Nightmare on Hell Street (Poem)

As tempests thrash in a distance too close to be acting loose
Zion cries out
Writhing in pain
A woman giving birth to a child

Do you hear Lady Wisdom calling?
Can you hear Madame Insight raising her voice?

She’s taken her stand in the heart of the city
At the busiest intersection in the throngs of Times Square

Where the numbers are highest
She sets up her soapbox

Where the traffic is thickest
She shouts to the crowd

“Listen, you MORONS
Your time’s clocking out
You’re living a dream that will end in a nightmare

Like a hungry man dreaming he’s eating a steak
And wakes up chewing his own foot

Or a thirsty woman dreaming she’s drinking lemonade
And wakes up gulping her child’s blood

So the mob of nations that war against my holy mountain
will wake up and realize they warred against themselves

Quiver in your knickers all you blockheads
The nightmare on Hell Street is near

An army of tempests deluging from the Strong God
Horror and panic everywhere

The slippery road on which the nations are stuck
will hit them with a sudden blind curve

The mirrors of delusions that vet their wrong turns
The smoke that keeps their heads in a fog

The hordes of seducers that litter their streets
Their final crash in the dark

Their leaders and advisors are all senile
Spiritual guides are doddering old fools

The honored pillars of their societies have led to detours and dead ends
Their wisdom has scrambled their brains

The nations are numbskulls
Hopeless, past helping
They don’t know enough to come out of the rain

If they had any sense at all
They’d see what’s coming down the road
And heed the warnings of old

Still they dream their futile dreams
Scheme their frivolous schemes

Until they wake up one night and rub their eyes
And nothing is what it seems

The best and brightest lay dead alongside the morons
And leave all their prowess behind

Hypocrites, zealots, pagans and liars
All tossed out with the blind

Move into their new home, The Coffin
Their permanent address, The Grave

The city streets they named after themselves
All become Hell Street”