Brouhaha

(Poetry Scales 30)

Blessed is he who comes
Climbing the stairs to the pulpit
Scanning the crowd through the hush
Preparing to stir up and foment

His message, strict and moral
Fanatics prosecutorial
They, the standard, the gate
Theirs, the cult magisterial

The crowd in attendance erupts
Their cheers and congruence a din
What they fail to see or to smell
Is their equally loud stench of sin

Brou ha ha
Brou brou ha ha
The wolf in wool, Imp in frock
Cleansed not through forgiveness nor blood
But in comparison
And capacity to judge