Anthony Burgess - ABBA ABBA

Heaven had got her soul well organised:

Why rub and scrub a thing that came to birth

As white as someone's laundry line already?

The guests at Cana, vinously aswim,

Aroar for more, found every bloody butt

Was empty, and the liquor stores were shut.

The innkeeper, fired by a roguish whim,

Had three casks filled with water to the brim,

Then told each sozzled fuddled serving slut

To lug them where, importantly astrut,

The host was, and to leave the rest to him.

Christ was a guest, dressed in his best apparel,

But the host begged a sort of magic act

Through Mary: "Make him turn this lot to wine."

Mary replied: "I know this son of mine -

Moody. But if I speak to him with tact

You'll get, maybe, a quarter of a barrel."

And so she begged an instant grapeless wine.

But Jesus, who was hardly yet adult,

Sighed like a stone leaving a catapult

And scowled: "This problem's neither yours nor mine,

Mother. Permit me coldly to decline

To help these boozers. Easy or difficult

Is not the point. Let the fat host consult

Some other thaumaturge, the smirking swine.

Just so some soak can blurt a drunken toast

Or swill the teeth he's sunk into a roast,

You want me to work miracles and such,

To get a toothcomb and go combing out

The various troubles lurking all about.

I've troubles of my own, thanks very much."

Jesus, I think (Christ rest his spirit), chose a

Tantrum like that one not to be unkind

But to show off. A young man is inclined

To blow his trumpet oftener than his nose. A-

Las, Our Lady, so says the composer

Of this instructive rhapsody, repined.

She'd had maternal victory in mind

But now became the Mater Dolorosa.

I sometimes wish this story had not happened;

But heed its lesson, if you heed no other:

Try not to be the big loud man too soon.

God heard the answer that he gave his mother,

Determined on a right reproving rap and

Lathered his arse one Friday afternoon.

Jesus forgives all sins – or nearly all:

Usury, anger, greed, the knife thrust under

The ribs, robbery, calumny, lying, plunder

Of land condoned by rogues in the town hall.

Only on one occasion did he fall

Into a rage that tore him near asunder

And made him roar with true Jehovan thunder

And bounce in bloody anger like a ball,

And that was when he saw the Church done wrong to.

He took a whip with many a knotted thong to

The moneychangers preying on those praying at the temple.

This is the only place in Holy Writ

Where Christ is shown as throwing a mad fit.

He aged with righteous rage and started greying at the temple.

Martha said: "Christ, I'm full up reet to' t' scupper

Wi' Mary there." She belted out her stricture:

"Rosaries, masses – it fair makes you sick to your

Stomach. Stations o't' Cross. I'm real fed up. A

Carthorse I am, harnessed neck and crupper

While she does nowt. About time this horse kicked you

Right in the middle of your holy picture, Mary.

Go on, now. Say it: What's for supper?"

"Martha, O Martha," sighed the blessed Saviour,

"You've no call to get mad at her behaviour.

She's on the right road, and you're out of luck."

"The right road, aye," said Martha. "Why, if I

Went on like her, this house would be a sty,

And she'd not see the right road for the muck."

With the Last Supper finished and the waiter

Ready to clear, Christ took a loaf of bread,

Blessed it, then fed it to the already fed,

Making each eater a communicator.

He even gave some to his darling traitor,

Proving his mood was rosy, not yet red

(Judas Iscariot, who lost his head

And went to play at swings a little later).

But, friendly as he was, the Master knew

His passion hour was coming, hot and hellish,

So made a good confession, to embellish

His church with not one sacrament but two.

There then remained one holy thing to do -

To eat himself, with little or no relish.

After they'd knotted Jesus up with rope,

Judas assisting, damned and dirty dastard,

After the high priest's bullies, who had mastered

The spitting art, had given it full scope,

After the maids and grooms had heard the Pope

Say: "I don't give a fuck about the bastard",

They led our Lord to Pilate's alabastered

Hand-washing room, already sweet with soap.

This was a case Pilate could not refuse.

He saw the filth of it but might not shed it -

A swine, yes, but a clean swine, to his credit.

He said: "You're Jesus, then, king of the Jews?"

Christ sought not to deny, affirm or edit,

But looked him in the eye and said: "You've said it."

Bare as a Briton auctioned into slavery,

Lashed to a post, Jesus, from head to feet,

Beaten by bastards who knew how to beat.

Yielded his skin to graduates in knavery.

No spot was spared. He ended an unsavoury

Blue-green-vermilion chunk of dirty meat,

The sort that's bought for cats and dogs to eat

From fly-buzzed butchers' barrows in Trastevere.

No spot spared? Well, I did some small research

Into that very whipping post, that's placed,

As is well known, in St Prassede's church,

And found it didn't come up to my waist.

So, though Christ's limbs, loins, face, flanks, belly shared

Foul blows, his sitteth-on-God's-right was spared.

You've seen a felon in the public pillory

Having his buttocks beaten to a mash,

And much admired his cool disdainful dash,

The muscles firm – both gluteal and maxillary

(Aided no doubt by draughts from the distillery).

But now consider Christ beneath the lash,

Deafened by the incessant crash and slash

Of leather, sticks, the whole damned crude artillery.

Consider how each whipstroke gashes, galls

Ribs, shoulders, flanks, how bits of torn flesh keep

Falling away, as, say, boiled mutton falls

From the bone. But does the victim whine or weep?

No. Though all that is left him is his balls.

He merely counts the strokes, like counting sheep.

How can you think of Christ without a sob?

Dropped like a beast in a foul nest of straw,

Forced, as a boy, with hammer, pliers, saw

To slave away at a woodworker's job,

A youth, he walked the world with grumbling maw,

Preaching the word to a disdainful mob,

A man, he had a price upon his nob,

And Judas sold him to the Roman law.

The spit, the lash, the doom, the thorny crown,

The nails, the cross, the vinegar-soaked rag

Tied to a pole, the diced-for bloody gown:

All burdens fell upon him, sacred bag

Of bones – hence the old saying handed down:

Flies always settle on a spavined nag.

We come into this world bedecked in shit,

Some of us anyway, including Jesus.

But others are born rich as fucking Croesus,

Mightily proud, mightily proud of it.

The crown, the coronet, the mitre fit

Men for whom earth gushes out gold like geysers,

While we are lemons ready for the squeezers,

Scarred nags for spurs, bare backsides to be hit.

If Christ was one of us, why did he give in