Protection Racket

The fruit and veg shop
With shabby paint
Is well stocked in celery,
Sweetcorn and Cox’s apples
And sells freshly baked bread,
Oddly, on a Wednesday

Customers stream in
From dawn to dusk
Cashflow runs riot
The Books topple over
Unbalanced in the black
Yet the paint still peels

Lunar months come and go
Taxes are paid, but until
The Other Tax is settled,
There is no peace;
And then there’s no money
Even for a lick of paint

Mafia Voluntá and Ragione,
Crowbars in hand, beat and
Beat spirits into empty silence
And Sentimento, no better,
Crushes all in his path
With pitiful weeping, our

An apostolic cry shatters the air

Infernal self-protection racket.
Unsafe in our own hands, we
Like dried plums and apricots,
Take on weary old age:
Hearts shrivelling as sure as
A veg shop with shabby paint

An apostolic cry shatters the air:
‘Wretched man that I am!
Who will deliver me
From this body of death?’
Guttural, the cry of the Israelites,
Weighed down with bricks.

God, it seems, is only waiting
For our appearance on stage
To scream, to let our spirit roar,
Then whisper in disbelief
‘Thanks be to God –
Through Jesus Christ our Lord’

And, suddenly, there He is
Fresh pot of paint in hand
Pockets bulging with
Milk and honey
Smelling of fresh bread:
Every day is Wednesday.

Voluntá - our will, Ragione - our reason, Sentimento - our emotions