Illustration by Mitch Handsone

Jesus of Crawford crossed the Delaware
In a magical wooden boat,
Then slew a billion soldiers
Camouflaged in bright red coats.
Then Jesus of Crawford rented a car
And drove up from the plains
With a case of strong Jack Daniel’s
And a big blue ox named Babe.
He planted apples, freed the slaves
And drove so fast through Maine
That he left a flaming vapor trail
Of booze and rock cocaine.

 

“It’s easy,” he replied to those
Who marveled at such things,
“My father gave me super powers
O’er other human beings.”

 

His father sold weapons to monarchs
To label them later as threats
He befriended bin Ladens for profit
And to run up the national debt.
When people complained to the CIA
That the evidence was incomplete,
“Weapons they’ve plenty,” brave Jesus replied,
“Just look at my father’s receipts.”

 

And Rumsfeld, the one ’feld
Who wasn’t a heathen Joo,
And Wolfowitz and Cheney,
And Rove big and brainy,
Swore Jesus’ stories were true.
Millions protested, but only worldwide
In every city and town.
But “Honor,” said Jesus, “is like freedom.
Amerkins are freedom-loving people.
People of dignity. And honor.
And madmen. Are mad. And will kill us.
And terror. Is evil. But war. Is good.
And Amerkins are Good People.”

 

And Jesus of Crawford came down from the cross
And spoke from the grassy knoll.
In pilot’s garb, through teeth well flossed,
The virtues of war he extolled:
“American lives,” said he, “are worth
More than others on this Earth.
Dollar for dollar for ICBM,
Everything comes down to Us and Them.”
(And other things, ad hominem.)

 

Yes, Jesus of Crawford stared into the lens
And read others’ words as his own,
With meaningful silences
Between words of violences
In syllables more than one,
About Kissinger’s plan of ’73
To conquer Iraq for its Texas Tea,
How it took 30 years and a thousand excuses
To liberate cash from the sand
But at last Halliburton and Bechtel could build
In that place the next Disneyland.

 

“Of Crawford Almighty we sing,” cried the whiteys,
Taught to fear everything they were told.
“Bad men are mean! So is Kerry! So’s Dean!
The bad people must be controlled!”
So: “Cradle my balls,” Jesus said to us all,
“Work my shaft, stroke it hard, say my name.
And then if you’ll swaller,
There’s three hundred dollars
In tax refunds for you to claim.”
Then slew Man of Crawford the Weimar Republic
With threats of Patriotic™ strife.
“Democrats,” Jesus said, “are terrorists, too,
Opposed to our Way of Life™.”

 

Jesus of Crawford called Ashcroft and Ridge
And told them to round up the sheep
And when they were done,
All wars had been won,
And the planet was in shit quite deep.

 

Now Jesus he loaded his musket
And squatted down in the dark grasses.
From black birds in skies calm
Came fresh eggs of napalm
To cleanse Earth of its last lower classes.

 

And looking up, Crawford boy Jesus
Stepped down from the throne to the soil.
So long it had been
Since the Earth last touched him –
At his birth he’d been baptized in oil.

 

And there were horses and thunderings
And lightnings and blunderings
And a third of the ocean ran blood,
And Jesus danced drunk
With locusts and gunk,
And stomped cloven hooves with a thud.

 

“For I shall reign forever,” sang he,
“I shall make war against the benign.
I shall kill them and eat them and shit them with glee,
Then Wal-Mart them for $2.69. The End.”

 

REFERENCE:
The Book of Revelation MP3s

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