Your Roving Reporter

“I’m in a town called Dublin in the Northern Hemisphere,
Observing the religion of the people living here.
Their secular beliefs appear uncivilised and tribal,
I think that I can say that without any fear of libel.

Once a week, their God descends from heaven, without warning,
His grotesque machinations give the people ample warning.
And, when they hear him roaring, people keep their kids indoors,
Doubtless fearing that they might get snapped up in His jaws.

In order to appease him, every house must pay a price,
And offer up an animal in gruesome sacrifice,
The animal is kept out in the yard or in the shed,
And scraps of food and household waste are all that it is fed.

It’s commonly referred to as the Jumbo Refuse Sack.
The poor dumb creature has a skin that’s smooth and shiny black,
Its molecular metabolism’s similar to plastic,
But the speed it grows within a week is really quite fantastic.

And, when the Sack is bloated so it can’t move from the spot,
Its ears are taken savagely and tied into a knot,
And then its left outside the door, or maybe at the gate,
So full and fat it can’t escape its grim, predestined fate.

And then the God comes snarling with His faithful old and thin men,
Expressionless executioners, colloquially called Bin Men,
The God’s cruel mouth is in its arse, He opens it up wide,
And the poor defenceless animals are flung with force inside.

What thoughts must flicker through the Sack’s pathetic, tiny mind,
Awaiting the mad deity-with-terrible-behind?
How must it feel to watch his fellow creatures lightly thrown
Into the gaping, crunching mouth, abandoned and alone?

These Dubliners should play no part upon their planet’s stage!
To think there’s still such barbarism in this day and age.
Perhaps its something in the genes, passed on to them at birth –
This is R-J-6-11, Astral TV, Planet Earth.”

Written August 2002