We didn’t see them coming
with their smiles and blunt-edged cunning
only there was something always slightly manic.
They come into your house, stride on into your heart
proclaiming their high faith like the Titanic.
But it’s when the questions start.
Are you born again ? How far ?
THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BUT ME.
Are you Satan having sex ? Do you pray and genuflect ?
Then you realize who they are, and it’s for free.
They lobbied at Nicea
crushed the Celts at Whitby,
brandished rack and thumb screw, with impunity.
Never paused to fear, or even seem to care—
recording every answer inked so creepily.
They torched Bruno and the Cathars,
hunted women down like white sharks
all the while sweetly believing
that if they break you, they will make you
(they will finally castrate you—)
till you surrender to their plaster God of Mercy.
Psychotic, or what? All in the name of GOD,
where their Bible is a hellfire travesty.
Like it or not, no room for polyglot
you will profess to what we tell you, exactly.
(Otherwise, my friend, we know it’s blasphemy).
Oh bring it on, bring it on
bring Pelagius, Blake, and John
bring all the friends of freedom: he is waiting,
where his loneliness shines on, much like the winter sun
where they’ve twisted the Word in their own making.
Are you ready ? Are you scared ?
Are you Judas with a beard ?
Then listen when I tell you precisely:
be careful when you share
your pearls and deepest cares
that it’s not before the swine of the Jesus Police,
not on a phone line bugged by the Jesus Police
or some idiot priest who claims he’s been deceased
and saw a great face grinning like an Indian Chief
who said, boy, it’s really time you learnt how to please.
Jay Ramsay
Illustration Nick Victor
Dec 2nd 2013