Poem?

[james_is_sorry]

So, this one's a poem inspired by Larkin, and it's about the religion, hospitals and health services. In other news, Scott Pilgrim is awesome.

 Bright plaster, brick, concrete
Edging upwards, reaching
Blockily skywards:
Our new temples,.
Glass entrances sliding open
Welcoming the sick
And the hopeless
Trusting, not blindly,
But with eyes open,
New scrubbed up priests
With long pristine coats
Instruments of their faith
Hung round necks and shoulders,
And gowns for secret sacred
Special occasions.

Inside we smell new
Disinfected incense
Old symbols made new
Mark our passage
A caduceus
A cross, blood red,
And supplicants are annointed
With new oils,
New gauze and floral raiment,
New stinging ointments
Smeared on
That we hope will save us,
New sacrament ministered,
Administered straight
Into our body
Our veins
Our blood.
And we pray
When there
To our priests in white
Oh God I hope this doesn't hurt.
Oh God I hope that I'm ok.
Oh God I hope they make it.

But new temples are now
More akin to the old
Concerned with money
Built on gold
Now the moneylenders
Dress as new priests
Dispense with the beads
And abacus
They sell absolution
They sell hope
And we pray to the new God
To the new columns
That hold the sky
Off our heads
To the new tables
That balance the incense
The sheets and ointments
The sacraments
That might save us
And ask
At what cost?
We wait for the new coming
Of the one who will
Cast them out
Again.
The waiting ... isn't new.