Best Publicans Poems
Born into this world as a humble, helpless Babe
Christ increased in wisdom and stature
Grew up in favour with both God and man
Baptised publicly by John the Baptist
Tempted by the devil, but overcame him
Preached the gospel of the kingdom of God
Befriended the publicans and the sinners
Turned the water into wine, did miracles
Cast out demons, healed all kinds of diseases
Backed up twelve fishermen as His disciples
Taught them, led them, and washed their feet
Spent three and a half years moulding them
Broken, He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane
His sweat as blood, such spiritual agony
Ready to do the will of God and drink the cup
Beaten and scourged on the way to Calvary
A crown of thorns placed upon His head
Spat upon, mocked, and smote by the soldiers
Bruised, He was crucified on the cruel Cross
He hung there with no form nor comeliness
Reviled by passers-by wagging their heads
Bereft and forsaken by His own Father
Carrying the sins of the entire world
He suffered and bled, but forgave and loved
Beseeching His Heavenly Father to receive His Spirit
Lord Jesus Christ gave up his ghost on the Cross
And the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom
Buried in a new rock sepulchre, the stone was rolled
The tomb was sealed and the watch was set
But on the third day, as prophesied, our Lord rose up
Behold, there was a great earthquake
The angel of the Lord descended from heaven
And rolled back the stone and sat upon it
Bewildered, the women heard him saying,
“Fear not, ye seek Jesus who was crucified,
He is not here, for He is risen, come see where they laid Him”
Brutal death could not chain our Lord,
He overcame it and appeared to His disciples
And was carried up into heaven
Believe on the Lord Jesus, He was crucified for our sins,
But He resurrected from the dead, never to die again
Now He sits on the right hand of God, interceding for our sins
Beloved, He will come back one day
Not as the Lamb, but as the Lion
To take His loved ones unto Himself
Before it is too late, accept Him into your heart
You will enjoy peace, love and joy, which this world can’t offer
Repent, believe and rejoice for the Lord Jesus Christ is alive.
9th April, 2022
For Regina McIntosh's "Easter" contest
Glancing down from breathless heights,
Amidst climey sighs,
The looming colossus awakens from slumber
And stretches across Thelwalls linear skies.
The hot engines hissing steam -
Recalled from fond memories long back -
Tumbling like huffing little rain clouds
Down from the lofty metal track;
Wherein brightly painted carriages:
The publicans daughter, the verger,
The magistrate, the chief executive -
Seated first class, all habitually sat.
Swift grandiose arches, a celebration
Trumpeting the artful masons cunning devise,
Boast loudly of the great towers
Parallelogram of terrific forces:
Crossing over in giant leaping strides.
Here below, like Hercules reclining,
The stoic gates of Latchfords black fortress locks
Lift to brace against the immense swell
Far and beyond the chimming remarks
Of Greenhalls absolute, mechanically proven,
Georgian bell;
When, ensconced within a purpose-built,
Purple brick tower:
Strikes the centuries old brewery clock
On the twelfth
Of every God given hour.
A rich bankers cantilever
Pushes doggedly against opposing, sheer,
Red Sandstone walls;
Again the mauve and azure rock pigeon claps...
And then...coo, coo, cooingly calls.
Dry buzzing heat blurs over
The hum of a high noons imcumbent midday;
The coup-de-gras scimitar wing stoops -
To fasten onto its slower-witted prey!
Steeped sides slipping amidst tumbling yellow
Gorse and sporadic flowers
Balk at the foreboding waters edge,
Where, over the denizens swirling bowers,
The resolute little rusting lugger,
Puffing and chugging,
relentlessly dredges and scours;
Churning the murky Eastham silts
That drab Manchester draw:
Into the vast hollowing quays
On beachless, concrete Salfords industrialized,
High-rise dockland shore.
Through the deepest part of the black
Channel
A salt grimed hulk smoothly slips...
Attached by a twisted hemp to the tugboat
That hauls the great ships.
Stirred by the bow waves
Flowing and ebbing like currents in time:
From the trough to the peak
The jettison and flotsam climbs -
Before succumbing to powerful undercurrents
Of irresistible designs!
The 'Beloved Community'
by
Rick Folker
One beloved community
in God's world
Where each soul honors
the Image of God in the other
Where neither Jew nor Greek
Woman nor Man
Delivers the 'manifest destiny'
From Sinai's peak
Where all are called to Isaiah's mountain
Eunuchs and lepers
Publicans and saints
Lips humbly muttering prayers
they cannot speak
Where all observe Jesus from afar
On lonely Gethsemane
Sweating blood
For the sleeping, satisfied, selfish crowd
The torpor of disciples, deaf to the
Impending flood
One beloved community, Or...
Some fairy tale kingdom struggling
To become a living thing or tossed in the trash
Or the mountains where "used-to-be"
crumble from sorrow
into a mournful ash
And well-meaning Christians hurry
For shelter, cowering in sack cloth
As the complacent sleepers of Gethsemane
creep back
Into the darkness, covering their ears lest they
AWAKE! to the night that is far gone
And hear of light and justice
Escaping the righteous rebuke of
WRONG! Wrong! Wrong
One beloved community
That Martin gave his soul and his life for;
A King who was prophet and priest
Whose dream was smothered in the still-born birth
in a would be manger in some slum in Montgomery
Where no sun rises in a forgotten, hopeless east
'Move to the front please'
One beloved community
shattered and now praised
for its greatness, its whiteness, its bravado
and hubris in soul-grinding waves
Ignoring the please of the blacks and the browns
and the braves
One beloved community that exists
in a dream
And one loveless community that ends
in a scream with a lone,frightened individual
Praying to be redeemed
The Gospels share a negative understory,
thematic across all four.
However diverse these four voices may be
in describing and delineating Messianic love,
and political-economic priorities for poor spirits,
all four are univocal with anecdotal warnings:
If you are on the supremely powerful hoarding side
referring to those less fortunate than your enlightened self
as mere cowards
and traitors
and sinners
being who they marginally are,
as they perhaps criminally are,
for acting out insanely,
as they compulsively,
but not long-term nurturingly, will,
then you are on a wrong side
of co-redemptive ecopolitical action;
the wrong side of the GoodNews Gospels.
Blaming the victims
of poverty and ecopolitical marginalization
of abuse and neglect,
of addiction and victimless criminalization,
is the Gospel-condemned hypocrisy
of desecrating Pharisees
and Sadducees,
Publicans
and other clericalist malignant Aristocrats,
Caesars breeding Mammon
rather than CoMessiahs breathing Manna.
If we create an old with new blend of Jesus
as Solomon,
a more positive Gospel message
invites discerning issues of freedoms and rights to say
and/or do and not do
by asking ourselves, and each other:
Will this democratize freedoms to love,
to participate
to cooperate
to look for WinWin resolutions?
And, will this build higher boundaries around monoculturing restrictions
toward further WinLose anger,
fear,
intolerance,
chronic hatreds,
while excusing hypocrisies
of supremacists calling themselves on the side of defusing love's barriers,
removed from cowards,
losers,
soft on healthy defense,
fostering long-term economic disaster areas,
deniers of LeftBrain healthy nondual co-realities,
detractors from patriarchal capital-obsessed evolutionary self-aggrandizing theories
as more culturally important
than Matriarchal-ReGenerative CoOperation Stories
about Messiahs
and wise guys, royal as humble-servant birth
of healthy,
courageously cooperative,
mutually trusting and vulnerable ecopolitics.
20 nods and 20 winks,
it’s all smoke-and-mirrors
me lazy bones think
Swampy eye creatures
say dey got a thousand-dollar discount
sofa solution
And dey gon put me
on a ten-dollar monthly lay-away plan
This 20/20 optical illusion
be straight up sewer smell talking
Old-timey lip confusion,
king crab style slug moon-walking
Dem gator jaw creatures
say dey gon make jobs be penny plenty
Telling dat to a son of a slave,
is bat-crazy
spit
flying out of a man-hole cave
Giving work to somebody in chains,
sho’ do a lot of overhead save
This 20/20 optical illusion,
it got a downright awful toilet smell
Dem publicans ... croc smiling,
all gon be flushed up da river to jail
Every 20/20 lying double vision,
sticky fingers and scaly toes ... swampy sin puppet
twins be flushed down da pit to hell
Sinners, Publicans – Pharisees, Scribes
Unto neither of these could I ever subscribe
For I read of both groups in the scriptures each day,
And both make me feel to exclaim when I pray,
“God, I thank thee, that I’m not as other men are,
Like those sinners and publicans - God keep me far
From their damnable words and their damnable deeds,
And more so than this – Oh God, keep me free
From those gosh awful Pharisees - they above all
Are the worst kind of folks who are destined to fall.
But rather God keep apart from these men
And I promise that things will go on as they’ve been
Fasting two times a week, paying tithes of my gain
Doing all that I do, but I need not explain
For Thou knowest all this, and the time has come when
I must wrap this prayer up, and close with amen”
No, I’ll never be like anyone from those tribes
Not like Sinners and Publicans, Pharisees, Scribes
For I’m nothing like they. No, my time is well spent
Me, a just soul who has no need to repent
Reference:
Luke 18: 10-14
Luke 15:7
You got get-rich-quick dreams
dancing in your pillow head
Put a dollar or ten into the Lepercaun winners pot,
and magically enlarge
the government coffers a whole lot
That’s right ... exactly,
fatten the pockets of those swamp gator publicans
you love to hate
But one lucky lottery tool
is gonna get
an elevated, graduated tax rate
One out of ten million,
those odds don’t ghetto calculate too great
Half a billionth of a decimal from zero
You gotta dig so deep
with the open sesame,
lightning’s-gon-strike-me dull blade
to find the buried treasure
of Sierra Madre
Fantasy Island invasion
by another fugazi AU
gambling-without-a-parachute fool
So many rigged cash worms
on the hook of a lottery tool
Go get your carny, free-money giveaway fisherman soak,
as you watch the numbered balls tumble and turn
Place another dollar or ten on the next spin,
those empty lint pockets seem to never ever learn
Sharp loser rebuke given to a dull lottery tool ...
instant gratification deflation —
Leaves you with a million ways to cry the blues
*Image of Ukraine Chronicles by PJC.
Top of the Charts 2023
1. putin was put in the hit list~~grateful dead now dead and company
play [14th-17th, Cancun, Mexico]
2. your feelings and emotions are left at the door~~on the welcome mat
3. a symptom flagging a rock star climbing the charts~~yellow backs
blues mark
4. hollywooders tip newsmen goodwill ball~~so sly even their stills move
5. hollywood moguls think stars ratings best in courtrooms~~not studios
6. libs think that what is central is between your legs~~not between
your ears
7. teens carded for smokes, alcohol, guns, and movies~~all comforts of
homes
8. kids study hard to be like dads~~first must beat dads in video games
9. it's hit or miss, sink or swim, tit for tat, lies or~~half-truths oh my gosh
10. your souls to God by friendly fire are tokens~~new arms shipment
arrived
11. newshounds must prove their news agency~~best way to I.D. their
bodies
12. make sure that the white flag you're waving is white enough~~and pray
for snow
13. west cash in alleys and street corners~~self-finance efforts and ship
drugs
14. demonrats are busy printing money~~publicans rehide the ink
15. for those who coerce the years of our past~~be prepared to raise the
dead
2023 January 13
*4th Place*
Hit list 2023
~~Joe Maverick: Judged 2023 February 10
*HMS; 17x15
Copper robbers ... penny-ante coin collectors
Duly appointed by Caesar Cersei,
deputized purse snatchers
Modern day publicans holding the money bag,
appointed bean counters
being levy
abacus austere
Placing palm heavy fines on the people
of the Iron throne realm,
keeping them usury chained to the crown
Pence pawns of mother Jezebel the whore queen
Mint minions
issuing inordinate, sterling pound penalties
of cent cruel, tender mercy
Tax overseers ~ Publican offenders
with the Judas touch
In
Revenue
Service
of Her Majesty Caesar Cersei
A despicable daughter, who don’t
charitably care much
Unctuous underlings of her utterly impotent kings;
spike collar cuckold,
they fetch the coins, arrears arresting
Paper officers who love pressing the thumb down ...
turning the thumb down
to the default grace petition of the working poor
Pay up ... or else, eviction notice nailed to the door!
Publican offenders —
New Republic of Rome receipt rebels
hold the oppressing power of the purse
Delivering debt dominion over the downtrodden
Caesar Cersei’s pennywise parakeets,
with the plundering peck, green plumage hand
Got a robber baron Balaam wingspan
overshadowing every gilded, golden amber land
Most dastardly
Executive Majesty,
we serve at your pique pleasure
obsequiously so
Yea, Darth Lord,
we be the surreptitious, servile ones:
Leper skin publicans, publicly hiss reviled
Tonsil rear ends torqued low
is our mealy-mouth status quo
We’re liquored up lap dogs
Always lip bent overly yours
Tongue rolls of surfeit flattery,
buttery tones of praise gluttony piled on
Nay, Imperial Vader,
we echo only your strident, bellyaching growls
from our sphincter pie holes
Boast bastardly
King El Presidente,
and we cower at your cheek displeasure
ingratiatingly so
Our speech undignified,
flesh market wench pride
was thirty silver pieces sold
minus six-feet degrees below
Aye, Commander-in-Chief Bellow Nero ...
Imp patient Sanballast ground zero,
your every atomic jinn wish gets grovel granted
We bow mice-men be the fawn minion pagan pawn devotees,
submissively submitting to such spittle humiliation willingly
Ever always lip bent overly yours
And it came to pass as Jesus sat at meat in the house
Behold yes I believe
many publicans and sinners came and sat down
with him and his disciples and when the Pharisees saw it they said unto his
disciples.
Why does your Master continue to eat with publicans and sinners
But
when Jesus heard that he said unto them
they that be whole need, not a physician
But they that are sick
But go learn continually what this mean!
KJV-
Matthew9-13
I chanced to look upon the world, through current
Channels..And much unfurled; I noted the various
Decades passed, wars on terror legalising grass..'
Wars on waste, the slogans did run, my mind reeled
Them off one by one.' I remember third world birthed
A helofull phrase, Beirut and Gaza Belfast the Maze
Bangladesh the tamils Uganda pol pot, reigns of hunger
And terror there has been a lot.' I remember the west
It seemed a planet away..From such raw anarchy and
And deprivation.' Yet is my mind astray.? No now I see that
Here there is also unrest, how did this occur my thought
Requests.? In the 60s take Bolton U K; many poor there
Yet not this dissaray.' Chicago Sydney Montreal Berlin
Paris Auckland just a random dip in.' Life for the many
Not what I'd call plush..Yet there was more structure
Amid the rush.' Amongst the mire the crush of the world
There was more christianity, and not just in word' even
Publicans suppported the church' people when asked
At random had (mostly) no lurch? Or other path i know
Of that.!maybe it was contrived.? Or just off pat.? Yet
I return to today, and our current trials.. Homelesness
Rampant violence idol worship trans-reality begging by
Media, and initiatives for every situation.! Answers abound
And yet I see.' Broken people, and citys; and towns. The
Former places still seem the same, only the west i think
Has changed.? Despite many billions gathered and spent
The wars and poverty do not relent, I question such I
Apprehend there is corruption much.' Great power is no
Human friend, as such.!
I
The bell the Town Courier want to toll
To salute the day of reckoning in Getham City
Is now on the neck of the scary-witty cat her paws like dragon
Saints, Publicans looking on at each other nose
Of whose can prove his vigour to bell the cats?
Lo! Saw earth sweeping away into the abyss
Yes! Her treasures sunken into the ravine
Restlessness wind voicing its bewails
Cursing and mumuring for the evils enacted upon the City
II
The Armageddon Spirit has resurged once again to the City of pleasure
Seen I melted bodies, brokenness on the fields of refinement
Lo! Saw townsfolks running helter shelter for cover
Sought in vain for any place of rest
The phantoms re-awakening in its limberness
Saw I its thunderbolts, hiding away from fierceness of death
The head corn blown away its tarp, causing
Further dent to the fragile macrocosm of the sorry City
III
The people’s spoils being devoured by mass human-like robot caterpillars
In a twinkle of an eye, falls of death have reaped them
Saw I kings, Princes and noble men fell on their knees
Shrouded from calamities that befell them all
Their once happy life becomes bland within a whisker!
The happy faces have lost all mojos and blooms
Unable to elucidiate their misfortune that I my seen
That raging storms from the Eastern coast reaching the City
Epicenter escapade the knowledgeable, is sadistic viewing can’t I fathom
IV
Pale-looking creeping creatures with craggy-winged bodies
Swarmed towards the water shore for survival
Pugnacious in the lonely deep sea
Its rumbling re-awakes the deadly sea animals
Ready to pounced on wander souls, taken away
Their weary souls, waited too long for divination to placate
But lost in the labyrinth of the lonely deeply sea, the water gods
Unknown livid for the peril caused her during their rotten lives
V
So yet and black it’s the sky
Gazed I deeply into the black sky and yet-
The picture seen gave me deepened sorrow
Lonesome and silenced in the midst of
These rotten and malicious bones
Tears flows from the redden eyes
Saw I the once lively, attractive not fortnight ago
Has become a bestialized and plangent City
With fading strength and bleeding heart
Waiting patiently for the breath of life.
I lurch and crawl from
Bar to Bar
As most of all regulars and barkeep alike
Unfortunately can vouch and attest for
As i am well known or shall I say infamous
Far and wide in these establishment
Some have gone so far as to
Take turns or placing a watch out
So they have time to hide or run away
Rather than having been forced to listen to me
Regale stories and forms of poetry
With a booming voice best suited
For a outdoor amphitheater performance
Or town crier
Draped accordingly in gown and hat
Cane walking stick merely used as a prop
Performing everywhere he goes
Unfortunately most of time sadly uninvited
And if given the choice most publicans
Would Bar
Because he chases more customers away
Than end up wishing or wanting to stay
And worst of all he doesn't even
Buy a drink himself
He expects the other customers to
And when or if they eventually do
He then also says
Well go on then
May as well make mine a
Double
And don't try and fob me off
With the cheap stuff I am accustomed
To the finer things in life
And have expensive taste
I will have you know
And as since you are footing the bill and paying
I'll also have 1 to take away as well