The Second Crucifixion

The Second Crucifixion

 

With a sword the shape of a crucifix, they replaced so much with Jesus.
They cut down villages full of farms, and planted Jesus in the dung-dropped corpses.
They toppled libraries, and draped Jesus over the empty shelves.
They burnt stakes, and swept away the ashes with Jesus.
They lifted the old miracles over their heads, and broke them over Jesus’ crown.

They reset the clocks, the calendars, the cults to Jesus.
They skipped a stone Jesus across the seven seas;
they played a Jesus trick on their brothers and sisters,
whom they baptized in steel and smoke and pages and pages of Jesus.

They waged Jesus against each other and against themselves;
they clamped Jesus around their loins and leashed him to their hounds.
They built Jesus factories where they could resurrect Jesus
as much as they needed to meet the demand, the demand for Jesus—

“Bring him back!” the crowd chanted. “Again,” it cried, “again!”

and the crowd put its hands together as they pulled the Jesus lever,
and without a father or a mother, this time, they conceived
gold Jesus and plastic Jesus and mail-order Jesus, and pay-per-view Jesus,
and they nailed him to a million crosses, and hung him up, just like the first time,
but in Tunis and Kingston and Capetown and Boston and Rio and Manila and Tijuana,
over every low-flo Jesus and every queen-size Jesus and every adjustable-lumbar Jesus
so Jesus could watch over the meek’s inheritance.

And Jesus wept,
for there were no more worlds to conquer.

 
Back to Top