Various Heresies 2

Various Heresies 2 You by Michael R. Burch For thirty years You have not spoken to me; I heard the dull hollow echo of silence as though strange communion between us. For thirty years You would not open to me; You remained closed, hard and tense, like a clenched fist. For thirty years You have not broken me with Your alien ways and Your distance. Like a child dismissed, I have watched You prey upon the hope in me, knowing “mercy” is chance and “heaven”: a list. ### I’ve got Jesus’s face on a wallet insert by Michael R. Burch for the Religious Right I’ve got Jesus’s face on a wallet insert and "Hell is for Queers" on the back of my shirt. And I uphold the Law, for Grace has a Flaw: the Church must have someone to drag through the dirt. I’ve got ten thousand reasons why Hell must exist, and you’re at the top of my fast-swelling list! You’re nothing like me, so God must agree and slam down the Hammer with His Loving Fist! For what are the chances that God has a plan to save everyone: even Boy George and Wham!? Eternal fell torture in Hell’s pressure scorcher will separate h0m0 from Man. I’m glad I’m redeemed, ecstatic you’re not. Did Christ die for sinners? Perish the thought! The "good news" is this: soon My vengeance is his!, for you’re not the lost sheep We sought. ### jesus hates me, this i know by michael r. burch jesus hates me, this I know, for Church libel tells me so: "little ones to him belong" but if they use their dongs, so long! yes, jesus hates me! yes, jesus baits me! yes, he berates me! Church libel tells me so! jesus fleeces us, i know, for Religion scams us so: little ones are brainwashed to believe god saves the Chosen Few! yes, jesus fleeces! yes, he deceases the bunny and the rhesus because he's mad at you! jesus hates me: christ who died so i might be crucified: for if i use my active brain, that will drive the "lord" insane! yes, jesus hates me! yes, jesus baits me! yes, he berates me! Church libel tells me so! jesus hates me, this I know, for Church libel tells me so: first priests tell me "look above," that christ's the lamb and god's the dove, but then they sentence me to Hell for using my big brain too well! yes, jesus hates me! yes, jesus baits me! yes, he berates me! Church libel tells me so! ### and then i was made whole by michael r. burch ...and then i was made whole, but not a thing entire, glued to a perch in a gilded church, strung through with a silver wire... singing a little of this and of that, warbling higher and higher: a thing wholly dead till I lifted my head and spat at the Lord and his choir. ### Starting from Scratch with Ol’ Scratch by Michael R. Burch for the Religious Right Love, with a small, fatalistic sigh went to the ovens. Please don’t bother to cry. You could have saved her, but you were all tied up complaining about the Jews to Reichmeister Grupp. Scratch that. You were born after World War II. You had something more important to do: while the children of the Nakba were perishing in Gaza with the complicity of your government, you had a noble cause (a religious tract against homosexual marriage and various things gods and evangelists disparage.) Jesus will grok you? Ah, yes, I’m quite sure that your intentions were good and ineluctably pure. After all, what the hell does he care about Palestinians? Certainly, Christians were right about serfs, slaves and Indians. Scratch that. You’re one of the Devil’s minions. ### Beast 666 by Michael R. Burch “...what rough beast...slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”-W.B. Yeats Brutality is a cross wooden, blood-stained, gas hissing, sibilant, lungs gilled, deveined, red flecks on a streaked glass pane, jeers jubilant, mocking. Brutality is shocking: tiny orifices torn by cruel adult lust, the fetus unborn tossed in a dust- bin. The scarred skull shorn, nails bloodied, tortured, an old wound sutured over, never healed. Brutality, all its faces revealed, is legion: Death March, Trail of Tears, Inquisition... always the same. The Beast of the godless and of man’s “religion” slouching toward Jerusalem: horned, crowned, gibbering, drooling, insane. ### I AM by Michael R. Burch I am not one of ten billion-I- sunblackened Icarus, chary fly, staring at God with a quizzical eye. I am not one of ten billion, I. I am not one life has left unsquashed: scarred as Ulysses, goddess-debauched, pale glowworm agleam with a tale of panache. I am not one life has left unsquashed. I am not one without spots of disease, laugh lines and tan lines and thick-callused knees from begging and praying and girls sighing "Please!" I am not one without spots of disease. I am not one of ten billion-I- scion of Daedalus, blackwinged fly staring at God with a sedulous eye. I am not one of ten billion, I AM! ### Unwhole by Michael R. Burch What is it that we strive to remember, to regain, as memory deserts us, leaving us destitute of even ourselves, of all but pain? How can something so essential be forgotten, if we are more than our bodies? How can a soul become so unwhole? ### Nonbeliever by Michael R. Burch writing as Kim Cherub She smiled a thin-lipped smile (What do men know of love?) then rolled her eyes toward heaven (Or that Chauvinist above?). ### evol-u-shun by Michael R. Burch does GOD adore the Tyger while it's ripping ur lamb apart? does GOD applaud the Plague while it's eating u à la carte? does GOD admire ur intelligence while u pray that IT has a heart? does GOD endorse the Bible you blue-lighted at k-mart? ### Heaven Bent by Michael R. Burch This life is hell; it can get no worse. Summon the coroner, the casket, the hearse! I'm upwardly mobile; this one thing I know: I can only go up; I'm already below! Keywords: god, bible, jesus, christ, christian, christianity, religion, religious, faith, belief, spiritual, heaven, hell, salvation, communion, prayer, mercy, grace, atheist, agnostic, heresy, heretic, heretical