Night Preachers Poem by Tan Pratonix

I have heard them in the middle of the night
At the street corners. When all is asleep
And the moon hangs heavy in the torpor of no-thought
Tongues break -
Whips lash the wrath of heaven on the heathen,
And the minds walled with the fear of God will tomb.
The heart must cringe and the eyes shrink,
For the ecclesiastic fury of the voices with no face
Will pound and grind the mills of doom
With no teeth.

What is the wrath of God that must break
In the horror of the images of hell? that must lash
In the scorpion's tail? that must grill?
God is no mad preacher;
The all-embracing arms will fold the stray sheep
That dud doomsayers kill.

TAN PRATONIX

(Note: This was written long before I was born again.)