My excuse for reposting, is that last time the site didn't allow verses in block format. So the whole thing was mushed into one paragraph. Since then Simon must have fixed the site up.
IS THERE A PROBLEM? ;)
There are little bits of Brooklyn
In every little land
Where every nationality
Pass tracts from hand to hand
And comely feet walk up and down
The streets from door to door
Spreading bits of Brooklyn
As their father's stepped before
They work the squeaky bell-pushes
The doormats and the paving
They clatter gate and letterbox
A warning and a saving
They scratch S8s and crumpled maps
To mark their territory
And call back if they leave a mark
Or a book with anybody
In every congregation
There are ‘types’ and there are ‘ones’
Tidy suits, pleasant dresses
Lame and blind and dumb
The talented monologist
The reader of God’s word
The singer of the Kingdom Songs
All love it to be heard
And everywhere beneath the sun
They love it to be heard
And even when the wicked one
Sends rain they're undeterred
And though the homes they call on
Are only houses through the day
They carry out their righteous work
Regardless anyway
At the fuggy bible study group
An aged rambling one
Warming to his little bit
Of sex in Christendom
Rocks one who does her pre-study
(Whom no one seems to hear)
To sleep with old neuroses
Petals falling from her hair
With Sunday morning meetings
From the front there comes a talk
Propped behind the lectern
One shows how Christians walk
He holds God’s word aloft for all
In leather and golden leaf
While he reads his notes from Brooklyn
Kept discreetly underneath
A pair of dipped bifocals
Mark the starting of the song
A two-stroke engine labours
Coughing notes upon the throng
The wooden rhymes grind onward
There's a 'must' in every verse
And the faithful raise their voices high
For better or for worse
Old principals protect them
From unnatural desires
The Christian home a haven is
When vigilance never tires
Be assured, but be restrained
Eager couples newly-wed
For you, little bits of paper
They have scattered on the bed
So be discreet and careful
With your dearest closest friends
And whisper nothing risqué
That your joys one-day might end
In a quiet inner room
Before the wise and grey of hair
Your love reckoned unworthy
When with little bits compared
You're a witness, so you witness
But we cannot know for sure
If you have a loyal heart
Or your motivation's pure
So we guard associations
And we mark the lambs that stray
Or leave them on the mountains
For the wolves to take away
It's for spiritual appearance
That they mark these errant sheep
And publicly denounce
Even repentant ones who weep
But it troubles old men's consciences
In their lonely little hours
To have shattered lives and wielded
Those theocratic powers
Yet if evil finds their children
And it's tyranny exposed
A flood of warm repentance
Can ensure the case is closed
Because all the paper service
And the neighbourly apathy
Would be taken in a windstorm
Of adverse publicity
'A law abiding people', sure
They pay their tax and dues
It stands them clear of worldliness
Their obedience is their food
But when it's for The Kingdom
Fraud is praiseworthy indeed
And there is glory in infringing
The superior decrees
So they smuggle wads of currency
'Cross national frontiers
They traffic in bible books
For busy pioneers
Both as Caesar's deceivers
And his loyal subjects true
They wear whichever paper mask
Brooklyn tells them to
Do you wonder at the daring
Of those cropped Society men?
That such a set of standards
Have incorporated them
But kneeling to a God of truth
So present, brief, and past
That the call to ship the paper
Is the highest call at last
Still 'no part of the world', they are
No sharing in it have they known
No pagan heritage can mar
Nor ancient evil seed be sewn
For they are clean of holidays
And celebrating birth
No festive cheer will interfere
With their ministry on earth
Oh, but these are easy questions
For they duly have been taught
And hold their hands above their heads
Like truly Christians ought
And start with words like, "I believe"
But then in fear and doubt
They find the numbered paragraph
And read the answer out
This is how they worship God
They read the answers out
Much-amplified agreement
Echoes all about
Homogenous opinions
Small mistakes well meant
Fitting illustrations
Feedback, and assent
The mists of truth cling eerily
On each prophetic dawn
For those ragged periodicals
Once boiling hope and scorn
Have cooled to indignation
In stolid, pasted strains
At the god who surely rules
And his world that still remains
October's leaves are falling
As the Circuit Overseers
Claps homely end-time rhetoric
For all with weary ears
But have decades bustled onward
Do those great men younger seem
Has another generation shrugged
Passing from the scene?
Now a middle-aged anointed
Gravely lifts the bread and wine
Taking from the platter
Of the evil slave, to dine,
He'll bear a heavy cross for this
By every name one stands
On the confidential records
In the congregation's hands
And a Spirit takes those crosses
In the blinking of an eye
And a geo-stationary angel
Guards them as they fly
To be received in Brooklyn
Recorded and compiled
Each cross is classified within
The 'Professed Anointed' file
But a Son of God can falter
On the narrow road to joy
Forgetting that the mind
Is for his betters to employ.
Restoring him to little thoughts
Is troublesome, and vexed:
He's shunned for his convictions
Unwritten in the text
Each lowly elders body
In heady backroom session
For each sorry sorry incident
That calls for their discretion
There are little bits of Brooklyn
That are floating in the air
Where two or more are gathered
Note: these little ones are there
These little ones, these blessed ones
Are always to be found
Wherever brothers minister
On sand or solid ground
They cut them into speeches
And kneed them into dough
They form the roofs and walls
Of kingdom Halls, did you know?
Yes, a little piece of Brooklyn
Reaches every little land
And these little bits of paper
Pass each way from hand to hand
They tell of his grand purposes
For every tribe and tongue
For Brooklyn’s bits of paper
Are from him to everyone
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philo (dirt dishing bardsard)