WHAT IN GOD'S NAME?

by Marilyn Peretti

‘

I say Jesus Christ 

when I’m not supposed

to say Jesus Christ.

Jesus / Ukraine flag

Published: Oct 16, 2014

by 

Zakharii

I said Jesus Christ

when the pregnant woman

was carried on a stretcher

from the bombed maternity

hospital, her hip and leg 

hanging to the side,

and her baby died.

I said Jesus Christ

when the magnificent

Mariupol theater building 

was smashed, burying

hundreds of people

sheltering there.

I said Jesus Christ

when there were 7 fires

burning unchecked at

Chernobyl  Nuclear Plant.

I said Jesus Christ

when they displayed 

109 empty strollers 

representing the children 

who died — so far.

I said Jesus Christ

as Russia stepped up attacks

on Mariupol when it was

already reduced to ashes,

with thousands of survivors

left there, starving.

Jesus Christ

Marilyn Peretti from near Chicago has been published in various journals over the years, including The New Verse News, Kyoto Journal, Gray Sparrow Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Highland Park Poetry, Snowy Egret. Her most recent book is Behind the Mask in 2020... 2021... .

ODE TO JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA

by Jay Sizemore

A majority of Americans disapprove of Senate Republicans' refusal to consider President Barack Obama's pick to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows. —NBC, March 9, 2016. Image source: K Waghorn.

Words no longer have meaning,
nothing but interpretive jiggery-pokery
that makes flagpole sitting a fundamental right,
so get over it. Pure applesauce.

It’s a pro-abortion novelty
to uphold Second Amendment rights,
deciding it’s acceptable to execute the retarded,
the enduring Constitution of the adopted dead.

It’s a reduction to the absurd
to not harbor moral feelings against homosexuality,
much like murder. I’m not a scientist.
To my critics, I say, “Vaffanculo.”

Let 60,000 consenting adults
display their genitals to one another,
have them erect a conglomerate of the cross,
the star of David, and a Muslim half-moon.

Refuse jobs to haters of the Chicago Cubs,
to snail eaters and adulterers,
the gays don’t have special rights.
It’s fundamentally illogical to have gay sex.

States may permit abortion on demand. It’s easy.
We can’t cast a cloud on the legitimacy
of George Bush’s election.
I would hide my head in a bag.

This Supreme Court has descended
to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.
It’s attributable to racial entitlement.
Jesus Christ believed in the Devil. Case closed.


Jay Sizemore hates when you call writing a hobby. His work has appeared here or there, mostly there. He lives in Nashville, TN, though he often wonders if he really exists. This poem, written in reaction to Antonin Scalia's death, is constructed from actual phrases Scalia used in his legal writings.