Many are the Molochs

A Moloch is a Canaanite idol to whom children were sacrificed as burnt offerings – religion doesn’t get much more cruel than that! This is a clear reference to the poetry of Allen Ginsberg without whom this video would never have existed. Dedicated to my granddaughter, Leah, who was deeply influenced by the poem Howl.
In the penultimate verse there is a reference to the mindless assassination of Joe Cox MP and another to the Judeophobic attacks in Paris. The last line introduces a piece of English humour and , I hope, some obvious self-deprecation.

Many are the Molochs

 

Many are the Molochs, ever-beckoning

Illuminating those lacklustre lives

Awaiting their days of reckoning

Where an unthinking thuggery thrives

These graven images appear to choose

Who are to win applause

And those destined all to lose

O, destroyers of the righteous cause!

 

Blame cannot be upon them cast

Nor shame placed at their feet of clay

Thus it will for eternity be, as it has been in the past

All responsibility must with humanity lay

With those who the keys to power hold

Those believers who, in reality, decide

What truths and lies are written or told

As they the lambs from sheep divide

 

O, Moloch in the sinful city!

Moloch erect on village green

Personalities divine, devoid of pity

Wherever man moves are Molochs seen

Though heads may be hidden in great grey clouds

Or disguised as mysterious monumental crosses

Covered by religious shrouds

Or overgrown by invasive mosses

 

Molochs in the graveyards

By which villages are surrounded

Devouring even the very diehards

Who are accused of crimes unfounded

Molochs beyond the prison fence

To discourage all escapees

Human blood their recompense

No human effort can them please

 

A Moloch outside a meeting place

That devoured an elected representative

A young woman who refused to hide her face

A mother and wife, bright and sensitive

Moloch at a French concert hall

Eating the innocence of youth

Or shooting in a shopping mall

Suppressing the last shreds of truth

 

Moloch in the morning mist

Moloch in the air of night

Moloch by the rain clouds kissed

Maliferous mystery of their might

Molochs on the playing field

Where the petrified poet frolics

Molochs who all power wield

Such a mass of mindless Molochs!