Jesus Was a Revolutionary

Jesus Was a Revolutionary

For David Ray Griffin

 

Michael D. Morrissey

Sept. 17, 2006

 

May be redistributed for non-profit purposes, provided copyright is acknowledged. Original place of publication is www.mdmorrissey.info/jesus.

 

I had never looked at it that way.

Jesus not Christ but the man.

The fight is far from over.

The emperor, naked as a jaybird, still rides our wizened hearts

and laughs. We know we will be next

at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, or right here in god’s country

covered with our own excrement and suffocated

underneath some sergeant’s ass

unless we fight. But still we say,

the emperor is good. One nation, under emperor, with liberty and justice

and most of everything for just a few.

Caveat preemptor warfare,

mighty rigger of elections, building bomber, anthrax mailman,

liar, executioner, pox americano.

It takes a while to come the second time, but we’ll get there.

Introibo ad altar Dei.

Gimme the bread, I ’ll give it to the people,

in Jesus’ name we pray.

Make love not war, the Virgin said and meant

Fuck ye. Do it in the streets.

Put your AIDS back in the test tube where it came from.

Make us happen before it does to us.

The next holocaust may be the last.

The poem was inspired by David Ray Griffin’s "Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11," especially the second half of the book. I have a Yahoo group devoted to Griffin’s work if anyone is interested (not much traffic):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/davidraygriffin .