Private Mass

Sunday morning: I could feel religious
But then again too much so to join in
Manhandling the miracle of the mass
So I will just sit with the homeless now
Panhandling for miracles on the grass
Like finding a quarter somebody lost
Writing as honestly as I know how
While keeping to myself how much it cost

Here as everywhere that white-collar sin
Of the influential and prestigious
Redeems the rapists of the ruling class
Wiping their smug souls clean within the hour
With minimal inconvenience to all
So they can rush back to wielding the power
Which binds us in the darkness one and all
They own everything including the priest

We pass no protestant collection plates
But velvet alms-bags stuffed with envelopes
Unrattled by the loose change of the least
By these our masters would control our fates
And since they own them freely dash the hopes
Of those who only ask that they might live
But the best lives now are sold for money
The rest of us just want God to forgive

The joke is on us no longer funny
The priest just another snout at the trough
If they could they would not let me be there
I cannot pass the means-test given here
Nor could my Lord so we have taken off
But I think he is with me everywhere
Except back there with those people I fear
We will stay where life is free and sunny

Out among the broken where the wind blows
While the fat and lazy priest goes to brunch
To root out any crumbs which got away
His snout smells money and he has a hunch
That the swine will be first on Judgment Day
They have theirs now but someday I want mine
"The first shall be last" I heard Jesus say
And it is he who gives the bread and wine

His body and blood unite with my own
His priest went to brunch and we are alone

+Steven Curtis Lance



Copyright MMVIII