Whore Prophet

Elijah.
You talk big for a murderer and a misogynist;
water-cooler-gossip,
snickering,
telling your bros about what a whore I am,
while I made miracles,
filling bellies in the heart of the desert,
and wrote thaumaturgy on the hearts of children.
You talk big about the false prophets,
but you carry middle-management hatred,
like ring binders in your mouth,
hatred that boiled over and slaughtered my kin,
with no provocation, for no reason,
but the name of your god of war.
But remember, it was I who chased you into the desert,
I who put you to wandering,
I who made you weep for death.
In the end even your god sent upper-management down
to take you away:
a PR disaster not even the high heavens were ready for.
Tell Elisha we won’t be any easier on him.
Tell him my name is Jezebel: Whore Prophet.
If he comes for me I’ll eat him and feed his bones to my dogs.

-o0o-

Ambassadors

well, well...

I guess I shouldn't be surprised

the angel and the devil

fully realized, standing at my door

both penitent, level, head-to-head

pontificating of duty

to the absentee father

one of repentance

the other of rebellion

threatening terrible calamity

but you both are

…pathetically vulgar

insisting that I in my (let's face it) glorious style

should pick a side

while you had danced your war

across the bones of my kith

scattered our bodies with stones

prayed to your respective gods

while we prayed for mercy

but answer came there none

and when I stood there, one

alone with no more to bury

why is it that I should happen,

to stumble upon that great weapon?

such a thing I swore I would never use

and here you are standing hand-in-hand

buttering me up oh so grand

save the people, save the land

while you aim my crosshairs at each other

with your trigger fingers twitching

figuring you’d be stitching 

history’s tapestry together

you, Penelope?

waiting for your long lost lover to return

and oh, those promises you make

the threats you hedge

layered on like frosting all too much

on a sickly cake wedge

rich and thick

you offer gold

but you offer dick

you offer power

but you offer peace

no

you have nothing I want

make your promises

blubber your threats

we three know the truth

that you are as empty

as the seat your father left behind

and your war the same

for you and your kind

two pretty kings each with one eye

all-seeing for the blind

but you have not bothered to see the coming storm

-o0o-

Selective Grief

set the clocks west

the new daylight savings

where red, white, and blue 

become the new whiteface

since lions draw more tears 

than the corpse of a black child

and Beirut is an abandoned building

a haunted house forgotten 

and left barren

while Paris is wined and dined

having turned our eyes to the bells that chimed

and set the clocks westward

ticking the eyes away from marginalized bodies

neocolonial violence in the name of selective grief

and the grief we've carefully chosen

is male, tick

is cisgender, tick

is white, tick

when clocks chime of gay marriage and wedding cake

another transgender corpse is a sponge

soaked with the soap of blood and forget

the body count of neglect

but we're 'celebrated' in retrospect

when we're dead

and our voices gone

and our flailing arms still

and our corpse-like-sponges 

are used to wash the streets

and sweep the detritus away

we hear the battle cry

"all lives matter"

really?

if that were true

we'd expect to see Facebook safety checks 

for every city

we'd expect a candle lit for
every transbody, tock

every brown body, tock

every woman's body, tock
but no
we're

mashed in the cogs of your eurocentric clocks

your patriarchal timepieces

but no

we've learned that "all lives" do not matter

Paris is a good example of that

mass outrage and grief for the European city

wailing and gnashing of teeth for white bodies

and today I watch a white man explain to a black woman

why Beirut deserved what happened to them

because brown bodies do not matter

and what a paltry sacrifice a brown body is

if the world is to be rid of Islam

so his Islamophobia teaches that

brown lives do not matter

and as time drags itself

up the hill of marginalized corpses

so a white man can pin his grief to the summit
where he can build his belltower

and sing to the chimes

of what a fucking victim he is

-o0o-

When what we really deserved...

We are the architects of time
And so the oligarchs of fate
We wrote the edict and the crime
We wrought the guillotine and state
Not fully risen from the slime
We had our fellows on our plate
Longpig on sale for half a dime
Sold, steaming, slice-for-slice, by weight

We privileged few
Of course we knew
And still we do
Again, anew

We silvertongued sires
  Slave owning buyers
    Witch burning fires
      Gay hating liars

When then the clock struck out our chime
They came then knocking at our gate
Instead of planting us in lime
They offered love instead of hate

-o0o-

Children of War

Stood up and drenched
caked mud and strife
blood soaked / fist clenched
clinging onto life
old butcher's son
does what he knows
with daddy's gun
calling the crows
to feast on them
the carrion
see nine or ten
flying down
to earth to eat
the meaty strands
prepared for them
by children's hands

-o0o-

Our Children

Our children are a pleasure
Our only tacit treasure
And yet by far
Its them who are
Abused beyond all measure

The father's fist that maims them
A government that blames them
The tithing plates
That cash that sates
The priest whose penis shames them

Each drop of blood our children paid
Each tiny corpse to rest we've laid
Each little life
So filled with strife
Indictment of charge betrayed

-o0o-

Ruba'i for Khayyam

In honour of Omar Khayyam (1048-1131)

At once I heard that god had come again,
petitioning the hearts of all his men,
to be as abject slaves to every law,
that could never hold water now nor then.

I saw Omar then standing at the gate;
a smile on his face and food on his plate.
I asked of the sage whether he was scared,
for god had come again to forge our fate.

"My boy," he said reclining on the floor,
"this god is somewhat lacking in encore."
"How could he ever hope to come again,"
"if that old god was never here before?"

"And say to those fools, who come in his name,"
"to show us a sign that bolsters their claim."
"Since I am not impressed by man-made wars;"
"both their crimes and feats, I view them the same."

-o0o-

In the style of Omar Khayyam:

Look not above, there is no answer there;
Pray not, for no one listens to your prayer;
Near is as near to God as any Far,
And Here is just the same deceit as There." (#78)

"And do you think that unto such as you;
A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew:
God gave a secret, and denied it me?--
Well, well, what matters it? Believe that, too!" (#85)

"Did God set grapes a-growing, do you think,
And at the same time make it sin to drink?
Give thanks to Him who foreordained it thus--
Surely He loves to hear the glasses clink!" (#91)

as translated from the Persian by Richard Le Gallienne.

Old Walking Stick

I have an old walking stick
A crutch of sorts
Something that I've leaned on
Perhaps everyone has one

It is my weapon against my enemy
With its deftly concealed blade
Whereupon I have pledged to stab it
Into his heart

But the stick is old
It is made by my enemy
And his contemporaries
Crafted with hatred

It is familiar to his touch
Not mine
It is an instrument of his will
Not mine

It is phallic and long
The penetrator
Male in all aspects
Made for domination

I must forsake this thing
This instrument of manhood
This instrument of whiteness
This instrument of power

I must forsake my own power
And take up the arms of those that suffer
To become as they were
Once weak, now strong

I must craft new weapons
With the new knowledge I have
Stand on my own two feet
And raise my voice

Among those that have been raped
Those that have been beaten
Those that have been trampled
By my enemy and his kind

Those that tower over us
Will crumble under their own weight
When we refuse to be their crutches
And we come into our own

We will rise anew
Creations of hope
Strong and again proud
Without shame

[Note for later, perhaps a rewrite. A note on the abandon of whiteness and maleness as a source of power. The use of my place as homosexual as a starting point of embrasing otherness.]

-o0o-

The Self-God

I am the self-god carved from bone

Risen from the deprived depths

Where I once lay neglected

By the impotent church

Who couldn't achieve a bone

Never mind be made of the stuff

I am the self-god, conceived of truth

speaking out against the liar church

the ones who come with empty pockets

and leave with pockets stuffed with blood

and sometimes cash

I am not so easily shaken

I am the self-god, the skeptical one

Who even doubts himself

If I call you into question

Then I should call myself into question too

But I've stood strong against you

And your stones are overturned

I am the self-god, disciple of science

One who revels in truth

I care not for your creation

Because it is as thin as the pages

Of the lies you read in your book

But I have many books

I am the self-god, born from knowledge

And I have read and measured and seen

And my heaven is filled with truth

And my heaven is filled with science

And the demons crawl on the face of the church

screaming, "Mene Mene Tekel Uparsin"

I am the self-god, agnostic and atheist (sometimes)

I only believe in myself

Because you have offered little proof

When the children starve you have faith

While I question the need of you

Sitting on your golden thrones

I am the self-god, born of blood

Shed by your blade

Left rotting in the fields

Didn't you know that

If you leave blood for long enough

It will stand up and demand voting rights

I am the self-god, found in flesh

Proud of the deepest urge that you neglect

That you pile under your bullshit

Calling it "ethic"

Didn't you know your mom and dad fucked

To make you?

-o0o-

That we would bleed

That we would bleed

We were set upon the land

By an angered church

And beset on every side

Stood our new enemy

Whom we'd never known

And God smiled at us from a distance

Stuck behind the rhetoric

Of a gluttonous church

And we fought valiantly

As we watched our men and women dragged away

And our children raped

And our elderly slaughtered

We held up our arms to the sky

And we bled

But the rhetoric didn't save us

And we starved

And the scripture didn't feed us

And the church looked upon us

From a distance with full coffers

And we were handed to the enemy

That we would bleed

And meet a surprised God

Who hadn't expected

To see us this soon

-o0o-

Lughnasadh

We all met up on that day
Standing on the brink of the battlefield
Lugh (2) standing by our side;
His spear lifted by his left hand

Our opponents are fronted by
the three sons of Carman (3) the Witch: Dub, Dother and Dian (4)
With Bible's raised they come to scourge the ground
They came to claim the harvest as tithes

They dragged off Lugh
And slaughtered him
Broke him into pieces
And devoured him as their daily bread

And we were left without a warrior
Without a divine demigod
Waiting for the gods to send another hero
To lead us to salvation once again

-o0o-

1) Lughnasadh: Harvest Festival
2) Lugh: Celtig high-god. Left-handed. Often depicted carrying a spear.
3) Carman (Carmen, Carmun): A Celtic deity. Often represented as a warrior, a witch and sometimes a goddess.
4) Dub, Dother and Dian: The sons of the Celtic witch Carman. Personifications of black, evil and violence respectively.

Strangest Church

This pastor a thief, has passion galore
To hide the true fact that he lives like a whore
Christ dies on the street with no food to eat
When pastors rob beggars with sermons’ implore

His church has a train and a restaurant too
Telling the people just what they should do
To abandon their friends, this he recommends
If they be a Hindu or Moslem or Jew

Money changers in the temple most high
They steal from the poor so the poor must rely
On the whims of the great who will always forsake
The true kin of God who must suffer and die

Their worship a noise, a horrid tumult
Offensive to God, to Love an insult
Their babble’s elation sans interpretation
Words without love, such a pallid old cult

And should your afflictions dare to show face
Or sully their comfort or burden their pace
They judge you and spit and then call you shit
And strip you naked of all of God’s grace

Basking in gold from the ones they’ve raided
And then they condemn us pretending they’re jaded
Throwing their slurs, reality blurs
And the role of the church becomes every goal faded

Remember to give them your payslip to tell
Before you forgot all your tithing as well
In case they expel you and drive you to hell
Neglecting the price of the God that they sell

-o0o-