religion – poems 2 die for

BUNNY CHOW

got shirt and
pants stained
with bunny
chow
curry

but it was, thank
God not indelible,
like a
marker of class

stains that
reach the skin
and
then spread
within

are a other
species of business
practically entirely

and here
I was in India looking
for the lost
years of Christ

vaguely conscious
of those gospels
found by
an Egyptian farmer

those gnostic
texts that paint
a different
picture entirely

here in India
(becoming
something of a glutton
both physical
and spiritual)

mopping up my
beans curry
with a chunk of bread

ALL OUR CURRENT

All our current
antichrists

happen to be worse by far
than the archetype back there
in the Book of Revelation

all our latter-day demons
more demonic in essence
than any cast out
in holy parable or
Biblical Tale

and these in
plain view or
under government top secret

but truth
will out
so just
scratch the surface

with flesh-cutting scalpel
used in sanctioned
medical experiments

on the maruta of
Pingfang, or the Polish women
at Ravensbruck

or, closer to home, the
hypodermics used in
the bastion of democracy

to inject the other with syphilis,
give people
their plutonium shots

hunting for the mirror
in which to see their own depravity

the immunity given
to these pioneers
true
demonic complete redemption

all our current antichrists
God bless them all this Easter.

ISA

who here
at this time, in
this place,
truly believes
that Isa was
a prophet, truly
a divine messenger?

that was seminal about him
(peace be upon him)
was not that
he saved souls but
spoke for the poor, spoke
against Empire
performed miracles, cured
the sick
raised the dead

less that
he preached his own divinity
than suffered
for humanity

less that history
has him exalted, than
the evil
     of our nature
                   claimed as
his
   text, in
his name?

عيسى (عليه السلام) نبي الله الواحد الأحد

PLACE OF WORSHIP

I achieved
my spot

in this place of worship
found a pew to myself

unlike the time
when they had locked the door

had singled me
out for exclusion, railed
from the pulpit

my face published
in the prescriptions
nailed to the wooden door

silly me
to overreach
not to comply, my soul
(so young) still
deeply
wed to chaos, disorder,
anarchy

anything that reeked
of liberation

schism
with blind authority

GRACE

by grace of
was saying grace straight
forty days
and forty nights

had to survive the flood
by surfing on my plate

could have
said it as
an epigram
spoken it
as haiku

no
saving grace
as every unsavoury creature

made its way to gorge its
greedy seven-
deadly self

turning our feast
into a mockery

as
bone-headed
as it
graceless gets
and raw
a ritual rhapsody

AS IT SO HAPPENS

as it so happens
the Church and State
are both
outraged

the Sun and Moon
have begun to
tango begun
to samba

and some devil drunk
on tequila
is in the vestry
demanding communion
damanding absolution

quoting from a mash-up
of Neruda’s sublime Cantos
and visionary
holy books

and all are aghast
having booked their places
these
sons and daughters

not a tatter between them
no missing thread

and thus
in assued completeness
remain well aware

that devil on tequila becomes
devil in tequila becomes
democratic
host of devils that
bring decorum down

become god of thd people
hacked to pieces and
resurrected
become
the bones
of the philosophers doomed

until the end
of argument
to host
perpetual return