A Temple Trader’s Glee
He lashed me with a rope of knots
And wrecked a whole day’s trade,
But I’ve just seen him flayed alive,
It’s been a great, great day!
For generations we have served
The people of this land,
By always having Temple coin
Kept readily to hand.
Exchanging it for Roman dross
Or valued artefacts,
Of course, we have made profits,
Even after sky-high tax.
The priestly leaders love us,
Our business keeps them clean
From handling ‘filthy lucre’,
which to them is quite obscene.
So when this Galilean
Disturbed the Festal flow,
When profit margins always peak,
He simply had to go.
The priests were quite ecstatic,
We’d drawn the Rabbi’s wrath,
And given them a reason just,
At least to have him flogged.
You can read the ‘Temple Trader’s Rant’ HERE
Original Introduction (July 2016)
I’m in the middle of a delightful few days. I’m having a quiet week in the magnificent setting of Launde Abbey, the diocesan retreat house for the dioceses of Leicester and Peterborough. Pam, my wife, is on an Icon painting retreat led by Peter Murphy. I have come along to enjoy the quiet and hopefully, to complete a number of fragments of poems that have been started and laid to one side, generally because of a lack of time – so this is a splendid. splendid opportunity to make sure that some part-finished material is not wasted.
One of the pieces I had not completed followed from an earlier prose piece ‘A Temple Trader’s Rant’ and now, in a few short verses expresses the same individual’s satisfaction later in the same week...
