Tabloids, bellowing raw delight

hail the return of the Teutonic Knights

inbred for purity and spoiling for a fight,

another little puppet of the New Right.



See-through dollars and mystery plagues,

varied detritus of Aquarian Age.

Shutters on storefronts and shutters in the mind --

we kill ourselves to keep ourselves safe from crime.

that's the gospel of bondage...



We so afraid of disorder we make it into a god

we can only placate with state security laws,

whose church consists of secret courts and wiretaps and shocks,

whose priests hold smoking guns, and whose sign is the double cross.



But God must be on the side of the side that's right

and not the right that justifies itself in terms of might --

least of all a bunch of neo-nazis running hooded through the night

which may be why He's so conspicuously out of sight

of the gospel of bondage...



You read the bible in your special ways,

you're fond of quoting certain things it says --

mouth full of righteousness and wrath from above

but when do we hear about forgiveness and love?



Sometimes you can hear the Spirit whispering to you,

but if God stays silent, what else can you do

except listen to the silence? If you ever did you'd surely see

that God won't be reduced to an ideology

such as the gospel of bondage...



(Toronto, February 22, 1987)