Getting Religion

After having worked all your life,
The new lords of management
Have arrived with their new religion,
Preaching the glories of poverty,
Not for them, just for you
And others of your ilk and age.

Soon you will be shown the door,
The imprint of a large iron boot
Bruised into your backside.
The lords of management encourage you
To enjoy your new freedom
As you fight among the beggars
For a place on the sidewalk
With a cardboard bed,
And an open air urinal.

- Joseph Farley

(featured in the poetry forum 01.02.12)

editor's note: This is enough to make atheists of us all. No god but mammon? - mh

Thieves In High Places

The hand in your right pocket
and the hand in your left
are both responsible
for stealing your future
and robbing you of your past.

These outlaws seldom ride together.
Both have bounties on their heads.
When things get hot they disappear
into sand and sagebrush.

It's been said one's in Mexico;
the other hiding out in Greece.
If they ever get brought to justice,
notify me, please.

I'd like to see the trial.
I'd like to hear the pleas.
I'd like to hear the judgment
and the sentence for these creeps.

Then I'll slip back to my shack
where a better house once stood,
and I'll eat a can of cat food
and drink to the gone neighborhood.

- Joseph Farley

(featured in the poetry forum 11.09.11)

editor's note: Anyday, in any future, the thieving country could be yours. Let's drink to the gone neighborhood while we can. - mh

Chained

We grasp for things and will not let go,
so we are trapped by the things we hold.
Now ask yourself if this case be true,
who owns what and what owns who?

- Joseph Farley

(featured in the poetry forum 09.25.11)

editor's note: Well, if possession is nine tenths of the law; then everything, everyone - demons all! Cast them out! - mh