Providence

Fear alights ten billion bilious

Slouching toward Bethlehem

Hordes burn and horror breeds boredom

For fortune favors a slave

No God, no grace, no providence

Neglect brings plagues of fire

Frail and failure forges pale disgrace

Fortressed lathe of forbidden wisdom

Carcass scalded, crushed carapace

Boil the bones

And steal the stones of sanctimony

Salt the wound

And crush the tomb as testimony

No God, no grace, no providence

Kohoutek ecstasy, blind blade bleed

Sacrificial lamb intransigent

Ablaze in wisdom, ash of wilderness

For the furnace does not forget

Parasitic venal sludge

Broken, scoliosis

Paroxysmal holy host

Spinal column cruciform

Thorns like spirals clash and crawl ecclesiastic

Where horizons cease

Where grace is dead

Where nothing lives

So be it

Amen