Peace on Earth

I was sitting at the bar watching refugees on t.v.
When the drunk on down the counter began to speak to me.
He said: I used to be as rich, as the ripest smelling skunk,
But now I just exist and try to stay real drunk.
I  cannot see how so many can simply sit in their gilded towers
While acid rain showers death down upon all humanity
With the killing of each flower, bush and tree.
He said: I watched today as a man took a knife
And took the life of a beggar just like him,
So he could keep control of his corner garbage bin.
I could not enjoy my monetary gain, my momentary fame,
For everywhere I looked was pain; in every dirty alley, every dirty street,
Cardboard people starving was all my eye could meet.
I watched successful people boldly step over disposable people
As they hurried to keep appointments with their banker or their broker.
I watched successful people coldly step across every body who had lost
Their hold on that ladder of success, were we blessed
With  no compassion?
There seems no reaction to the throbbing pain in every stranger;
It makes my blood boil with anger that those who 'have'
Stroll nonchalantly by on their futile journeys to grab
That last pie in the sky.
I left that bar that day and went into the nearest church to pray,
Only to overhear the preacher say to a wino, "Go away!
You are stinking up my pews, and I REFUSE to let you sit in here!
You will get in the way of my parishioners who come by here to pray!
No, you cannot stay! You MUST go away!"
Now my new bar friend may have been real tight,
But he was absolutely right,
There is no peace on earth tonight,
Nor anywhere in sight.


*Written way before the current bankers' and brokers' fiascos. copyrighted January 1992