SAME SCRIPTURE, DIFFERENT DEITY

by Tom Russell

The Bible gets used like a Swiss Army Knife
by sanctimonious cherubs thrashing about
with defective right wings.
Every time they decide to open
another vessel of anger, hate, or judgment
they turn to these writings
for a blade, a corkscrew, or pliers
to open it and allow the toxin therein
to contaminate the conversation.

They see God as a cantankerous old white man
who throws thunderbolts at kids who
get too close to His lawn.

Here’s the church, here’s the steeple.
Here’s God threatening to smite the people.

These same zealots say there is legitimate rape
that is a gift from Him
on this 5,000-year-old Earth.

Remember, you were put here to suffer.

Boy Scouts shall surely have a Heavenly Reward
but Satan walks door-to-door with those little girls
who sell lesbianism, communism, and abortion
at three-fifty a box.

The Raging Right says the God they created in their own image
loves you so much
that you’re going straight to Hell.

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle
than for them to preach compassion and hope
instead of fire and damnation.
Inclusion instead of exclusion.

Resist the darkness and
let there be light.


Tom Russell works at the Omaha Public Library in the extremely red state of Nebraska. Extremely red. Extremely.

SELF-MADE MAN

by Tom Russell

I gave birth to myself.

I discovered fire so that I could eat
whatever I, alone, produced.

I didn’t read your books,
you read mine.

I coined all the phrases.

I invented the wheel
and built all the roads
that wheels carry my money on.

I did all this with no help from anyone.

I created the dial tones and cyberspace
and made all the deals.

I forged all my own tools,
and that includes you.

Now you want to abuse me
with your regulations and taxations.
Blathering about responsibility
and shared sacrifice.

Suck it up, weasels.
Next you’ll be wanting your own bootstraps.

I don’t care who among you
gets sick or dies.
It pleases me
to see the spite you have for each other.

You are blind and weak.
Even if you could see my curtain
you wouldn’t be able to move it
and know that I am there.


Tom Russell works for the Omaha Public Library in Omaha, Nebraska. His poems have appeared in The New Verse News, Shot Glass Journal, and Crab Fat Literary Magazine.

IF DIAMONDS WERE MADE OF COAL

by Tom Russell

Shallow men with deep pockets and dark goals
say that up is down and down is up.
Their corrupted family values put the Koch brothers ahead
of working mothers and fathers and leave
far too many to the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Their ballot-mining canaries sing boastfully
of ransacking the middle class and liquidating
those with less.
All who are the coal for their diamonds.

Good common sense and
a sense of the common good
are Black Lung to these dregs and dredgers.
Good common sense and
a sense of the common good
will silence the dirges of their dirty yellow birds.


Tom Russell works at the Omaha Public Library in Omaha, Nebraska.