The Word in Focus with Dr Larry Taylor

1. 

Legendary mystics walking through the mist

While Black Pullman Porters wait on pilgrims who are 

On their way to a new and (hopefully) better place

Where they will be sealed off by invisible red-lines,

Crowded together into ghettos where only the lowliest of

Jobs can even be considered viable options.

2.

Legendary mystics walking through the mist

While Indigenous Natives whose parents and

Grandparents were robbed of language and culture

While watching classmates die of disease and hunger

Under orders of the Bishop who serves (he says)

A god of perfect love and grace.

3.

Legendary mystics walking through the mist

While queer and trans people are condemned to

Eternal fire by self-righteous preachers and 

Scruffy, heavily armed men waving Confederate

Battle flags labeled “good people” by presidents 

Void of morality and empathy.

4.

Legendary mystics walking through the mist

As immigrants, desperate, hungry, poor,

Flee war, corruption and destitution, only to

Be treated like criminals, rounded-up, herded,

Separated, rejected, beaten, left to die by

Tobacco-chewing sheriffs.

5.

Legendary mystics walking through the mist

While missiles and bombs crush homes and

Hospitals, leaving body parts strewn in the streets

As billionaires sip vodka, toast their exploits,

Enter their vaults and worship their gold,

Giddy with laughter.

6.

Legendary mystics walking through the mist

While forests die, whales cease to breech,

The elk choke on smokey dust, oceans boil,

Ice-flows melt, villages are drowned, 

Wildfires engulf cities, and hurricanes

Proclaim the end of life as we know it.

7.

Legendary mystics walking through the mist

While children starve, young adults die in

Alleys with needles in their arms and the

Not deferential enough boy is shot by a Trooper

Because his tail-light was out, and he forgot to say

“Yes, Massa.”

8.

Legendary mystics walking through the mist

While frauds and sycophants replace 

Truth with absurd conspiracy theories that

Bloom into pandemics of smallpox and polio

Overworked nurses, surgeons, physicians 

Drop from exhaustion

9.

Legendary mystics walking through the mists of

Time, weeping as they traverse wood and dale,

Mountain and sea, space and time,

Calling on the gods, reciting Marlowe, and

Searching, searching, searching for

Reason, Truth, Love