This Temple! Poem by Eric Cockrell

the walls of this temple,
so soft and plush,
made from the skin stripped

from the bodies
of the dead and conquered.
gold plated offering plates

made of the tiny hands
of the ones we let starve.
prayers hang, like the broken necks

of those we executed for color.
scriptures lost, like the children,
to a place no one reads...

the organ pumps, oil rigs regurgitating,
the Wall Street priests perform
like circus monkeys in hell....

the god of the dollar waits for no one,
the register rings, redemption,
food crumbs falling from the faces

of blackened souls without identity!