by Chris Vierck
Two hundred pounds of sweet black Jesus
Hang on a cross, and in come the calls,
The emails, the “I’m gonna’ kill you” threats,
That echo freely through the institute walls.
They said, It’s one thing to go around and collect
The slivers of wood, a pall, the very rusted nail
Used to spike the condemned through the heel,
Quite another if Jesus isn’t oh so gleaming pale.
His penis covered, his head wearing a crown,
Red blood-not the juice of marvelous cherries-
Real blood running down his forehead in rivers,
That could make any god so very weary.
Crank back his neck and cry: I am forsaken!
After all he wasn’t no John Wayne Hollyfake Hero.
He didn’t smoke or drink his way to Golgotha,
The fabled stony face of the open skulls.
Oh, so many Christians adore their Christ,
Like modern poetry, with out any rhythm,
No beating of the blood flowing to capillaries
And definitely without the internal singing.
This bread is my body, take of it and eat;
This wine is my blood, take of it and drink;
This chocolate is my soul, take of it and dance.
Whatever happened to stopping, a moment, to think?
Screw you? For showing Mohammed in a cartoon--
Clearly, this means your head must be chopped?
Screw you? For sculpting Jesus of milk chocolate--
For this, clearly, your life should be forfeit, be lost?
How quickly they forget to protest all the dead in Iraq--
The Bodies burnt and charred in the shells of mangled cars,
The children torn to shreds by shrapnel shots to the head--
Is how quickly they forgot Jesus… crawled onto that cross.
Chris Vierck is a poet who lives and writes in North Carolina.