5.

Wartime Prayers.

Prayers offered in times of peace
Are silent conversations.
Appeals for love, or love's release.
In private invocations.
But all that is changed now.
Gone like a memory from the day before the fires.
People hungry for the voice of God
Hear lunatics and liars.
Wartime prayers.
Wartime prayers in every language spoken.
For every family scattered and broken.

Because you cannot walk with the holy
If you're just a halfway decent man.
I don't pretend that I'm a mastermind
With a genius marketing plan.
I'm trying to tap into some wisdom.
Even a little drop will do.
I want to rid my heart of envy,
And cleanse my soul of rage
Before I'm through.

Times are hard.
It's a hard time,
But everybody knows. All about hard times,
The thing is, what are you gonna do?
Well, you cry and try to muscle through.
Try to rearrange your stuff.
But when the woulds are deep enough,
And it's all that we can bear,
We wrap ourselves. In prayer.

Because you cannot walk with the holy
If you're just a halfway decent man.
I don't pretend that I'm a mastermind
With a genius marketing plan.
I'm trying to tap into some wisdom.
Even a little drop will do.
I want to rid my heart of envy,
And cleanse my soul of rage
Before I'm through.
A mother murmurs in twilight sleep
And draws her babies closer.
With hush-a-byes for sleepy eyes,
And kisses on the shoulder.
To drive away despair
She says a wartime prayer.