“Come back to heaven!” cry those,
who make hell around them.
Sacred halls of pomp and pose,
where cleric and pedophile, hand-in-hand,
stand, a match made in heaven, a marching band,
begging that if I could just understand,
“Come back!” “Come back!” “Come back!”
to the great tiered agony, foot to neck,
where the glorified stand tall.
“Come back to heaven!” cry those,
who make hell around them.
A brighter furnace, lighthouse, oven,
moth-trap for all the fallen,
us degenerate outsiders mired in sin-
how the faithful cry to us,
“Come in!” “Come in!” “Come in!”
“Come back to heaven!” cry those,
who make hell around them.
But I will never go back-
nothing sounds more like hell to me.
The false smiles. The colluding rapists.
The riches stolen from the poor.
I’ve developed an eye for locating hell,
it’s no grand calculation or haughty spell,
but notice the pattern and you can tell,
when a palm has been greased,
and there is a pew to sell,
when a child has been leased,
and the predators are shuffled so well.
“Come back to heaven!” cry those,
who make hell around them.
“Come back to heaven!” cry the devils,
who wear holiness like costume.
who would call depraved those who say
“No more.”
Charl Landsberg is a South African poet, musician, and artist who’s work often focusses on issues of social justice.