Delayed Judgement Poem by David Lewis Paget

The cumulo-nimbus clouds crept up
From the South, preceding the dawn,
Under the cloak of darkness they
Arrived as the day was born,
The sun peered over the rim of the earth
And beamed its rays to the clouds,
While we of the feckless, reckless earth
Buried our dead in shrouds.

We buried our heads in the sand, I said
From the wars that nobody won,
But battered our ideologies
In the face of each daughter and son,
Though the right were wrong and the wrong were wrong
When the end was written in blood,
Just as the choices of man have bled
Since the seasons before the flood.

The clouds crept up on that terrible day
When the world, with bated breath,
Looked up to the skies for a warning
Would it be life for the world, or death?
The end of the Mayan Calendar
Fell due on that fateful day,
We felt the Mayans foretold the end,
The earth was passing away.

The sun beamed out of the cumulus cloud
That was drifting across the earth,
When a host that shone like a silver ray
Appeared like a miracle birth,
They lined the cloud, a million strong
Were seen by the weak and the bold,
And one shone brighter than all the rest
In a garment of purple and gold.

‘He's come again, for the second time, '
We cried in our shock and awe,
‘The Judgement is nearly upon us, ' cried some,
‘You know what that means, it's war! '
Some of us stood with our arms held high,
While others hid under a rock,
And then the barrages, into the sky,
Began, and they wouldn't stop.

We watched as the rockets rose on high
And the planes took off like gnats,
Missiles and shells from the military fell
From the skies, in their futile attacks,
The Host of the Lord gazed down from the clouds
Untouched; we thought he'd escape,
Then one with a nuclear head went up
And the clouds became mushroom shaped.

‘The world has survived' was the common excuse,
‘Mankind has a second chance,
Anything rather than Judgement, ' they said
Went back to their warlike plans,
While those with still a religious bent
Expectantly waited for Him,
They've murdered him twice, but still they rejoice
While awaiting the ‘Third Coming.'

4 December 2012