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.Belshazzar's FeastBelshazzar, drunk, observed a kind of smokeResolve itself to something vaguely manualWriting upon the wall.He called on Daniel."Many tickle your arse - What's this – a joke?"The ambiguous bilge that Daniel then spokeMade 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.8Serious talk now; let's not arse about.December eight – what do we celebrate?Come on, you know.Good – the ImmaculateConception.When that apple-loving loutAdam first took it in his head to floutThe 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 manThe seed of something terrible though nameless.So praise to Joachim who, with Saint Ann,Achieved a fuck that was uniquely shameless.AnnunciationYou 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 fearAnd 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 loveHas made you pregnant – not by orthodoxMethods, of course.The Pentecostal DoveCame 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 JosephOnly a few weeks after did our Virgin seeThe 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 sideOf such a beautiful and youthful brideFound his dry stalk was bursting into bud.The VisitMary 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 boastA 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 awayOf swellings, morning sickness, and all that.Joseph decided that he'd like to stayA month or so, and so hung up his hatBetter than sawing wood all bloody day.The MagiFrom 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 caravanOne 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.CircumcisionOur Lady had a painful Christmas DayAnd heaven the monopoly of mirth.Between an ox and ass she brought to birthA stableboy that stank of rags and hay.His substitutive dad had to obeyThe Jewish law, so look the Lord of EarthTemplewards, to have half a farthingsworthOf hypostatic foreskin cut away.Thirty years later saw the blessed Lord onA journey to the rolling river JordanTo be baptised by Mary's cousin's son.A Christian man thus sprang from a prepucelessJew
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