Poetry

Jesus Christ Superstar

In the second coming
Jesus goes corporate
this time around
no one’s nailing him to a cross
he’s been there done that
now he’s kicking ass and
taking names
he releases an army of angels
that promptly destroys radical Islam
the rest can convert or die
then Jesus decrees a new edict
America is the king
the world’s only super-duper-power
Jesus builds a pipeline
(with cheap foreign labor)
to pump middle eastern oil
directly into the USA
gas goes down to fifty cents a gallon
Jesus turns every one dollar bill
into a two dollar bill
with his picture on it
Jesus makes school prayer mandatory
and replaces evolution with
creationism in the curriculum
Jesus legalizes assault rifles
no I.D check
and makes the NRA
the fourth branch of government
Jesus advocates torture
for enemy combatants
Jesus accelerates aging of
progressive judges and replaces them
with strict constructionists
Jesus lowers taxes
on the rich
Jesus becomes majority owner of
New York Giants and they go on
to win the Super Bowl
Jesus de-regulates environmental restrictions
for waste management corporations
Jesus cuts funding for student loans
and school lunch programs
Jesus decries homosexuals blasphemous
and renounces civil unions
Jesus makes regular appearances on Fox News
and appoints Sean Hannity media czar.
Jesus offers illegal immigrants
baptism and slavery as
pathway to citizenship
Jesus calls for assassination of Hugo Chavez
Jesus resurrects Ronald Reagan
Jesus builds more prisons and
makes three strikes law two strikes law
Jesus tells opposition he
listens to a higher father
Jesus dismisses global warming
but lets Polar bears remain extinct
The Jesus Corporation stock splits
Jesus lives for your sins
Jesus Christ true American hero.

— David Ochs



It died

the drier died
tonight

as you slept
away

the night and
I worked

doing laundry
and when it was time

I pulled your
blouses from
the wash

and put them
in the drier

and it died

I swear, it died.

—Ibrahim Ahmed



Count-time

Everybody to sleep the guard symbolizes
on his late night tour of the tombs.
When he leaves, after counting still bodies
wrapped in white sheets, when he goes,

the bodies slowly move, in solitary ritual,
counting lost days, mounting memories,
numbering like sand grains
the winds drag over high mountains
to their lonely deaths; like elephants
they go bury themselves
under dreamlike waterfalls,
in the silence.

—Jimmy Santiago Baca

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