We Extol the Glories of Heaven
While Ignoring Social Conditions
That cause Humans an Earthly Hell²
The God I been Praying to is a Man,
And act just like all the other Mens I
Know: Trifling, Forgitful, Lowdown³
Talk of Heaven! Ye Disgrace the Earth⁴
So Busy Worrying about the Next World –
They’ve Never Learned to Live in This one⁵
They look on the rest of Mankind as a Doomed
Carcass – which is to Nourish them for Heaven⁶
Christ Died on the Cross for you, but it Hardly
Shows – the Savior Botched your Salvation⁷
Hell is the invention of Money-Makers –
Its purpose to Divert the Attention of the
Poor from their present Affliction: Hell
Bestows a Sanctity on amassed Wealth⁸
At God’s Trial we’ll ask: Why do you
Allow all this? and the answer will be
An Echo: Why do you Allow all this?⁹
I don’t Trust the God you’ve Given
Us: though his Songs are Beautiful,
His Miracles are Inconsistent¹⁰
¹ Susan Griffin, Prayer For Continuation
² Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can’t Wait
³ Alice Walker, The Color Purple
⁴ Henry David Thoreau, Walden
⁵ Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
⁶ George Eliot, Middlemarch
⁷ Victor Serge tr. James Brook, The Asphyxiated Man
⁸ John Berger, From A to X
⁹ Ilya Kaminsky, A City Like a Guillotine Shivers on Its Way to the Neck
¹⁰ Danez Smith, Dear White America