
and the price of milk and cheese
are not too far behind

Your boss hasn’t told you yet
but your job just went overseas
and the guy
sitting at your desk
is thirty years younger
earns half as much as you
and doesn’t speak English

But your Director
is taking his whole family
to Cozumel for Christmas
on the bonus he got
for cutting expenses

And that my friend
is the price you pay
for voting Republican