BITTER BIRD'S LAMENT

I am the Bitter Bird.

Day in, day out, day-o,

I search.

My neck aches.

My legs are twigs,

too weak for my girth.

And yet I search.

With a constant bob,

my beak dips its tip

into the muck,

hoping to emerge with

something of value.

But alas, 99 out of

one-hundred times,

it comes back empty.

I hear the laughing echo of gulls, who soar and dive around me, whose beaks are constantly filled with the sweet catch of the day, from smelt to crabs, while I toil in mud and rock, hoping for a sea worm or sand flea.

Woe is me. Why couldn't I be a tern. I would fly to the sun, drop mussels on rocks, and feast at the table of plenty. Why did God make me this way, what did I do to deserve this suffering? And I am the only one who laments, while the rest of the flock labor mindlessly, slaves to the machine. Just other bricks in the wall.

DESOLATION OF SMAUG

An angered dragon's breath scorched a portion of wet-land, leaving it desolate, parched, and stripped of life, except for the fetid creatures that dwell in death, and embalm the remains.
While close to the ocean basin, and the resurrection that is carried in with the morning tide, the spot is just a fraction away from new life, and will rot in despair, hoping at best, to become a murmurous haunt of flies.
The poor of the world suffer in similar burning misery, while mankind feasts itself at the table of greed and indolence, with no moral conscience or regard to the plight of so many.
Corporations have lost their moral compass, and now, in the name of profit at any cost, they set man versus man, nation versus nation, to provide the cheapest labor, with little benefit except a pauper's daily wage.
Oil companies, who once flew the flag of American greatness and expertise, now only seek to rape and plunder for the dollar.
The heroes of America are pathetic, self-indulgent celebrities, instead of men and women with honor, courage, and compassion.
And so, desolation arrives. On the feet of a silent thief in the night.
Though many corporations globalize their work, trying to shelter themselves from the economic misery a single nation may befall, they cannot hide from the judgment hand of God, who will bring forth their disaster in an instant, as he did to Sodom and Gomorrah.
The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof.
All who despoil the land, who ignore the weak and lost, face a wrath that has not been known since ancient times.
He who has ears to hear, listen. Put your ear to the ground. There is movement in Heaven, and the horses and chariots of the noble are gathering for a battle that will scourge the planet in recompense for villainy.
And those who dress themselves in the garments of self-righteousness, beware, for the time of the Lord is at hand.
The least shall become first, and the first shall become least.
No eye has seen, nor ear has heard, the things God has prepared for man he loves, but the reverse is also true, for the man he despises.