But now consider Christ beneath the lash,
Deafened by the incessant crash and slash
Of leather, sticks, the whole damned crude artillery.
Consider how each whipstroke gashes, galls
Ribs, shoulders, flanks, how bits of torn flesh keep
Falling away, as, say, boiled mutton falls
From the bone. But does the victim whine or weep?
No. Though all that is left him is his balls.
He merely counts the strokes, like counting sheep.
How can you think of Christ without a sob?
Dropped like a beast in a foul nest of straw,
Forced, as a boy, with hammer, pliers, saw
To slave away at a woodworker's job,
A youth, he walked the world with grumbling maw,
Preaching the word to a disdainful mob,
A man, he had a price upon his nob,
And Judas sold him to the Roman law.
The spit, the lash, the doom, the thorny crown,
The nails, the cross, the vinegar-soaked rag
Tied to a pole, the diced-for bloody gown:
All burdens fell upon him, sacred bag
Of bones – hence the old saying handed down:
Flies always settle on a spavined nag.
Two Kinds of Men
We come into this world bedecked in shit,
Some of us anyway, including Jesus.
But others are born rich as fucking Croesus,
Mightily proud, mightily proud of it.
The crown, the coronet, the mitre fit
Men for whom earth gushes out gold like geysers,
While we are lemons ready for the squeezers,
Scarred nags for spurs, bare backsides to be hit.
If Christ was one of us, why did he give in
Such plenty palaces for those to live in,
Making us stew in filth and sweat and pus?
Why, even on the cross, in the last flood
Of pain, it was for them he gushed forth blood
But trickled bloody water out for us.
There's a whole race that seems to merit hell
Because the bloody reprobates refuse
To join the Church of Rome – I mean the Jews.
They let Christ die upon the cross as well.
Still, as some learned Jewish rabbis tell,
There is a circumstance that one may choose,
If one's fair-minded, that can near-excuse
The dozen errant tribes of Israel.
When Christ went to fulfil his metier,
He knew Good Friday was his destined day:
Death was a big word in his lexicon.
Doomed-to-be-slain (put it another way)
Must meet a complementary doomed-to-slay.
Somebody had to take that business on.
Limbo
When Jesus rose triumphant from the tomb,
Defying natural law as well as Roman,
He whizzed down like a shot shot by a bowman
And dragged the holy souls from Limbo's gloom.
Then Purgatory started to assume
The place of rhubarb in a sick abdomen;
Masses were sold like tickets by a showman -
Twin innovations that are still in bloom.
The angels, after brooding wings akimbo,
Put infant souls, baptised in milk and piss
But not the font, into that empty Limbo.
It wasn't meant to last, of coarse, and when
The Last Trump offers only blaze or bliss,
Christ knows where the young bastards will go then.
The Creed says Christ descended into Hell.
What could his Father have been thinking of,
Sending him there? Is that paternal love?
Jesus in Hell. Christ Jesus. Hell. Well, well,
For my part faith and candour both compel
My stating that the buggers up above -
Not God but government – desired to shove
Christ in that ill-appointed hot hotel.
Jesus in Hell. O Jesus Christ in Hades.
Ever since earth was earth and sky was sky,
A finer gentleman, gentlemen, ladies,
Was never picked to whip and crucify
Than Jesus. Let's believe that when he made his
Trip it was just hello and then goodbye.
Doubt
When Christ rose up, those somewhat timid gentry
His friends kicked up a noise, but one apostle -
St Thomas – sang as loud as any throstle:
"It's an imposture. Obvious. Elementary.
Anyway, how could he pass the fucking sentry?"
Jesus meanwhile, unseen in the Easter jostle,
Was making for their place at a colossal
Speed, and he used the keyhole for his entry.
He cried: "Poke in your finger, near this rib,
And you'll soon see whether I still exist
Or the whole tale is just a fucking fib."
St Thomas came and shoved his great ham fist
Into the hole. He then became as glib
A Christian as he'd been a rationalist.
You've seen the cook shove larding needles in
Pork, lamb, beef or some other meaty treat,
While seated on your trattoria seat,
Hungry as hell and anxious to begin.
Fat spits and bubbles underneath the skin,
The very sizzle's good enough to eat,
And while the flame and fat and fibre meet,
Saliva dribbles almost to your chin.
This is one way to cook a fine fat pigeon,
But not the dove of pentecostal peace.
Dressed as a grilled lamb-tongue, this fluttered down
And, to feed hungry bellies with religion,
It cooked the eleven apostles good and brown
Until they spat with holy grace or grease.
Spread the Word
When Jesus died, firm in the Christian creed,
St Peter's party picked up the Lord's load
And, staff in fist, they took the Cassia road
And went about the world to sow their seed.
Some sought – lazy, or fired to feed a need -
Baccano and La Storta; others strode
To Nepi, Monterosi, where they showed
The Christian way of death in word and deed.
Nay, more – to teach the good and ban and banish
The bad, they went to lands where pagans chatter
In Russian, German, English, French and Spanish.
Their message was so simple, strong, unkillable,
The fact they spoke Italian didn't matter.
No one misunderstood a single syllable.
When the long annals of the earth are done
And Christ's creation's melted into shit,
The Antichrist will crawl out of his pit
And preach the dirty word to everyone,
Cursed with a wall-eye that the blest will shun,
A giant body and a face unfit
Even to have tomatoes hurled at it,
A prodigy, son of a monk and nun.
The prophet Enoch will lambast the liar,
Elijah too – they'll spring out of a hatch
In St Paul's church, between the nave and choir.
Satan will slither up from hell to snatch
His share, snarling it out with the Messiah.
And earth will be a plucked up cabbage patch.
The Last Judgment
At the round earth's imagined corners let
Angels regale us with a brass quartet,
Capping that concord with a fourfold shout:
"Out, everybody, everybody out!"
Then skeletons will rattle all about
Forming in file, on all fours, tail to snout,
Putting on flesh and face until they get,
Upright, to where the Judgment Seat is set.
There the All High, maternal, systematic,
Will separate the black souls from the white:
That lot there for the cellar, this the attic.
The wing'd musicians now will chime or blare a
Brief final tune, then they'll put out the light:
Er-phwhoo.
And so to bed.
Owwwwwww.
Bona sera.