Paying the Toll

[hack]

Skeet and me in the last pew
listnin' to some trash
somethin' bout our savior
and givin' up our cash

We just have two nickles
Skeet says give em one
I tell Skeeter ten percent
is the way I heard it's done

Skeeter says you can't make change
when they pass the plate
so he leaves a nickle
to get us through the gate

I tell Skeet it might be fine
if we was millionaires
Skeeter says be generous
Jesus hangs and stares

[Maryd.]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry with this one. But I did giggle, just a tad. Well done sir.

[Hawkman]

What can I say - Death and taxes :D

[Bar22do]

Therefore - park benches are always safer! you should try, and tell Skeet too, he'd be better off in his natural surroundings! :smile5:
while the almighty stares there too with zero expectations, sliding down on a ray of sun (elbowing his way through the foliage he himself created to overshadow our heads and for birds to nestle not to be shot and for spring to have expression and for oxygen to be promoted and for dew to poise in the morning and for flowers to hide and for sheer beauty to leave us speechless...

[hack]

Therefore - park benches are always safer! you should try, and tell Skeet too, he'd be better off in his natural surroundings! :smile5:
while the almighty stares there too with zero expectations, sliding down on a ray of sun (elbowing his way through the foliage he himself created to overshadow our heads and for birds to nestle not to be shot and for spring to have expression and for oxygen to be promoted and for dew to poise in the morning and for flowers to hide and for sheer beauty to leave us speechless...

Monster

it is not safe here
in the park
I think you ought to know

if you've a problem
with the dark
perhaps you'd better go

when there's no moon
it's pretty black
you really need be still

there's a monster
with a sack
and he would do you ill

if he should sense
that you are here
he'll have you in a trice

he'll show you
what he knows of fear
and it's not very nice

[PrinceMyshkin]

"Jesus hangs and stares" is a devastating line...there is no more powerful moral condemnation than that which is just hinted at and left to us to fill in.

[Bar22do]

Monster

it is not safe here
in the park
I think you ought to know

if you've a problem
with the dark
perhaps you'd better go

when there's no moon
it's pretty black
you really need be still

there's a monster
with a sack
and he would do you ill

if he should sense
that you are here
he'll have you in a trice

he'll show you
what he knows of fear
and it's not very nice

fear has no substance
the park in the dark
is with me in alliance

the old one even at night
dwells in the promise of returning light

monster can't do me ill
for I disregard it and actually
its being I deny with my Will

so in its sack
it's dark
it's black
it's empty

and when in the park -
at day or at night
I enjoy life's plenty...

a pew first or last
sells no security for us!

[lallison]

Love this one, hack! Dark humor and very well conveyed. it brings me back to mornings in the back of the Southern Baptist late service holding in laughter from pointing out hymn's form the hymnal that could be interpreted in ways less purely than intended: ex: Are Ye Able, or See the Shepherds Joyous With their Flock.

Anyways, you're rhymes and stanzas are well tailored and fit together naturally. The narrative is capturing and "joyous" to read. i can see you and skeet laughing, full of life and sacrilege, getting indignant stares. Beautiful! A hack favorite for me!

PS: Bar, your reply is a nice poem in it's own right!

[blank|verse]

I love 'Paying the Toll' hack - such brilliant characterization, straight out of a Mark Twain novel, I thought.

And, as Prince pointed out, the last line is fantastic - a superb example of how 'showing' not 'telling' can work so effectively - it says so much, and with a light touch of humour, but lets the reader work it all out.

Great poem, hack!