EVANGELICAL BAPTISM

The universe is truly queerer
Than anything that we can know.
Pretending that you see it clearer
Because a god has told you so,
Amounts to naught but affectations
Upon the part of congregations
Afraid that life leads not to light
But to a dead unconscious night.
And so they go on idolizing
A god who’s brought them naught but strife
By promising an afterlife
If they’ll continue their baptizing.
And if their god is not adored,
They’ll baptize you by waterboard.

MAMMON

Since I was to the left of center,
Believing god did not exist,
The sign proclaimed I could not enter
Because I’d be on His shit list.
I asked for proof of “His” existence
And met abuse and foul resistance.
This was the house of God , they said,
As I’d find out when I was dead.
But isn’t that the way of churches-
You live your life for its encore
The other side of your death’s door
And can’t return from your researches
Reporting on your status quo
Which helps a church with its cash flow.

"REASON SHOULD BE DESTROYED IN ALL CHRISTIANS" MARTIN LUTHER

If Christians finally routed Reason,
Then we’d all lose our civil rights-
For surely they would count as treason
If speaking we should offer slights
To God the Father or Son Jesus.
Their congregants would roughly seize us
And keep us under lock and key
Imprisoned in a DMV
Until they’d once for all decided
What final punishment St. Paul
Would deem a proper wake-up call
To honor Gods that we had slighted.
Then finally in the name of Christ
We’d end up being sliced and diced.

RELIGIOUS MANIA

It’s urgent for uneducated
People to think a friendly god
Will listen and can be persuaded
That what they ask for isn’t odd.
The government, as well, likes praying
Since it keeps down the cost of paying
The market price of laissez-faire
Much favored by the billionaire.
It’s better folks collect in churches
To pray their god in their defense
Since praying measures malcontents;
And if they once find that their searches
Have brought them to the bitter end
They’ll surely go around the bend.

FOR JOHANNES KEPLER AND GYPSY ROSE LEE

When miracles are once admitted
Then scientific evidence
Is scorned by those who are nitwitted
And keeps the rest perched on the fence.
This clearly demonstrates religion
If once admitted just a smidgen
Reverses Darwin’s little bit
To show how man evolved a wit.
So all of you who spend time praying
For Jesus Christ to intervene
But find the calls on His machine
Are full, keep on though it’s dismaying-
Like piloting a rocking chair
It’s soothing though you get nowhere.

THE RAPE SCRIPT

According to a “rape script” writer,
A woman has some time to talk
Before the rapist jumps inside her.
She can throw up a mental block.
If she’ll just think not go boo-hooing,
He might consider toodle-ooing.
But in that time before he acts
She’s time to give him forty whacks;
Or, better yet, why not just kill him?
If not discouraged by discourse,
Perhaps he’ll yield to magnum force.
Then leave the scene. Let cops boot hill him.
If that’s too grim then take a knife
And let him argue for his life.

THE END

I’m far too old for more adventure.
My youth is gone. My knees are sprung.
My mouth could use an upper denture.
But still I struggle rung by rung
To get myself up off and running
To reignite my native cunning
When all I want to do is rest.
I’ve tried. I’ve done my level best.
My intellect is slowly fading-
I haven’t read a book in weeks;
Can barely write my rhymes’ critiques.
I’m thinking about emigrating
But have to earn my daily bread
Because I’m deeply in the red.

VAITY, VANITY....

If Huff Post bloggers in their postings
Had anything to truly say
Beyond their madam’s liberal boastings,
I’d say go on and fire away.
But liberals in their simplicity
Believe that politics' toxicity
Can be brought to its bitter end
By voting for whom they commend.
As bloggers they have recommended
Obama as their candidate
For piloting the ship of state,
Not realizing they’ve dead-ended-
Obama is a savvy pro
And all the rest is do-si-do.

K STREET

Will K Street firms help corporations
Achieve the influence they will need
To win the powers’ commendations
Of what they love most- raffish greed?
Who helps these men to get elected
(Or in McCain’s case resurrected),
If not the lawyers on K Street
Who’ve never yet backed some deadbeat?
Of course they always back a winner-
Republicans or Democrats
They’re all hobnobbing plutocrats-
The winner’s just the bigger sinner.
So corporations need not fear-
A president is their cashier.