ABBA ABBA

So John Keats died on February 23, 1821, and Napoleon Bonaparte died a little over two months later. Percy Bysshe Shelley, having presented Keats in Adonais as a sensitive plant choked by weeds but paradoxically surviving his killers in the form of a spirit of Eternal Beauty, was drowned in 1822, reduced to ashes on an heroic pyre, then, like Keats, interred in the Protestant Cemetery of Rome. Lord Byron, fighting for the independence of Greece, died in Greece in 1824. The intensest phase of the Romantic Movement was thus coming to an end.

Lieutenant Elton died in Switzerland a year and more after the death of Keats. Joseph Severn returned to England but went back to Rome, there to live long as British consul and to become a venerable Roman figure. Valentino Llanos visited England, met Fanny Brawne and Fanny Keats, John's sister, married the latter and took her to Spain when the political atmosphere there had grown more liberal. They lived happily. Dr Clark became physician to Queen Victoria and was knighted. Belli became a censor and wrote 2,279 sonnets in the Roman dialect, most of them coarse and obscene, many of them blasphemous. He never quite learned to reconcile the conformist and rebellious sides of his nature. Before he died at the age of 72 in 1861 he ordered his verse panorama of Roman life to be destroyed, but the order was, thanks to a liberal and far-sighted senior prelate, disobeyed. The sonnets were not published in Belli's lifetime and were known chiefly through Belli's tavern recitations of them. The Russian writer Gogol, who spent some time in Rome, heard Belli and was impressed. Sainte-Beuve in Paris heard about Belli and mentioned him in a Causerie de Lundi. James Joyce, the Irish novelist, who worked miserably as a bank clerk in Rome in the 1900s, seems to have read Belli, whose vast sonnet-sequence, presenting realistically the demotic life of a great capital city, may be regarded as a kind of proto-Ulysses. Belli can be seen as an underground link between the age of romanticism and the age of naturalism.

Giovanni Gulielmi's mother decided, in tremulous old age, that she would leave Rome and die in England. Gulielmi took her back overland on a long and painful journey. When they reached Manchester in 1832 she was not quite ready for death, but her son reserved a plot for her in Moston Cemetery. Meanwhile, forty years old, he fell in love with Sara Higginbotham, the daughter of a Manchester cotton broker and nearly twenty years his junior. Gulielmi sold his Italian property and bought a house of some size in Rusholme, close to Platt Fields. His mother duly died and he wrote an indifferent sonnet in English extolling her virtues. He prospered as the translator of Dicken's novels into Italian, taught Italian privately, helped certain Manchester cotton houses with their Italian and French correspondence.

Mr and Mrs Gulielmi had one child only, a son named Joseph Joachim, born in 1840. Joseph Joachim was trained as a singer at the Manchester Royal College of Music, and had a notable bass voice notably heard in performances of Handel and Mendelssohn oratorio and in sung mass at the Church of the Holy Name, Manchester, but he became best known as a private teacher of bel canto and pianoforte. Manchester was then, as now, a very musical city. Joseph Joachim married a Scottish lady, Ann Mackenzie, and had three children. The youngest child, Joseph John Gulielmi, worked for the United Cattle Products Company and anglicised his name to Wilson during a wave of anti-Italian feeling occasioned by alleged ice-cream poisoning in the 1890s in the Lancashire coastal resorts of Blackpool, Clevelys, Bispham and Fleetwood.

Joseph John Wilson married an Irish waitress he met in one of the U.C.P. restaurants in Manchester. This girl, six months after the marriage, gave birth to a son named for his grandfather Joseph Joachim. This boy, born in Moss Side in 1916, was to be – by a twist if not genetic then purely coincidental, since family interest in Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli was born and apparently died with the founder of the family – the translator into English of the great Roman poet. He had no linguistic endowment for the task, since Italian was no longer spoken in the family, but as a boy at St Bede's College, Manchester, he showed skill in facetious or scurrilous versifying and a passion for the Petrarchan sonnet-form. While in the Fifth Form he openly sneered in class at Wordsworth's ineptness in management of the ABBA ABBA rhyme-scheme as also at Rupert Brooke's timidity. But he praised the fearlessness of Gerard Manley Hopkins, a poet not then much read. He drew laughter from his fellow-pupils and his English teacher alike when he stoutly declared that Keats's best Petrarchan sonnet was the one on Mrs Reynolds's cat.

J. J. Wilson was himself no poet. He made a strict distinction, even as a schoolboy, between the art of poetry and the craft of verse. His approach to the craft of the Petrarchan sonnet may be seen in three versifyings of low jokes made at the age of eighteen and submitted to the school magazine. They were rejected but not before they had, by some oversight, got into galley proof.

The Bet

Some men were talking, as men often will,

About their wives. And each with each one vied.

Over his beer, with a grim sort of pride,

Saying: "Mine's ugly." – "But mine's uglier still,"

Comparing photographs. "If looks could kill,

My missis could effect mass homicide.

Just look." But one man, with no picture, cried:

"Ugly? Come home with me and feast your fill."

A bet, then? Reet. The money was not lacking,

A quid per man. Their winter breaths asmoke,

They homed with him when "Time please" sent them packing.

"Get ready, missis." From upstairs she spoke:

"Am I to hide me face wi' piece of sacking?"

"Nay," he called, "it's a bet, lass, not a poke."

"The ashes of my dear departed?" said

The widow, serving tea and cakes at five

Five days after the funeral. "I contrive

To house them aptly. No, not lapped in lead.

See, they are in an eggtimer instead,

There on the mantelpiece. Ah, ladies, I've

Determined, since he did no work alive,

The lazy pig shall do some now he's dead."

One widow took her man's remains as snuff,

Achieving an orgasmic kind of sneeze.

She said: "The bugger's appetite was rough.

He hentered, without even saying please,

My bother hapertures. Enough's enough.

But as he's dead I'll not begrudge him these."

Privy Matters

A man sat once, writhing in costive pain,

For a whole wretched hour, crouching inside

A public W.C. And though he tried

To loose the load, his muscles limp with strain,

He could not. Yet again. Again. Again.

But no. He heard a desperate urgent stride

To the next nook. A hefty splash. He cried:

"Lucky." – "Lucky? That was my watch and chain."

There is another ending, one that I

Have in a scatographic thesis met.

The costive heard the urgent feet draw nigh,

The thunder of release immediate.

"Ah, lucky," was his sigh. But the reply:

"Lucky? I haven't got me kecks down yet."

These sonnets are juvenile and tasteless, as one might expect from a Catholic Manchester schoolboy, but the same charges have been made against the work of Belli himself. One ought to note the attempt on the part of J. J. Wilson to use dialectal elements. A Catholic provincial, aware of his foreign blood, he never felt wholly at home in the patrician language of the British Establishment and would, especially in exalted company, deliberately use mystifying dialect words or adopt an exaggerated and near-unintelligible Lancashire accent. He was a small man, with reddish-gold hair inherited from his Irish mother, delicately, or frailly, made, shy, melancholic, heavy-smoking. He would smoke anything, from the wild flower called honesty to pure latakea, and his chest was weak. He was, he said, married to smoke. He never had any other wife.

Strangely, J. J. Wilson made his first translation of Belli, paraphrase rather, before becoming acquainted with the poet. A student at the University of Manchester in 1937, he was present at a lecture given to the University Literary Society by the Oxford poet G--y G--n. At the discussion over biscuits and coffee afterwards, J. J. ventured a remark to the effect that certain vital human experiences, such as menstruation in women and hangover in both sexes, had never been seriously dealt with even by modern poets. G--n looked him up and down over his coffee-cup and said: "You seem to be a rather coarse and unattractive character." Stung, Wilson went home and wrote the following:

The orchidaceous catalogue begins

With testicles, it carries on with balls,

Ballocks and pills and pillocks. Then it calls

On Urdu slang for goolies. Gism-bins

Is somewhat precious, and superior grins

Greet antique terms like cullions. Genitals?

Too generalised. Cojones (Español)'s

Exotic, and too whimsical The Twins.

Clashers and bells – poetical if tame.

Two swinging censers – apt for priest or monk.

Ivories, if pocket billiards is your game.

I would prefer to jettison such junk

And give them g--y g--ns as a name,

If only G--n had a speck of spunk.

Later he was to discover that he had, by anticipation, contrived a loose English equivalent of one of Belli's more outrageous sonnets.

Wilson took a moderate bachelor's degree in English Literature together with a subsidiary qualification in Italian. The language thus came back to the family via an interest in Petrarch. Of Belli Wilson had still heard nothing. He took a short holiday in Rome in 1938, was nearly beaten up by Fascisti when he made a "fat bacon" gesture at a portrait of Mussolini, but did not visit the Viale of Trastevere, where a statue of Belli stands. Because of his pulmonary weakness, he was rejected by the armed forces when war broke out, and he spent five years in the Ministry of Information, where his versifying talents were sporadically used for a propagandist end. He was loaned out briefly to the Ministry of Food, for which he wrote "Don't pine for a pud, make do with a spud" when flour was short and potatoes in reasonable supply, but the rhyme was rejected as possessing only a dialectal validity.

After the war J. J. Wilson, through a friend met in the American Embassy in London, was found a subsidiary post in an advertising agency on Madison Avenue in New York City. He worked and lived in Manhattan until his death in 1959. He discovered the three-volume edition of Belli's Sonetti (Mondadori, 1952) in Brentano's bookshop, casually opened the first volume, and was at once both horrified and fascinated by the strange appearance of Belli's language:

Vedi l'appiggionante c'ha ggiudizzio

Come, s'è ffatta presto le sscioccajje?

E ttu, ccojjona, hai quer mazzato vizzio

D'avé scrupolo inzino de la pajje!

But, more than anything, it was the demented devotion to the sonnet-form that now drew him to Belli, and he saw a strenuous hobby beckoning – the translating of all the 2,279 sonnets of Belli into what he was to call "English with a Manchester accent." He needed help with the Roman dialect and had to search hard in New York, whose Italian population is mainly Neapolitan, Calabrese, Sicilian, to find a speaker and reader of Romanesco. A countergirl in the New York office of Alitalia – Susanna Roberti – was able to help him, and, horrified and fascinated by the magnitude of his self-imposed task, he set himself to translate a sonnet every day. He did not get far. He chose those sonnets dealing with biblical subjects and managed to achieve draft translations of them all. They follow here, unedited. He died prematurely (but what, when we think of Keats, can this be made to mean?), badly slashed and cracked by hoodlums on West 91st Street, where he lived, when he was staggering home at three in the morning from a party on East 84th Street. An uneasy and unhandsome death. The person is snatched away and the goods remain. And all this is the law and constitution of nature.

The Creation of the World

One day the bakers God amp; Son set to

And baked, to show their pasta-master's skill,

This loaf the world, though the odd imbecile

Swears it's a melon, and the thing just grew.

They made a sun, a moon, a green and blue

Atlas, chucked stars like money from a till,

Set birds high, beasts low, fishes lower still,

Planted their plants, then yawned: "Aye, that'll do."

No, wait. The old man baked two bits of bread

Called Folk – I quite forgot to mention it -

So he could shout: "Don't bite that round ripe red

Pie-filling there." Of course, the buggers bit.

Though mad at them, he turned on us instead

And said: "Posterity, you're in the shit."

Animals led a sort of landlord's life

And did not give a fuck for anyone

Till man fucked up their social union

With gun and trap and farm and butcher's knife.

Freedom was frolic, roughish fun was rife,

And as for talk, they just went on and on,

Yakking as good as any dean or don,

While Adam stood there dumb, with a dumb wife.

This was the boss who came to teach them what

Was what, with harness, hatchet, stick and shot,

Bashing them to red gravy, thick and hot.

He stole their speech too, making sure he'd got

Dumb servitude – the plough; if not, the pot.

He had the last word. Nay, he had the lot.

Man the Tyrant

This furred and feathered boss of bird and brute

Assumed the god, all bloody airs and graces,

Nor deigned to look down in his subjects' faces,

Treating each creature like a mildewed boot.

He swilled, he gorged, but his preferred pursuit

Mixed sticking pigs and whipping hounds on chases,

Marches through arches, blown brass and tossed maces,

With decking Eve, that bitch, in hunter's loot.

The beasts had hunted looks, being forced to make,

Poor wretches, the bad best of a bad job

And put up with that swine – all save the snake

Who, spitting like a kettle on a hob,

Weaved at the foul shapes tyranny can take

And hissed: "I'll get you yet, you fucking snob."

A sort of interlude. Let's look at dogs.

At mastiff, Great Dane, greyhound, poodle, beagle,

The sausage hound, that yelps like a sick seagull,

Asthmatic bullpups honking hard as hogs.

Now men. Irish in bogs and Dutch in clogs,

Swarthy as turds, sharp-conked as any eagle,

The Jew and Turk. Then, trying to look regal,

Tea-slurping English, and French eating frogs.

Compare some doggy that leaps on to laps

With a prize wolfhound. Different as cheese and chalk.

In spite of this, our parish ballocks yaps

About us springing from a single stalk:

One primal bitch for pups, and one for chaps.

Did you ever hear such stupid fucking talk?

Adam

If God made man, we've no call to regret

Man's love of blood and lack of bloody sense.

God, who's all what they call omnipotence,

Meaning he'll piss the bed and prove it's sweat,

Pissed on some clay and sweated cobs to get

A statue from it, sparing no expense.

Then he took breath and blew – Haaaa Hadam.

Hence Man's sometimes called the Puffed Up Marionette.

In just one minute he could spout out history

And write and read great tomes as tough as Plato's.

He knew it all when first he tottered bedwards.

The names of beasts and birds – no bloody mystery.

Like a greengrocer sorting out potatoes:

"This lot is whiteboys and these here King Edwards."

Now, Brother Trustgod, Godtrust (never knew

God had a rupture. Sorry), please let me

Shove in a word. I just won't have it, see.

God made us all in his own image, did he? You

Are mad. If Paul himself, yes Saint Paul, flew

Down to agree with you, I'd tell him he

Was mad. (He was mad.) Why don't you decree

Old Nick was made in God's own image too?

O bleeding Christ and Christ's own bleeding mother,

Even if the sanctified three-hatted sod

Says what you say, it's still, my half-arsed brother,

Mad. Is God's image in greengrocer's shops

Then, in greengrocers? God, he must be a God

Of cabbages and turnip fucking tops.

About Eve

Give me a woman bare as a boiled egg,

Who'd think a brush and comb came from the divvle,

Who owns no snotrag to entrap her snivel,

Or towel or dishcloth hanging from a peg,

Who has no shoe on foot or hose on leg

Nor any of the Amenities of Civil-

Ised Life, to use the advertiser's drivel.

No jakes to thrutch in and no pot to deg,

Who will sup water but not sit in it

Nor on a chair nor underneath a roof,

Who'll never see the muckman do his duty.

Picture this little lady decked in shit

From hair to heel, then try to give me proof

That Mother Eve, Christ help us, was a beauty.

But some say: Scorn her not. Remember, she,

When Adam took her, did not turn her face

But drank the dreadful fire of his embrace.

Dirty or not, without her where would we

Be? She merits homage. So, with me:

"O ave Eva, though full of disgrace,

We love thee as the root of all our race;

Thy sap runs in us, leaves of thy living tree."

Dirty? How do we know? Perhaps her skin

Was laved in a miraculous hygiene,

Just as the second Eve was laved within.

Not that it matters. For myself, I lean

To lauding both her sordor and her sin.

Without those to wash off, who could be clean?

Greed

Which of the seven deadly sins is worst?

Pride sneering skyward, avarice shrieking

More, Liplicking lust, or anger, one red roar?

No, gluttony, the fifth sin, is the first.

From Adam burst a famine and a thirst

For a wormy apple offered by a whore,

A penny pippin. God has rammed its core

Down all our throats, a canker of the cursed.

That bitch, that bastard. God, I gape aghast as

I contemplate the greed that could have cast us

Into the outer darkness – fed us, rather,

To final fire. But our ingenious master's

As quick to cancel as to cause disasters,

And to this end kindly became a father.

The sceptic beats his brain till dawn's first dapple

Lights him and all his books to slumber's amity.

Though he's read all from Moses to Mohamet, he

Rejects the truth of temple, mosque and chapel:

That man brought sin and death and hell to grapple

His soul in irons, condemning God to damn it. He

Set up an aboriginal calamity

Or, if you like, munched a forbidden apple.

Why why why? One song, too many singers.

Why why? Why won't unwrite the bloody book.

So let them write a new one if they must.

Why why? We want an answer. They can look

In Milo Aphrodite's clutching fingers

Or up the arsehole of Pasquino's bust.

Knowledge

Before they yielded to the devil's urging

And crunched the good-bad apple to the core,

Bare innocence was all our parents wore,

Like Jesus Christ got ready for the scourging.

After their second gorge they felt emerging

A thing called shame. So rapidly they tore

Leaves from the trees to cover what before

Had been mere taps for secondary purging.

Thus good and evil, as we must conclude,

Succeed in making rude and crude and lewd

The dumpendebat and the fhairy grot.

Else why should man and missis play the prude?

Each knew, however leafily endued,

Precisely what the other one had got.

There'd be, if Adam hadn't sold our stock,

Preferring disobedience to riches,

No sin or death for us poor sons of bitches.

Man would range free, powerless to shame or shock,

And introduce all women to his cock,

Without the obstacles of skirt and breeches,

Spreading his seed immeasurably, which is

To say: all round the world, all round the clock.

The beasts would share the happy lot of men,

Despite a natural plenitude of flies.

There'd be no threats of Doomsday coming when

Christ must conduct the dreadful last assize.

Instead, the Lord would look in now and then,

Checking our needs, renewing our supplies.

A Problem

I'm puzzled. (Bear with me. Father Superior.)

If Adam's gorging had not been the means

Of turning us to compost for the beans

– Nothing more useful, yes, but nothing drearier -

And all who issue from their dam's interior

Did not end up by pushing up the greens,

Now what would be finale to those scenes

Which start with bouts of murderous hysteria?

Ah but (you say) along with immortality

There'd be no urge to sin: remember this.

Thank you. And so – predestinate causality

And no free will (but Adam had it: yes?).

What puzzles me is: would I incur fatality

If I fell down a fucking precipice?

We sinners have to eat four times a day

Or, if we happen to be English, five.

But man unfallen would have stayed alive.

If not a single crumb had come his way.

And even if they'd served him on a tray

Boiled stones, mashed mud, garnished with poison iv-

Y, he'd survive – indeed, contrive

To thrive on shit like any flower of May.

Everyone thin, carting an empty belly

About, knowing no gustatory bliss

In wine or trout or grouse in aspic jelly;

With jam a joke and fowl farci a farce.

The tongue and teeth for talk, yes; but why this

Hole, O ye holy buggers, up the arse?

Cain 1

"Cain, where is Abel?" Silence. "Cain, Cain, where

Is Abel?" Silence. "Cain!" Then came Cain's cry:

"Shoving your nose in. How the fuck should I

Know where he is? Or, for that matter, care?

Am I my brother's keeper?" The high air

Darkened at this, shuddered at God's reply:

"I'll tell you where, you killer – done in by

Your knife, he's pushing up those parsnips there.

Out of my sight, start running, up and down

The whole damned earth, you damned, you cursed, and cry

Through every bloody street of every town.

Howl, you unchristian swine, your dismal tune

Hurl at the stars, then shiver in the sky,

Weep till you brim the pockholes of the moon."

Please don't think, Herr Professor, I intend

Defending Cain. Better than you, perhaps,

I know him, but know too the sort of lapse

Drink will induce – how it can blind and bend

And break. See Cain drunk, beckoning like a friend,

Thick stick in fist, an oiled smile on his chaps,

Wooing his brother hither. Then he taps,

Raps bone, draws blood, the swine, and makes an end.

Filthy? Oh, yes. Still, it was far from funny

Having to hear God hawking up his phlegm

To spit upon his parsnips and his honey

But not on Abel's sheep, no, not on them.

Born of the breed of men and not of mice,

Cain growled revolt then cut himself a slice.

Cain 3

Reproach him not for bidding crime begin.

Evil was what he sucked in from his mother.

The murder of his innocent young brother

Derived from something deep beneath the skin.

As two and two make four, so man makes sin.

Still, there's a nagging problem tough to smother:

How did he know when one man cracks another

With force enough he does that other in?

Think now. Before Cain played the bloody brute

No one had demonstrated death as yet.

This doctrine, then, is murderous to refute:

That murder is an impulse man first met

When his teeth met inside that juicy fruit.

What's homicide? A thing your father ate.

God said to Noah: "Listen, er patriarch.

You and your sons, each take his little hatchet,

Lop wood enough to build yourselves an ark

To these specifications. Roof and thatch it

Like Porto de Ripetta ferry. Mark

Me well now. Chase each make of beast and catch it.

And catch a male or female that will match it.

Then with your victuals, zoo and wives, embark.

A flood is going to test your wooden walls,

A world's end deluge. Tivoli waterfalls

Will seem an arc of piss in a urinal.

Ride it until you sight a rainbow. Then

Jump in the mud and make things grow again

Till the next world's end. (That one will be final.)"

The Ark 2

Elephants, fleas, cows, lions, sheep, wolves, hares,

Foxes and flies, roosters and stags and stallions,

Mice by platoons and rabbits by battalions,

Donkeys and pigs and bugs, monkeys and mares.

Meat by the ton, cheese, pasta, worms, figs, pears,

Maize, clover, hay, whey, pigswill, skilly, scallions,

Bones, birdseed, bran, melons like golden galleons,

Minced heart for owls and honey for the bears:

These and much more poor Noah stowed in the boat

That God made airtight, cosy, close and dark.

A year and more this barnyard was afloat,

Heady with gorgonzola, goat and skunk.

How did he cope, our blessed patriarch?

Ask him. He may respond by getting drunk.

Drunk, yes. Near his palazzo, safe on shore,

Noah planted vines and fondly watched them sprout,

And when he saw the luscious grapes fill out

(One bunch weighed ten or twenty pounds, or more),

He crushed the juice in ferment, let it pour

Down the red lane, and gave a toper's shout:

"It's good, it's fucking good!" His drunken bout

First made him high and, after, hit the floor.

That was strong stuff, he was not used to it.

Like all us drunkards, snoring at the sun,

He lay as flat as a five-lira bit.

But – shame – our patriarch had no breeches on

And – but I'd better quote you Holy Writ -.

"Displayed his balls and prick to everyone."

Age

If it is true, as the priests say it is,

That every ancient patriarch and prophet

Took a long time for old age to kill off (it

Was, in some cases, nine damned centuries),

They must have been damned short of maladies -

No stone, hard chancre, or bronchitic cough. It

Could be they postponed their trip to Tophet

With secrets still unsold in pharmacies.

Such agelessness would wreck our modern age.

That lad, see, fifty years in his high chair,

A hundred more at school, would choke with rage

(Himself a dad now, in or out of matrimony)

Waiting for dad to die and bless his heir,

Trying to run up bills against his patrimony.

"We'd like to touch the stars," they cried, and, after,

"We've got to touch the stars. But how?" An able-

Brained bastard told them: "Build the Tower of Babel.

Start now, get moving. Dig holes, sink a shaft. A-

Rise, arouse, raise rafter after rafter,

Get bricks, sand, limestone, scaffolding and cable.

I'm clerk of works, fetch me a chair and table."

God meanwhile well-nigh pissed himself with laughter.

They'd just got level with the Pope's top floor

When something in their mouths began to give:

They couldn't talk Italian any more.

The project died in this linguistic slaughter.

Thus, if a man said: "Pass us that there sieve,"

His mate would hand him up a pail of water.

Lot 1

Two strangers, both with staffs, but one a bit

Lame from the journey, weary but still wary.

Came at the holy hour of the Hail Mary

(I love anachronising Holy Writ)

Looking for lodgings. Lot, who had just lit

His lamp, saw them, called them and said: "You're very

Welcome here." They smiled: "Ah, a good fairy.

Such kindness. You'll be amply paid for it."

These two were angels. The buggers of Gomorrah,

Hearing of their arrival, knew it not,

Else all their hair would have stood up in horror.

Their pricks stood up instead. They yelled out: "You

Selfish unsodomite, let's have them, Lot.

You don't require their arses, and we do."

The angels now announced themselves to Lot

And said "This town must suffer for its fault.

No rooftop, cavern, hole or nether vault

Will hide them when the flames leap high and hot.

You and your family leave now. Do not halt

And look back down Longara Road. Do not,

We say again." But hardly had they got

Away when Lot's wife turned and turned to salt.

Ah, woman, cursed by curiosity.

If all of our Italian women could

So change, as by that precedent they should,

They'd soon destroy the salt monopoly

And bring the price down, though of course we would

Be forced to live on salt and sodomy.

Lot 3

God, then, assumed the office of a cook

And baked the Sodomites like salmon trout.

Only the family of Lot got out,

Though his wife suffered for that backward look.

They camped near Zoar, in a stony nook.

Lot's daughters, starved of love, began to pout,

Seeing no sign of penises about,

And, driven by a fleshly need, forsook

Propriety. Here at least was their father.

They gave him wine with a well-salted pasty.

When he was drunk they fucked him to a lather,

Not finding this unnatural or nasty.

No fire rained down. It seems that God is rather

Inclined to incest but hates pederasty.

The Bible, sometimes called the Jewish Chronicle,

Says, midway between Noah's and Aaron's ark,

That Abraham played the grand old patriarch

And sacrificed to God, with fine parsonical

Language that all that blood made sound ironical.

He took a donkey from the donkey-park

(Chewing up chicory and grass in stark

Lordly disdain, as if it wore a monocle)

And called to Isaac: "Pack the bags and load

This ass here, get the boy to bring a nice

Sharp axe, then kiss your mother on the cheek.

Bring coats and hats, we're going to take the road.

The blessed Lord requires a sacrifice.

The time has come to teach you the technique."

Abraham 2

They ate, while day was cooking in the east,

Some breakfast. When their journey had begun,

Abraham led them in an orison

That lasted for a hundred miles at least.

Then the old swine or, if you wish, old priest

Said: "We've arrived. Shoulder that burden, son.

And as for you -" (meaning the other one)

"- Wait here. You too," he told his fellow-beast.

They started climbing. Halfway through their climb,

Isaac said: "Where's your victim wandered to?"

"Wait," said his father. "All in God's good time."

They reached the top, where knife-edged breezes blew,

And Abraham said: "A victim, yes. Well, I'm

The priest, son, and there's only me and you."

"No, no!" The boy knelt in his innocence

– The right position for that butcher-dad

Who raised his axe above the hapless lad,

Ready to do paternal violence.

"Stop!" cried a voice. "I think we can dispense

With filicide." An angel. "You've just had

A Godsent test, and passed it, I might add.

Baaaah – here's a sheep. Quite a coincidence."

To cut it short (I'm sick of the damned story),

The sheep was slain, and all the four went home,

The ass to pasture, Isaac to his mother.

As for the slab he nearly made all gory.

It's a prized relic, hidden safe in Rome,

At Borgo-novo, or some place or other.

Joseph 1

Some merchants, so it's said, near signed the pledge and

Gave up the drink when they heard something odd:

A yell deep in a well. "A child, by God,"

One said, sticking his chin over the edge and

Peering. They hired a dredger then to dredge and

He dredged up, dripping like a landed cod,

Howling like hell, a stinking clayey clod,

Joseph the Jew, so goes the ancient legend.

They dried him, cleaned him, gave him fodder and

Bought him a shirt against the inclement weather,

But didn't want to bring him up by hand.

Seeking returns on what they'd clubbed together

They sold him off in Egypt, contraband,

For a few rags and half a trank of leather.

Joseph grew up. When he was fully grown,

The lady that he worked for cast him looks

Whose drift he thought he'd read about in books,

Sighing, trying to get him on his own.

She ogled him with many a meaning moan,

Carefully careless with her eyes and hooks.

Her hunger could not be assuaged by cooks,

Only by some raw mutton with no bone.

One morning, bringing the hot water to her,

He found her naked, the sweet buxom slut,

So damped her with the contents of the ewer.

She grabbed him by his single garment but

He left it with her, naked but still pure,

And ran away, the bloody idiot.

Exodus

Pharaoh, a rogue in charge of other rogues,

First drowned the Jews then turned them into slaves,

Driven to toil by knaves with stones and staves,

Just where the fertile Nilus disembogues.

But Moses (the humane dictator vogue's

Said to start here), after some narrow shaves,

Led the Jews out between two walls of waves:

The buggers didn't even wet their brogues.

When the Red Sea swung open like a door,

The Jews assumed their journey was near done,

Not having met the love of God before.

But round and round beneath the desert sun

They had to frig for forty years and more -

A fucking waste of time for everyone.

As ancient Hebrew story tellers knew

The future better than the past, we lack

Proof that when Balaam rode his donkey's back

And, since it halted, beat it black and blue

The poor beast turned on him and brayed: "Hey, you,

Why did you launch that unprovoked attack?

If you could see that angel there you'd thwack

This ass, or arse, more gently than you do."

If you believe this, welcome an incursion

Of awe to learn that donkeys can be pat in

High class Italian (English in this version).

Accept the premise and it follows that in

Pointing you out the donkeys that know Latin

(Aspeeeerges meeeeee) I cast no foul aspersion.

The Battle of Gideon

300 Jews knitted their warlike brows and,

Armed with trombones and torches hid in skillets.

Marched in good order on their foemen's billets,

Quiet as a moving munching herd of cows. And

As dancers on the stage taking their bows and

Boos in an endless belt endlessly fill it, s-

O this small troop marched in a circle till its

300 men looked damned near like 3000.

Ta-rah, ta-ray – clash pans, flash torches. Flustered,

And deafened as 300 brass are mustered,

The enemy collapses like a custard.

Such thrift! Today we have our martial brawls,

Our soldiers heed the bugle when it calls

And waste 300 fucking cannon-balls.

The Bible is quite verminous with foxes.

Samson caught hundreds and, with foxy cunning,

Tied torches to their tails and set them running

Through his foes' harvest-fields – thus, with hot proxies,

Saving them sweat. Still, they wished ninety poxes

Upon him and increased their vengeful gunning.

Where are the foxes now? It seems they're shunning

Our hounds as we shun syphilitic doxies.

We ought to want them, since they stank of virtue

When Samson used them against naughty men.

But still an eggless henless world would hurt you

More than a foxless. If he came back again

With scores of foxes sniffing round his skirt, you

Would say: "I'd rather have a fucking hen."

Revenge 1

Of all the Bible stories that they tell,

This one to come is quite the most fantastic.

A sonnet being so damned inelastic,

I'll require two to tell it really well.

Well, now – the exodists from Egypt's hell

Met the mad Malechites who, dreadful, drastic.

Ferocious, tastelessly enthusiastic,

Fell on the Hebrews, and the Hebrews fell.

God made a memorandum. After all,

The Jews pursued the then correct religion.

After four hundred years he called on Saul.

"The Malechites," he said, "deserve the axe.

Spit the whole nation; roast it like a pigeon.

Don't leave a feather on their fucking backs."

So in God's name Saul went and waded in,

Trouncing them in one horrible stampede,

Goats, calves and all. Mercy maybe or greed

Or something made him save Prince Agag's skin.

Samuel now prophesied about Saul's sin!

"Idolater, betrayer of our creed,

A holier Israelite will supersede

Your reign and make a holier reign begin.

Bring me the prince you blasphemously spared."

Tremulous as a fatted pig, that prince

Stuttered – agag agag aghast, shit-scared.

The holy Samuel did not blink or wince

But raised the butcher's blade that he had bared

And made a mound of Malechitish mince.

David 1

How powerful is God's arm! He sent a boy

To fight Goliath, who was tough and scary,

Who swallowed foes like oysters of the prairie

And thought he'd stamp on David like a toy.

But God wished Israel to yell with joy

To know that every flabby, weak, unhairy

Weed that loves Jesus and his mother Mary

Finds giants rather easy to destroy.

Seeing the stone and sling and stripling shepherd,

Goliath cried: "You little prick, you've gone a

Mite too far," and tensed up like a leopard.

But David blessed the saints and the Madonna,

Measured his fireline, fired his pebble up it

And saw Goliath crumple like a puppet.

King David's later life? The stories vary.

It seems, though, his prophetic eye was sharp,

He spoke with God, he much preferred the bar-p-

Arlour to the coffee-shop or dairy.

Jesus, of David's seed through holy Mary,

For David was a very pericarp,

Had his gab-gift, but could not play the harp

Nor sing like David, King Saul's prize canary.

The Bible gives a fairish bona fide

Account of him, although it's hard to follow:

The story is elliptical, untidy.

You'll learn, however, that he loved to wallow

In love, and frot until his balls were hollow,

From Saturday till pretty late on Friday.

Wisdom

Solomon's judgment. So. It makes you laugh.

But could a judge upon a modern bench,

Nose lifted high against the rabble's stench,

For all his wigs and tomes and courtroom staff,

Do better? He, drained like his own carafe,

Hearing one wench scream at the other wench

In language that would make a bargee blench,

Could only say: "Let's chop the child in half."

The parish register was plain to see,

You say. He could have checked on her or her name,

The date and place of birth of son or daughter.

Fool. In those days nobody had a surname,

And parish registers came in A.D.,

When Christ had shown a brand-new use for water.

The Holy Bible tells how the seduc-

Tive Judith feasted Holofernes, winner

Of the late bloody war. They finished dinner,

She doused the lights. He, leering at his luck,

Leapt on her unresisting. Then she struck

His head off with a sword and cried: "Foul sinner,"

(His milk still frothing to the boil within her)

"Now you can find some blacker hole to fuck."

She heaved the head up in her lily hand,

Though it was heavy, horrible and gory,

And did a tour of triumph through the land.

I find two morals in this sacred story:

(a) Prove your faith by killing people and

(b) Be a bloody whore for heaven's glory.

Susannah

The chaste Susannah – what was she chased for?

Her beauty, yes, but was there something more?

The sort of reputation that she bore?

You said the word, not I: the word is w--e.

Those old men said it too (Ach, nothing's lower

Than watching at a lady's bathroom door).

But Daniel caught them out. His lion-roar

Condemned their heads, not hers, to hit the floor.

Chaste, was she? Hm. Perhaps she couldn't bring

Herself to fancy two limp bits of string.

A woman's nature's nature-in-the-spring.

To get to know it, cease your pondering,

Slap on your chest two puddings in a sling

And let your haunches launch into a swing.

Belshazzar, drunk, observed a kind of smoke

Resolve itself to something vaguely manual

Writing upon the wall. He called on Daniel.

"Many tickle your arse - What's this – a joke?"

The ambiguous bilge that Daniel then spoke

Made less sense than the yapping of a spaniel.

"Weighed in the balance to the utmost granule,

Found wanting." Why not just "You're going to croak"?

All right, that's not a literal translation.

But what came next was no big fat surprise:

Belshazzar didn't live to eat his breakfast.

A prophet, scared of sticking out his neck, fast-

Idious about his reputation,

Ought to be told that riddles are damned lies.

Dec. 8

Serious talk now; let's not arse about.

December eight – what do we celebrate?

Come on, you know. Good – the Immaculate

Conception. When that apple-loving lout

Adam first took it in his head to flout

The Lord's law, angels said: "Evacuate,"

And firmly locked the paradisal gate,

Keeping his maculate descendants out.

Poor Mother Nature, ever since than ban,

Cannot breed even half a child that's blameless.

There boils within the rising prick of man

The seed of something terrible though nameless.

So praise to Joachim who, with Saint Ann,

Achieved a fuck that was uniquely shameless.

You know the day, the month, even the year.

While Mary ate her noonday plate of soup,

The Angel Gabriel, like a heaven-hurled hoop,

Was bowling towards her through the atmosphere.

She watched him aash the window without fear

And enter through the hole in one swift swoop.

A lily in his fist, his wings adroop,

"Ave," he said, and after that, "Maria.

Rejoice, because the Lord's eternal love

Has made you pregnant – not by orthodox

Methods, of course. The Pentecostal Dove

Came when you slept and nested in your box."

"A hen?" she blushed, "for I know nothing of -"

The Angel nodded, knowing she meant cocks.

Enter Joseph

Only a few weeks after did our Virgin see

The need to make a matrimonial match,

To build a nest wherein the egg could hatch

(Her little belly had begun to burgeon, see.)

It was, therefore, a matter of some urgency.

She didn't seek the freshest of the batch;

The one she gave her hand to was no catch,

But any port will do in an emergency.

The foolish gossips gossiped at the feast:

"She might have got a younger one at least,

Not an old dribbler frosty in the blood."

But that old dribbler dribbling by the side

Of such a beautiful and youthful bride

Found his dry stalk was bursting into bud.

Mary received, while burning Joseph's toast,

A letter. "Who the hell -?" (under her breath),

Aloud: "It's cousin Saint Elizabeth."

Elizabeth, it seemed, could also boast

A pregnancy, though not from the Holy Ghost.

Still, her next birthday was her sixtieth.

Though travel then was slow expensive death,

"We're coining," Mary wrote, then caught the post.

They went. After a short magnificat,

The women were soon chattering away

Of swellings, morning sickness, and all that.

Joseph decided that he'd like to stay

A month or so, and so hung up his hat

Better than sawing wood all bloody day.

The Magi

From a far country – how far? Very far:

It grows, for instance, cinnamon and cocoa -

Three kings, their robes rococo or barocco,

Followed their leader – viz., that big bright star.

Each Magus had, like any czar or tsar,

Guards, steeds, a page, a clown with painted boko,

Coaches, a camel, and in leisured loco-

Motion they swayed towards where the Hebrews are.

They reached the stable with their caravan

One morning, evening, noon or afternoon,

With gifts – incense for God, and myrrh for man.

For Christ as king they had a gold doubloon -

Proper, they thought, for the top Christian.

They were, it seems, some centuries too soon.

Our Lady had a painful Christmas Day

And heaven the monopoly of mirth.

Between an ox and ass she brought to birth

A stableboy that stank of rags and hay.

His substitutive dad had to obey

The Jewish law, so look the Lord of Earth

Templewards, to have half a farthingsworth

Of hypostatic foreskin cut away.

Thirty years later saw the blessed Lord on

A journey to the rolling river Jordan

To be baptised by Mary's cousin's son.

A Christian man thus sprang from a prepuceless

Jew. I call most turncoats fucking useless

But make a rare exception for this one.

The Living Prepuce

That sacred relic, by the way, was hid

And either kept in camphor or else iced.

It grew so precious it could not be priced.

And then one day His Holiness undid

A holy box and raised a holy lid -

Behold – the foreskin of our saviour Christ,

Shrimplike in shape, most elegantly sliced,

At last to profane eyes exhibited.

In eighty other Christian lands they show

This self-same prize for reverent eyes to hail.

You look incredulous, my friend. But know

That faith, though buffeted, must never fail.

The explanation's this: God let it grow

After the clipping, like a fingernail.

Joseph was doing bull-roars on his back,

A dream corrida crowd was yelling "Toro!"

He slept cut off from coming care and sorrow,

Making the stable shake with roar and rack.

But then an angel dealt him a rough smack

And said: "You know what day it is tomorrow?

The twenty-eighth. I managed, see, to borrow

A copy of the current almanac."

Herod announced the Feast of Childermass.

Joseph rushed out and had to pay a pretty

Price (how he cursed) for an old spavined ass:

A carpenter would rather gyp than be gypped.

And so they moved off mouselike towards Egypt,

Missing a lively day in David's city.

The Slaughter of the Innocents 2

King Herod now, to minimal applause,

Ordered the babies to be stuck like swine.

There was an uproar then in Palestine

And not, O Jesus help us, without cause.

Those who had seen this coming did not pause

To hide their babes, but let them croon or whine

As visible as laundry on the line,

While they had masses said to Santa Claus.

Their saviour (saviour?) halfway to the delta

Smelt nothing of the filthy bloody welter

Nor heard the parents curse or ululate.

The troops of Herod smote and did not spare

But with each crack a splinter sought the air

And feebly tapped on heaven's heavy gate.

When he was old enough for politics

Jesus went splashing on the Jordan's bed.

He ceased to be a Jew and joined instead

The Apostolic Roman Catholics.

Then he went dropping homilies like bricks.

"He who seeks heaven with an unwashed head

Will see the kingdom with his arse," he said,

Shouting the odds, wagging his crucifix.

Only his mother got there unbaptised,

Which proves she waved goodbye to mother earth

A good Jewess, staunch in the faith and steady.

Heaven had got her soul well organised:

Why rub and scrub a thing that came to birth

As white as someone's laundry line already?

A Wedding at Cana 1

The guests at Cana, vinously aswim,

Aroar for more, found every bloody butt

Was empty, and the liquor stores were shut.

The innkeeper, fired by a roguish whim,

Had three casks filled with water to the brim,

Then told each sozzled fuddled serving slut

To lug them where, importantly astrut,

The host was, and to leave the rest to him.

Christ was a guest, dressed in his best apparel,

But the host begged a sort of magic act

Through Mary: "Make him turn this lot to wine."

Mary replied: "I know this son of mine -

Moody. But if I speak to him with tact

You'll get, maybe, a quarter of a barrel."

And so she begged an instant grapeless wine.

But Jesus, who was hardly yet adult,

Sighed like a stone leaving a catapult

And scowled: "This problem's neither yours nor mine,

Mother. Permit me coldly to decline

To help these boozers. Easy or difficult

Is not the point. Let the fat host consult

Some other thaumaturge, the smirking swine.

Just so some soak can blurt a drunken toast

Or swill the teeth he's sunk into a roast,

You want me to work miracles and such,

To get a toothcomb and go combing out

The various troubles lurking all about.

I've troubles of my own, thanks very much."

A Wedding at Cana 3

Jesus, I think (Christ rest his spirit), chose a

Tantrum like that one not to be unkind

But to show off. A young man is inclined

To blow his trumpet oftener than his nose. A-

Las, Our Lady, so says the composer

Of this instructive rhapsody, repined.

She'd had maternal victory in mind

But now became the Mater Dolorosa.

I sometimes wish this story had not happened;

But heed its lesson, if you heed no other:

Try not to be the big loud man too soon.

God heard the answer that he gave his mother,

Determined on a right reproving rap and

Lathered his arse one Friday afternoon.

Jesus forgives all sins – or nearly all:

Usury, anger, greed, the knife thrust under

The ribs, robbery, calumny, lying, plunder

Of land condoned by rogues in the town hall.

Only on one occasion did he fall

Into a rage that tore him near asunder

And made him roar with true Jehovan thunder

And bounce in bloody anger like a ball,

And that was when he saw the Church done wrong to.

He took a whip with many a knotted thong to

The moneychangers preying on those praying at the temple.

This is the only place in Holy Writ

Where Christ is shown as throwing a mad fit.

He aged with righteous rage and started greying at the temple.

Martha amp; Mary

Martha said: "Christ, I'm full up reet to' t' scupper

Wi' Mary there." She belted out her stricture:

"Rosaries, masses – it fair makes you sick to your

Stomach. Stations o't' Cross. I'm real fed up. A

Carthorse I am, harnessed neck and crupper

While she does nowt. About time this horse kicked you

Right in the middle of your holy picture, Mary.

Go on, now. Say it: What's for supper?"

"Martha, O Martha," sighed the blessed Saviour,

"You've no call to get mad at her behaviour.

She's on the right road, and you're out of luck."

"The right road, aye," said Martha. "Why, if I

Went on like her, this house would be a sty,

And she'd not see the right road for the muck."

With the Last Supper finished and the waiter

Ready to clear, Christ took a loaf of bread,

Blessed it, then fed it to the already fed,

Making each eater a communicator.

He even gave some to his darling traitor,

Proving his mood was rosy, not yet red

(Judas Iscariot, who lost his head

And went to play at swings a little later).

But, friendly as he was, the Master knew

His passion hour was coming, hot and hellish,

So made a good confession, to embellish

His church with not one sacrament but two.

There then remained one holy thing to do -

To eat himself, with little or no relish.

Christ amp; Pilate

After they'd knotted Jesus up with rope,

Judas assisting, damned and dirty dastard,

After the high priest's bullies, who had mastered

The spitting art, had given it full scope,

After the maids and grooms had heard the Pope

Say: "I don't give a fuck about the bastard",

They led our Lord to Pilate's alabastered

Hand-washing room, already sweet with soap.

This was a case Pilate could not refuse.

He saw the filth of it but might not shed it -

A swine, yes, but a clean swine, to his credit.

He said: "You're Jesus, then, king of the Jews?"

Christ sought not to deny, affirm or edit,

But looked him in the eye and said: "You've said it."

Bare as a Briton auctioned into slavery,

Lashed to a post, Jesus, from head to feet,

Beaten by bastards who knew how to beat.

Yielded his skin to graduates in knavery.

No spot was spared. He ended an unsavoury

Blue-green-vermilion chunk of dirty meat,

The sort that's bought for cats and dogs to eat

From fly-buzzed butchers' barrows in Trastevere.

No spot spared? Well, I did some small research

Into that very whipping post, that's placed,

As is well known, in St Prassede's church,

And found it didn't come up to my waist.

So, though Christ's limbs, loins, face, flanks, belly shared

Foul blows, his sitteth-on-God's-right was spared.

At the Pillar 2

You've seen a felon in the public pillory

Having his buttocks beaten to a mash,

And much admired his cool disdainful dash,

The muscles firm – both gluteal and maxillary

(Aided no doubt by draughts from the distillery).

But now consider Christ beneath the lash,

Deafened by the incessant crash and slash

Of leather, sticks, the whole damned crude artillery.

Consider how each whipstroke gashes, galls

Ribs, shoulders, flanks, how bits of torn flesh keep

Falling away, as, say, boiled mutton falls

From the bone. But does the victim whine or weep?

No. Though all that is left him is his balls.

He merely counts the strokes, like counting sheep.

How can you think of Christ without a sob?

Dropped like a beast in a foul nest of straw,

Forced, as a boy, with hammer, pliers, saw

To slave away at a woodworker's job,

A youth, he walked the world with grumbling maw,

Preaching the word to a disdainful mob,

A man, he had a price upon his nob,

And Judas sold him to the Roman law.

The spit, the lash, the doom, the thorny crown,

The nails, the cross, the vinegar-soaked rag

Tied to a pole, the diced-for bloody gown:

All burdens fell upon him, sacred bag

Of bones – hence the old saying handed down:

Flies always settle on a spavined nag.

Two Kinds of Men

We come into this world bedecked in shit,

Some of us anyway, including Jesus.

But others are born rich as fucking Croesus,

Mightily proud, mightily proud of it.

The crown, the coronet, the mitre fit

Men for whom earth gushes out gold like geysers,

While we are lemons ready for the squeezers,

Scarred nags for spurs, bare backsides to be hit.

If Christ was one of us, why did he give in

Such plenty palaces for those to live in,

Making us stew in filth and sweat and pus?

Why, even on the cross, in the last flood

Of pain, it was for them he gushed forth blood

But trickled bloody water out for us.

There's a whole race that seems to merit hell

Because the bloody reprobates refuse

To join the Church of Rome – I mean the Jews.

They let Christ die upon the cross as well.

Still, as some learned Jewish rabbis tell,

There is a circumstance that one may choose,

If one's fair-minded, that can near-excuse

The dozen errant tribes of Israel.

When Christ went to fulfil his metier,

He knew Good Friday was his destined day:

Death was a big word in his lexicon.

Doomed-to-be-slain (put it another way)

Must meet a complementary doomed-to-slay.

Somebody had to take that business on.

Limbo

When Jesus rose triumphant from the tomb,

Defying natural law as well as Roman,

He whizzed down like a shot shot by a bowman

And dragged the holy souls from Limbo's gloom.

Then Purgatory started to assume

The place of rhubarb in a sick abdomen;

Masses were sold like tickets by a showman -

Twin innovations that are still in bloom.

The angels, after brooding wings akimbo,

Put infant souls, baptised in milk and piss

But not the font, into that empty Limbo.

It wasn't meant to last, of coarse, and when

The Last Trump offers only blaze or bliss,

Christ knows where the young bastards will go then.

The Creed says Christ descended into Hell.

What could his Father have been thinking of,

Sending him there? Is that paternal love?

Jesus in Hell. Christ Jesus. Hell. Well, well,

For my part faith and candour both compel

My stating that the buggers up above -

Not God but government – desired to shove

Christ in that ill-appointed hot hotel.

Jesus in Hell. O Jesus Christ in Hades.

Ever since earth was earth and sky was sky,

A finer gentleman, gentlemen, ladies,

Was never picked to whip and crucify

Than Jesus. Let's believe that when he made his

Trip it was just hello and then goodbye.

Doubt

When Christ rose up, those somewhat timid gentry

His friends kicked up a noise, but one apostle -

St Thomas – sang as loud as any throstle:

"It's an imposture. Obvious. Elementary.

Anyway, how could he pass the fucking sentry?"

Jesus meanwhile, unseen in the Easter jostle,

Was making for their place at a colossal

Speed, and he used the keyhole for his entry.

He cried: "Poke in your finger, near this rib,

And you'll soon see whether I still exist

Or the whole tale is just a fucking fib."

St Thomas came and shoved his great ham fist

Into the hole. He then became as glib

A Christian as he'd been a rationalist.

You've seen the cook shove larding needles in

Pork, lamb, beef or some other meaty treat,

While seated on your trattoria seat,

Hungry as hell and anxious to begin.

Fat spits and bubbles underneath the skin,

The very sizzle's good enough to eat,

And while the flame and fat and fibre meet,

Saliva dribbles almost to your chin.

This is one way to cook a fine fat pigeon,

But not the dove of pentecostal peace.

Dressed as a grilled lamb-tongue, this fluttered down

And, to feed hungry bellies with religion,

It cooked the eleven apostles good and brown

Until they spat with holy grace or grease.

Spread the Word

When Jesus died, firm in the Christian creed,

St Peter's party picked up the Lord's load

And, staff in fist, they took the Cassia road

And went about the world to sow their seed.

Some sought – lazy, or fired to feed a need -

Baccano and La Storta; others strode

To Nepi, Monterosi, where they showed

The Christian way of death in word and deed.

Nay, more – to teach the good and ban and banish

The bad, they went to lands where pagans chatter

In Russian, German, English, French and Spanish.

Their message was so simple, strong, unkillable,

The fact they spoke Italian didn't matter.

No one misunderstood a single syllable.

When the long annals of the earth are done

And Christ's creation's melted into shit,

The Antichrist will crawl out of his pit

And preach the dirty word to everyone,

Cursed with a wall-eye that the blest will shun,

A giant body and a face unfit

Even to have tomatoes hurled at it,

A prodigy, son of a monk and nun.

The prophet Enoch will lambast the liar,

Elijah too – they'll spring out of a hatch

In St Paul's church, between the nave and choir.

Satan will slither up from hell to snatch

His share, snarling it out with the Messiah.

And earth will be a plucked up cabbage patch.

The Last Judgment

At the round earth's imagined corners let

Angels regale us with a brass quartet,

Capping that concord with a fourfold shout:

"Out, everybody, everybody out!"

Then skeletons will rattle all about

Forming in file, on all fours, tail to snout,

Putting on flesh and face until they get,

Upright, to where the Judgment Seat is set.

There the All High, maternal, systematic,

Will separate the black souls from the white:

That lot there for the cellar, this the attic.

The wing'd musicians now will chime or blare a

Brief final tune, then they'll put out the light:

Er-phwhoo.

And so to bed.

Owwwwwww.

Bona sera.