Alexius and Giles

We beg you,

mend the ways of pretend mendicants,

imposters who pose pious and pitiful

on our staked-out streets.

Uncover the shades of the blind

who really see, the crippled who limp

selectively in rich company.

Competition is keen;

let’s keep the neighborhood clean

of riff-raff and rabble-rousers,

hypocrites hogging the best hovels,

preying on the easiest weak.

We give our dutiful mite,

pull pennies from our palms,

cough-up an ungodly percentage

for each street corner converted

to our enterprising petitions.

Blessed are we the paupers

of prayerful panhandling.

We beseech you, then, oh Saints,

open your holy hearts

and wallets, and let us in.

Next
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Greetings on a Morning Walk 

Paul Willis

Blackberry vines,  you hold this ground in the shade of a willow: all thorns, no fruit. *…

An Outline of Trees 

James Matthew Wilson

They rise above us, arching, spreading, thin Where trunk and bough give way to veining twig. We…

Fallacy 

J.C. Scharl

A shadow cast by something invisible  falls on the white cover of a book  lying on my…