A New Pope Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

A New Pope

Rating: 2.8


There was an election in Rome,
and it was a true epitome.
But they all carried knives
in their piteous lives,
as they met in their ancient old dome.

And they fleetingly mentioned the Pope,
who had recently talked about hope.
Then the fighting began,
it was man against man.
And their tongues were as slippery as soap.

Of the one hundred hopefuls that came,
only fifty were senile and lame,
all the others were old
and their attitude bold,
and they played a ridiculous game.

When at last they came out of their church,
past the coffin that stood there, of birch.
There was only the one
and he sure was a Hun.
He was carried away on a perch.

It is said it was democratic
and results were indeed automatic.
But for decades to come
it was whispered by some
that the meeting produced so much static,

that the chair, with reluctance agreed,
in this time of an obvious need,
that to pay your way in
was considered no sin,
and the church will be richer indeed.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Herbert Nehrlich1 19 April 2005

Has his Peckerhood given me a six?

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Mahnaz Zardoust-Ahari 07 September 2005

That is one way to put it!

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Martina Elenbaas 25 April 2005

First of all, thank you for your comments about my poetry. I read your poem about the pope and thought 'Why would anyone write a poem after all we have had to suffer already though all the tv coverage! ' Thank goodness your poem was tongue in cheek. I say after all that happened with the assaults by priests on young boys and girls how can anyone take any of this seriously! I have expressed my thoughts on that in a poem, I will soon put it into my collection. I do enjoy your poetry.

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Herbert Nehrlich1 20 April 2005

Rich, it is people like you who could have supported the nomination of Saywell for Pope. If you want progressive and versatile and peace-loving. Instead you allowed a Bavarian Pope..... H

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Rich Hanson 20 April 2005

Surprise, surprise. They elected another doddering old reactionary. At least now we'll be rid of those deplorable scenes of superstitious ritual that the networks seem to think that we need to view.

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Sylvia Spencer 20 April 2005

Herbert I tried so hard not to laugh, but I could not help myself, this poem has a great amount of wit, a very clever poem, from a great poet. cheers sylvia.

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