THE MAKING OF A SAINT (FOR CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS)

The Pope and Curia sat plotting
How they might make another saint.
"A woman," said a cardinal nodding;
"But one who showed the self-restraint
Of our dear Mother, Virgin Mary.
She was God's perfect functionary-
Who served her Lord, did what He said,
And followed Him wherever led;
Whose silence always could be trusted,
Who knew her place in God's great plan
And kept His secret spic-and-span.
A woman who was well-adjusted
And didn't think it was impure
Her Son fathered Himself on her."

The Pope who was that minute dozing
Almost fell off the Papal throne.
"Though fool. You know what you're proposing,"
The Pope said in wroth baritone,
"Is opening the asininity
Of members of the Holy Trinity
That might lead some wags to suggest
A case of mother son incest?"
"I do admit it seems perplexing."
Then stopped and added with chagrin'
"But no more so than Judas' sin.
Another problem that's proved vexing-
If Judas hadn't ratted Christ,
He wouldn't have been sacrificed.

"And though He might have gone to prison,
Albeit under tight constraint,
He'd not have died, so not have risen.
So shouldn't Judas be a saint?"
"My God, you'll land us in a pickle;
You know how humans can be fickle.
If human logics don't apply,
They ask our priests and bishops 'Why?' "
"But please remember, Holy Father,
That's why theology has laws
That ends with words like 'just because.'
So do we really need to bother?
Your kingdom will survive a putsch.
Just look at President George Bush."

THE POPE IN BRAZIL

So much for church /state separation:
Pope Benedict's gone to Brazil
To offer Lula consultation
On vetoing a public bill
That would decide to give no quarter
To an unwanted bed-and-boarder;
Or if a woman goes to jail
For treating it as if junk mail.
But Benedict's the Archie Bunker
Of Holy Roman Catholic popes-
The summum bonum of all dopes.
With arguments that prove a junker,
He claims to speak the mind of God.
Apparently, He's not abroad.

AMERICA THE CLUELESS (FOR JOHN TIRMAN)

The Bush Administration's clueless-
Which shouldn't come as shocking news-
To send the Muslims one who knew less
About them than did Karen Hughes.
"A working mom," she told reporters
Who'd gotten her strict marching orders
From Cheney's Bush to help unveil
America, the fairy tale.
"It's written in the Constitution:
'We are one nation under God.'
All others are a sorry fraud.
That we should suffer persecution
For our beliefs is our despair
Since we believe in laissez-faire."


"We're here," she claimed, "to make you happy;
And show how wonderful we are.
If you believe your life is crappy,
You'll change by wishing on a star-
The Star of Bethlehem, Lord Jesus
Who came from Heaven just to please us.
For this, we call sweet Jesus, Lord;
And have thrown others overboard.
You know while Jesus is abiding
So deep within our Christian hearts
We can't be beat in martial arts.
Believe me, it is so exciting.
So come on down and take a chance
To show your god who wears the pants."

( to be continued )

LOG ROLLING

The Cheney Bush attacks on science,
Especially on stem cell research,
Is in the service of their clients-
The Holy Roller Christian Church.
They hold that mankind's preservation
Depends upon God's veneration.
But does God really need PR
Before a soul gets CPR?
This dogma seems downright suspicious
For it makes God seem mercantile
And on the lookout for a deal
Which means that God is avaricious
And covetous of treasure troves
Of praise, a strategy of Rove's

THE VICTIM SPEAKS

"I say that NONE DARE CALL IT TREASON
That we found no nukes in Iraq;
For surely it just stands to reason-
Iran got scared and took them back.
I stand by Bush and Cheney's dictum-
America's the premiere victim;
And if we don't start standing tall
We'll once again have dropped the ball.
It's our good-natured generosity
Makes us seem suckers to the world;
So globally the flags unfurled.
It's why we fight with such ferocity,
As we once did against the gooks;
And would have won if we'd used nukes."

PURITANICALISM

A libertine's a nonconformist
Who knows s/he's happy having fun;
But that's what makes the Christians warmist
And why they want to overrun
All those whom they think are notorious
For living lives that aren't laborious-
Who gamble, drink, do drugs, love sex;
And, yes, who sometimes write bad checks.
If they could make a Christian golem,
They'd send him out to be a scorn
To men and women who make porn.
Like that...they'd snap your spinal column
For wanting really to be bad;
But not kill Muslims in Baghdad.

These Christians are the self-appointed,
Self-righteous guardians of men
And women; who think God anointed
Them to convert the lion's den
That has rejected Christianity
In favor of mankind's humanity;
Who think that common earthly blights
We might amend by human rights.
This thinking, though, leaves them scared shitless.
And rightly so. It would seem odd,
As children of whom they call God,
If He'd created us so witless,
We couldn't make a common cause
With "Others," as we do in-laws.

They're so absurdly puritanic:
When Janet Jackson flashed some breast
These Christians flew into a panic
(Some even died in the midwest),
Believing that "Jew" television
Was under Satan's supervision-
As was, they knew, the DMV
And, probably, the FCC.
They poured from homes and sought their preachers
Who knelt them in the streets to pray
In hopes this devil's devotee
Would suffer cancer to her "features."
Meanwhile, their forces in Iraq
Go killing Muslims block by block.

SELF-HELP MANIA

The FEEL GOOD industry has flourished
By crowding out the noisome weeds
That make your mind seem undernourished,
As Dr. Pangloss did Candide's.
It helps release you from your cowering
(And your incessant daytime showering);
Will help erase the awful doubts
About molesting those Boy Scouts.
It fills you with a grandiosity
That if you have the derring-do,
Then nothing in the world's taboo.
With anti-social animosity,
By God you'll never be maligned;
And all you need's an open mind.