What is the world seeking?

(This week's Search Engine Fiction prompt)

Seek and You Shall Find

The poisoned wind blows through the bare trees,

And the birds fall from the purple-grey sky

Dead as a nailed door.

The kingmen and their shadows eat until bursting

Then dream of golden toilets,

While the children eat black worms

Scratched from the hard earth.

And the churches fill.

She looks at her only son axed in two

By a man who could not accept no

And punished her for her audacity.

Another son, against all rational thought,

Walks into the wall of bullets

Without a chance of survival,

Holding tight to those

Memorised stars and stripes.

And the churches fill.

He slips the money out from under their dripping noses,

Then pales his face for the cameras just in time

To snag government’s ignorance.

Working from dawn to dusk,

The house is gone,

Her children lay down their heads

On the plywood beds

Of the shelter and, oddly,

She still believes in the lie.

And the churches fill.

The stones rain down on her

For a misplaced love.

She will pay with her life,

Torn from her piece by piece,

By the righteous who know better.

The brown boy pulled from his family

To be anglicised, civilised by the state.

Life and culture ripped away.

Adult, he hangs in an alcoholic abyss

That he alone is blamed for.

And the churches fill.

What is the world seeking?

They know.

Push and shove.

Find your place.

There is little time

To receive salvation

For crimes too many to count.

Listing them will only burden our progress;

Wipe it clean with the cover of your holy book

And all will walk through the pearly gates,

Where virgins wait or wings for flight.

Close mind to pain and suffering,

It is mortal and of no consequence.

Holy talk will heal your wounded heart.

All is forgiven,

forgotten,

foregone.

And the churches fill.