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JESUS
LOOKED UP
Jesus
looked up from the tortured olive grove
at
the night’s roof leaking with acid stars.
‘I’m
complicated, no question. I
talk,
and
the crowd drain me till my last good thought
is
like a broken jar. They
pick my arm:
“Cure
me! Heal my sadness!”
What a trade…!
Other
magicians crumble scented leaves
and
froth, tell stories, too. Do
we believe?
Witch
doctors, holy men—believe? It
works!
I
say God loves them. Is that
bad? What’s true?
I’m
not a Greek philosopher, don’t ask.
I
love the poor, I preach that God does too.
That
is my news. I hear, “Be a
good Jew,”
then
find the good Jews very critical
because
I deviate from the Torah.
Complicated?
No question. Way off
beam—
as
Mother cried when I swayed off from home
and
took up in a commune with Essenes.
I
hear her still. “Aren’t
there enough fanatics?
They
pray for food, the horde unsack their loaves.
Or
they plot with terrorists against the Romans!”
My
gift… As if I had a
choice, as if
a
talker, who has more light in his head
than
lightning out at sea, can have a choice.
I
tell them that the world will soon be over.
God,
how much secret but inadequate time
have
I spent to prepare your reign on Earth?
Headstrong
Judas goes to Nicodemus
for
their Passover plot. Turn your cheek, man!
That
Saul of Tarsus thinks I’m one of them….’
Alan
Marshfield
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