Bishop Long

Bishop Long got on his knees to pray for mercy sweet,

In his house that's on a very upper-class, clean, street.

He knelt beside his king-sized bed, with sheets of threaded gold,

While bodyguards around his splendid grounds sedately strolled.

Anxiously he twisted jeweled rings upon his fingers,

As in the air a whiff of Bvlgari cologne still lingers.

He passes a distracted hand through hair that's trimmed and tended

By a group of stylists whose beige purse he has distended.

But before a single word from out his mouth is poured

(his dental work is flawless – 'twas no trouble to afford)

He's given in a vision to view poverty world-wide –

He feels the pangs of hunger that so many must abide.

He smells the sewer and the rat, and cockroaches do scuttle

All around him as he understands that this is a rebuttal

To his unsaid prayer, and so he goes back to the dark

To give away bright riches right down to the final spark.

And when he's poor and mean and ill and finally forsaken –

Then, and only then, might he God's mercy try to waken.