For the Love of God

steeped in faith in values

the cowing clerks send forth

their tribe's helicopters

to circle to herd

their cowboys to capture

to sell for slaughter

the wild prairie horses

to invisible cash-rich

others in faraway

corruptible places

even more bankrupt

than where we once were

the thunder of the horses

doesn't echo through

the madness floating

over the shallow moat

reflecting the white castle

where for the love of god

beef burgers are offered and sold

for bitcoins paid under the table

to disposable obsequious waiters

the once eloquent statesmen

drink an aphrodisiac

distilled from the urine of fox

to cure their dystopian malaise

clerics put a statue of an ass

porcelain sheep and oxen

to oversee the empty manger

in front of the remaining

national monument

someone having stolen the savior

everywhere acolytes

attired in shades

of apricot and rust

saffron and carrot

tangerine and pumpkin

hew to a new rule about

the role empathy plays within

the borders of the kingdom

virtue cobbled together

from a misreading

of a paperback of fables

about make-believe transactions

and a strained interpretation

of a once holy book

bound in leather

everyone feeling good and

claiming to believe

no one should ever

feel the pain of living beings

human plant or animal

insect bacterium or fungus

even lowly mold and scum

unless they come

donning the family colors