That Messianic Feeling Poem by Frank Bana

I am not waiting for a messiah
This is not a messianic age
Delightful though it is to live
Among nuclear devices primed
With climatic catastrophies
Set on automatic dial, and where
Ten million infant lives each year
Could quite easily be saved

But this is our collective will
Our tragic play in aggregate
Not providing proof of revelation
Or demanding divine arbitration,
The intervention of a saviour -
It's just the end, inexorable,
Of bad human behaviour

And there's no coming absolution
We'll have to deal with the mess we've made
And not be lazy or too proud
To bend down low to sort it out
Unless with characteristic grace
We just leave it for our kids to face.

We'll be talking in the aftermath
Of brotherly love and how to live it.
Now who knows how to live like that?
Prophets of the god above
Have led us very long. Find me the ones
Who illuminate the human path

The ones who have the energy
To create the human song -
To protect the whispy spiders' webs
Clinging to the autumn leaves
Who smile during the harvesting
Embrace the winter cold, and those
Who guide the youthful flocks
Into the springtime fold.

Sure, I've felt like saving the world myself -
The one that needs saving from itself
But then, another false messiah
Is the last thing that this stage requires
So I think you'd better not change your name
Or take that road to Istanbul
If you're waiting for anyone
To perform the passion play again.