I WAS born on the prairie and the milk of its wheat, the red of its clover, the eyes of its women, gave me a song and a slogan.

Here the water went down, the icebergs slid with gravel, the gaps and the valleys hissed, and the black loam came, and the yellow sandy loam.
Here between the sheds of the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, here now a morning star fixes a fire sign over the timber claims and cow pastures, the corn belt, the cotton belt, the cattle ranches.
Here the gray geese go five hundred miles and back with a wind under their wings honking the cry for a new home.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water.

The prairie sings to me in the forenoon and I know in the night I rest easy in the prairie arms, on the prairie heart..    .    .
        After the sunburn of the day
        handling a pitchfork at a hayrack,
        after the eggs and biscuit and coffee,
        the pearl-gray haystacks
        in the gloaming
        are cool prayers
        to the harvest hands.

In the city among the walls the overland passenger train is choked and the pistons hiss and the wheels curse.
On the prairie the overland flits on phantom wheels and the sky and the soil between them muffle the pistons and cheer the wheels..    .    .
I am here when the cities are gone.
I am here before the cities come.
I nourished the lonely men on horses.
I will keep the laughing men who ride iron.
I am dust of men.

The running water babbled to the deer, the cottontail, the gopher.
You came in wagons, making streets and schools,
Kin of the ax and rifle, kin of the plow and horse,
Singing Yankee Doodle, Old Dan Tucker, Turkey in the Straw,
You in the coonskin cap at a log house door hearing a lone wolf howl,
You at a sod house door reading the blizzards and chinooks let loose from Medicine Hat,
I am dust of your dust, as I am brother and mother
To the copper faces, the worker in flint and clay,
The singing women and their sons a thousand years ago
Marching single file the timber and the plain.

I hold the dust of these amid changing stars.
I last while old wars are fought, while peace broods mother-like,
While new wars arise and the fresh killings of young men.
I fed the boys who went to France in great dark days.
Appomattox is a beautiful word to me and so is Valley Forge and the Marne and Verdun,
I who have seen the red births and the red deaths
Of sons and daughters, I take peace or war, I say nothing and wait.

Have you seen a red sunset drip over one of my cornfields, the shore of night stars, the wave lines of dawn up a wheat valley?
Have you heard my threshing crews yelling in the chaff of a strawpile and the running wheat of the wagonboards, my cornhuskers, my harvest hands hauling crops, singing dreams of women, worlds, horizons?.    .    .
        Rivers cut a path on flat lands.
        The mountains stand up.
        The salt oceans press in
        And push on the coast lines.
        The sun, the wind, bring rain
        And I know what the rainbow writes across the east or west in a half-circle:
        A love-letter pledge to come again..    .    .
      Towns on the Soo Line,
      Towns on the Big Muddy,
      Laugh at each other for cubs
      And tease as children.

Omaha and Kansas City, Minneapolis and St. Paul, sisters in a house together, throwing slang, growing up.
Towns in the Ozarks, Dakota wheat towns, Wichita, Peoria, Buffalo, sisters throwing slang, growing up..    .    .
Out of prairie-brown grass crossed with a streamer of wigwam smoke-out of a smoke pillar, a blue promise-out of wild ducks woven in greens and purples-
Here I saw a city rise and say to the peoples round world: Listen, I am strong, I know what I want.
Out of log houses and stumps-canoes stripped from tree-sides-flatboats coaxed with an ax from the timber claims-in the years when the red and the white men met-the houses and streets rose.

A thousand red men cried and went away to new places for corn and women: a million white men came and put up skyscrapers, threw out rails and wires, feelers to the salt sea: now the smokestacks bite the skyline with stub teeth.

In an early year the call of a wild duck woven in greens and purples: now the riveter's chatter, the police patrol, the song-whistle of the steamboat.

To a man across a thousand years I offer a handshake.
I say to him: Brother, make the story short, for the stretch of a thousand years is short..    .    .
What brothers these in the dark?
What eaves of skyscrapers against a smoke moon?
These chimneys shaking on the lumber shanties
When the coal boats plow by on the river-
The hunched shoulders of the grain elevators-
The flame sprockets of the sheet steel mills
And the men in the rolling mills with their shirts off
Playing their flesh arms against the twisting wrists of steel:
        what brothers these
        in the dark
        of a thousand years?.    .    .
A headlight searches a snowstorm.
A funnel of white light shoots from over the pilot of the Pioneer Limited crossing Wisconsin.

In the morning hours, in the dawn,
The sun puts out the stars of the sky
And the headlight of the Limited train.

The fireman waves his hand to a country school teacher on a bobsled.
A boy, yellow hair, red scarf and mittens, on the bobsled, in his lunch box a pork chop sandwich and a V of gooseberry pie.

The horses fathom a snow to their knees.
Snow hats are on the rolling prairie hills.
The Mississippi bluffs wear snow hats..    .    .
Keep your hogs on changing corn and mashes of grain,
    O farmerman.
    Cram their insides till they waddle on short legs
    Under the drums of bellies, hams of fat.
    **** your hogs with a knife slit under the ear.
    Hack them with cleavers.
    Hang them with hooks in the hind legs..    .    .
A wagonload of radishes on a summer morning.
Sprinkles of dew on the crimson-purple *****.
The farmer on the seat dangles the reins on the rumps of dapple-gray horses.
The farmer's daughter with a basket of eggs dreams of a new hat to wear to the county fair..    .    .
On the left-and right-hand side of the road,
        Marching corn-
I saw it knee high weeks ago-now it is head high-tassels of red silk creep at the ends of the ears..    .    .
I am the prairie, mother of men, waiting.
They are mine, the threshing crews eating beefsteak, the farmboys driving steers to the railroad cattle pens.
They are mine, the crowds of people at a Fourth of July basket picnic, listening to a lawyer read the Declaration of Independence, watching the pinwheels and Roman candles at night, the young men and women two by two hunting the bypaths and kissing bridges.
They are mine, the horses looking over a fence in the frost of late October saying good-morning to the horses hauling wagons of rutabaga to market.
They are mine, the old zigzag rail fences, the new barb wire..    .    .
The cornhuskers wear leather on their hands.
There is no let-up to the wind.
Blue bandannas are knotted at the ruddy chins.

Falltime and winter apples take on the smolder of the five-o'clock November sunset: falltime, leaves, bonfires, stubble, the old things go, and the earth is grizzled.
The land and the people hold memories, even among the anthills and the angleworms, among the toads and woodroaches-among gravestone writings rubbed out by the rain-they keep old things that never grow old.

The frost loosens corn husks.
The Sun, the rain, the wind
        loosen corn husks.
The men and women are helpers.
They are all cornhuskers together.
I see them late in the western evening
        in a smoke-red dust..    .    .
The phantom of a yellow rooster flaunting a scarlet comb, on top of a dung pile crying hallelujah to the streaks of daylight,
The phantom of an old hunting dog nosing in the underbrush for muskrats, barking at a **** in a treetop at midnight, chewing a bone, chasing his tail round a corncrib,
The phantom of an old workhorse taking the steel point of a plow across a forty-acre field in spring, hitched to a harrow in summer, hitched to a wagon among cornshocks in fall,
These phantoms come into the talk and wonder of people on the front porch of a farmhouse late summer nights.
"The shapes that are gone are here," said an old man with a cob pipe in his teeth one night in Kansas with a hot wind on the alfalfa..    .    .
Look at six eggs
In a mockingbird's nest.

Listen to six mockingbirds
Flinging follies of O-be-joyful
Over the marshes and uplands.

Look at songs
Hidden in eggs..    .    .
When the morning sun is on the trumpet-vine blossoms, sing at the kitchen pans: Shout All Over God's Heaven.
When the rain slants on the potato hills and the sun plays a silver shaft on the last shower, sing to the bush at the backyard fence: Mighty Lak a Rose.
When the icy sleet pounds on the storm windows and the house lifts to a great breath, sing for the outside hills: The Ole Sheep Done Know the Road, the Young Lambs Must Find the Way..    .    .
Spring slips back with a girl face calling always: "Any new songs for me? Any new songs?"

O prairie girl, be lonely, singing, dreaming, waiting-your lover comes-your child comes-the years creep with toes of April rain on new-turned sod.
O prairie girl, whoever leaves you only crimson poppies to talk with, whoever puts a good-by kiss on your lips and never comes back-
There is a song deep as the falltime redhaws, long as the layer of black loam we go to, the shine of the morning star over the corn belt, the wave line of dawn up a wheat valley..    .    .
O prairie mother, I am one of your boys.
I have loved the prairie as a man with a heart shot full of pain over love.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water..    .    .
I speak of new cities and new people.
I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.
I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down,
  a sun dropped in the west.
I tell you there is nothing in the world
  only an ocean of to-morrows,
  a sky of to-morrows.

I am a brother of the cornhuskers who say
  at sundown:
        To-morrow is a day.

For 21 days I saw changes wrought
by the freedom of 22 years  
Secrets of razor wire straight and taut
Speak of those who continue to fear

I saw nature’s beauty in land and face
As black heel continues to rise
Via school, ambition they prep for the race
Even as secretly despised

What’s changed in Soweto? I did not live
But photos and newsreels survive
Pictures of shanties bulldozed to give
Whites room to extend their hives

Now malls; monuments to white retail
Built on Mandiba’s words
Polished chrome and marble hail
“Happy” workers in a black-faced world

Monuments ringed with vendors tribal
Carved goods for sale and cheap
The rands they make do not rival
What multi-nationals’ continue to reap

Happiness is shallow until sundown
When the curtain of decorum lifts
Showing reality’s new shanty-town
Where space and plumbing are gifts

I wonder if He would be okay
Seeing his people so used
As pawns for labor with little say
As black is seldom excused
  
The young know the time is now
As old hatred’s in shallow graves
To be unearthed by book and plow
Keeping dreams from stunting and fade

I can’t help but wonder if we have crossed paths
Over and over again, tangling each hello
Catching a hint of mischief when we first bumped into each other
And how easy it was for us to slip into
Conversations, plotting to take on the world
But first things first, we have to catch the moon
And hold the stars ransom in our back pockets
I swear we were pirates singing sea shanties
And conquering cities, but now we settle
For late night dance parties, and one shot, two shot, three
And sure, we are invincible, and I can’t help but wonder
If we have crossed paths over and over again
Our stories layering, life long friends
Or maybe arch nemeses, and each time
Tagging out a new adventure
Where we are chasing after each other
I swear we were renegades, young rebels
Questioning authority and pushing boundaries
Now, we collaborate artistically
Broadcasting in a world of social media, one shout, two shout, three
And sure, we are strong, and I can’t help but wonder
If we have crossed paths over and over again
Our history repeating, kindred spirits
Or maybe pieces of the same soul, and each time
We meet, we find a part of ourselves
We had forgotten

This poem is dedicated to the memory of Admiral Albert "*****" Potter who displayed amazing bravery by wearing full drag through several major sea battles.  He was cashiered for insisting the Admiralty rename his ship HMS Butch instead of HMS Fearless. In fact the vessel was eventually renamed HMS Damp **** because it was full of ******.

A life on the ocean wave, **!
In the olden days of sail
When England's ships were proud and brave
And their crews were very male.

The Captain stood upon his bridge
Looking smart and flash;
But below the decks, the orders were
*** and *** and the lash.

The bosun went to the main gunroom,
**** Deadeye at the ready;
Initiation time had come
For little midshipman Freddy.

"Strap him o'er that cannon, lads!"
Roared the hirsute fellow,
"Gag his mouth securely, lads,
In case he tries to bellow!"

The sailors did as he had bid -
Refused and they'd be punished -
And they knew their turn would come
After the bosun had finished.

The bosun went up the poor young lad
And soon was going strong;
Midshipman Fred looked rather pained -
The Bosun was THICK and LONG.

Then came the turn of the other men
And they set to with a will;
Little Fred could not say no
Until they'd had their fill.

What a life our sailors had then,
Always singing shanties;
When men were men and big and butch
And cabin boys wore silk *******.

A life on the ocean wave, **!
With the rolling sea and the spray.
Sinking the Frogs and murdering Wogs
Kept England's sailors so gay.

OLÉ!  OLÉ!  OLÉ!  OLÉ!  OLÉ!  *OLÉ!

BY day ... tireless smokestacks ... hungry smoky shanties hanging to the slopes ... crooning: We get by, that's all.
By night ... all lit up ... fire-gold bars, fire-gold flues ... and the shanties shaking in clumsy shadows ... almost the hills shaking ... all crooning: By God, we're going to find out or know why.

All Anne had left to wear was the frilly gown Charlotte had made for her. Not exactly her style but she remembered with some fondness what ****** had said about presenting herself as a lady.
The Kid arrived in the dining room hungrier than he’d ever been in his life. The big woman had ****** out everything he had in him, in a good way, but he felt like he’d lost a few pounds.
“What’s for supper, Mabel?” he asked his voice somewhat unsteady.
“They’s mermaid soup, mermaid cutlets, mermaid fricassee, mermaid casserole, mermaid steak and grilled mermaid fritters.”
“Ain’t there nothing to eat besides mermaid?” he groaned.
“Seaweed,” she said curtly.
“Gadurnit. We’ve been eatin’ mermaids and weeds for days. How about an old fashioned T-bone?”
“You get the cow and I’ll cook it up.”
****** came in looking not at all amused, “Say, Kid we need you up on deck.”
“Yes’m, Mister ******,” said the kid following the cowboy to the aft where ****** pointed over the water.
“We’re being followed. Fritz said there’s a school of mermaids out there. They followed from the island so they can’t be friendly. Think you can pick ‘em off?”
The Kid took his hat off and wiped his fingers through his sweaty hair. “Shoot, Mister ******, that’ll be like shootin’ fish in a barrel, ‘cept it’s the ocean and the fish are mermaids, an’...”
“Just get to it. As soon as you spot one blow it’s ******* brains out. That’s the only way we’re gonna get rid of them. You’ve been with Anne Bonny have ya.”
“How can ya tell?”
“You’ve got her scent all over you. There’s only one ***** onboard smells like she’s been rolling in a soggy mud patch.”
“Gee, ya think Mabel noticed?”
“That gal lost her sense of smell a long time ago. Take care of that business and Mabel’ll be all over ya like always.”
“I reckon you’re right. Let’s shoot us some mermaids.”
“Now you’re talking, Kid. Let’s do it.”
Sinking far below the waves, the evil swimmers kept their telltale fins out of sight, gliding along with the ship’s shadow as it sailed beneath the bright waves. The Kid and ****** scanning the water eyeing only dolphin and shark. “They’re smarter than they look, Kid. I’d bet they put these varmints up to swimming around the boat so they could cook up a scheme. They may taste like fish but they think like women.”
“Gosh, Mister ******, ain’t that the best of both worlds?”
“I guess that depends on which end you get ‘em by.”
Soon after, sailing smoothly out of the Caribbean waters piloted by the old mariner Popeye and navigated by the allwise general, the Green Belle ran afoul of no other nemeses as it made its way down along the east coast of South America. With no real roles on the ship, ****** and Medusa found themselves spending more and more time with each other.
“Why don’t you do something with yourself,” she scolded.
“What?” he said on edge from her relentless rasping nagging.
“All you do is pace. Why don’t you make yourself useful. Fetch me a mint julep” she ordered haughtily; staying in the covers and bedclothes she’d been in for a week.
“Fetch? Fetch! What do I look like?” he growled meanly.
“I’ve been trying to figure that out,” she said snippily.
His eyes flaming he stormed from the room, Medusa paying his tantrum no mind.
Finding Perry with Charlotte in the study, ****** had finally had enough with the uppity Gorgon. “Perry, I need to borrow that contraption.”
Perry, startled making out with the handmaid behind a brocade curtain was just as surprised to hear ******’s request. “Are you sure, Mister ******? You told me you never wanted to see the temporal distorter again.”
“Not that. I’m not gonna mess with that. There are more things going on than you’ve dreamed up in your philosophy. I mean the ship, the Leaping Lizzie. I’m going to take her out and scout ahead. I just need to get off this ****** boat. Get a change of scenery.”
“That’s sounds like a splendid idea, Mister ******. Let’s go discuss it with Fritz. He has maps of the terrain. Depending on what you see we can make any necessary corrections.”
“You’re a right smart feller, Periwinkle. I’ll go scare up Fritz.”
“I’ll go prepare the ship. I’ll meet you up on deck.”
As soon as ****** had left, Medusa grew bored. She found him with Perry on deck standing before the crabship. “What’s going on?” she asked observing the mechanical tentacles at rest.
“Mister ****** is going off to do some exploring,” said Perry. “The Leaping Lizzie II is perfect to find out what’s ahead.”
“Oh!” she said gaily. “I’m going with you!”
“You are?” said ******.
“Let me get Dawn.”
“Dawn?” he said.
****** and Perry looked at one another incredulously.
“I wanted some time alone,” said the cowboy pensively.
“Fiddle-dee-dee! We won’t be any bother at all,” she said fluttering down the hold.
“******. Will I never be rid of that infernal woman,” ****** snarled.
“Now, now, Mister ******. Miss Medusa is only looking out for you. After all you’re only flesh and blood.”
“And she’s a primordial cosmic force. I get it.”
Momentarily the green goddess and her faithful Lady of the Bedchamber were hauling strapped leather cases and hat boxes on deck. “What the hell is all this?” he hollered.
Her eyes met his meltingly. “Why, Mister ******, you don’t expect a lady to go around in the same old dress all the time. We’re going on an adventure. Think about it; the unexplored Amazon! Who knows what kind of beasties we’ll run into!”
“And you want to be dressed for the occasion.”
Smiling she began directing Dawn in loading the ship.
Fritz came up with a rolled map and handed it to ******. “Here you are, ******. The Amazon is due southwest. How do we stay in touch with you?”
“I’ve installed a ticker,” said Perry. “The same kind we used to communicate with Mistress Medusa when she was off conquering the moon.”
******’s eyes flared hopefully. “Yeh. Say Medusa you be in charge of communications. It’ll be your job to stay in contact with Perry and Fritz. Think you can do that?”
“Why, sure, Mister ******,” she said politely, “Um, would you help a lady aboard?”
“Sure,” he said taking her small waist and heaving her up to the hatch, her petticoats billowing in his face.
In another time and place not that far away, Remy Clarke Savage found his life with renewed purpose. Esmeralda and their now several children resting in the shaded grove while he completed yet another monumental life’s work; a machine that would far outstrip the crude Leaping Lizzie in speed and capabilities, outfitting this new vessel with several cannons of Greek fire and exploding shells.
Captain Quick, Lance and Lizzie bonding as family were wary of the zombie hordes all around them. Vampyr mermaids dancing in the inland lake while the rotting crew sang haunted shanties, hoisting steins of ghostly ale. “Ay I’ll be glad to be off this deadman’s reef,” muttered Quick. “Can’t you hurry it along, Remy? I’m wondering if we’ll live through another sunset.”
The dead pirate who’d become liaison to the mortals was Lizzie’s second maid-in-waiting; a woman with two long blonde braids that steadily grew the longer she was dead. Her brain intact and her looks not completely gone. “Ay Captain, my mateys be starving and you bunch are the only meat left on the island.”
His fears confirmed, Quick replied sharply, “I thought your bunch was living off them mermaids.”
“They’ve all turned. Not a one of them is alive or breathing. They’s all vamps and we’z all zombies. Like I was saying you bunch be the only real meals left.”
“Meals?” gulped Remy.
“Is that reason enough to hurry it along, man?” called Quick drawing his broadsword.
Lizzie and Lance drew theirs getting to either side of the Captain.
“You won’t be eating no brood of my *****, missy,” snapped Lizzie.
“Ay that we be lest you can get us raw meat and some brains.”
“Remy!” hollered the Captain as the engineer made the final adjustments.
“She’s all set to go. Hop in.”
“We appreciate your stalling, lassie, but we’s be taking our leave.”
“Aargh!” shouted the pirate woman drawing her sword. The others clambering to groggy feet, weapons in hand. Mermaids snapping sharp teeth from the water’s edge. Esmeralda carrying an armload of children scrambled inside the vessel first, followed by Remy and Lizzie.
“Com on mateys!” he cried as Quick and Lance clashed steel with the lunging pirates. Lance getting inside followed by Quick, Remy quickly shutting the hatch. The behemoth raising up on articulated legs. The dead pirates swords were no match for Greek fire as Remy unloaded a volley onto the beach setting everything ablaze.
Feeling themselves being cooked in the shell Remy manipulated his creation to walk into the water continuing on to the open sea where he propelled it away from the irreparably devastated reef crashing in under its own sodden weight. “Ay there be me home for many a yarn,” he mused. “Now it’s gone.”
“Ay the ****** place was haunted; infested with the undead. That be no home for a living man,” said Lizzie putting an arm over his shoulder. “I be liking your firepower, Remy. How long can that hold out?”
“Indefinitely. Greek fire is inexhaustible.”
“Inexhaustible you say? What say we catch up to that Green Belle and give ‘er what’s her comeuppance?”
“Ay man they’ve got the key to a treasure that’ll be rightly ours,” added Quick.

A nerd bitten by the charity bug,
Spoke of slum children’s education
And shining darkness in their eyes.
In the shanties ,the water flows
Like a shadow in cloudy daylight
And smells bad to the kind rich.
My check glistens in the dark
Like a meteorite on a dark night
In the next moment it vanishes
In the depths of hunger and belly.
Other men have fat bank accounts
But are spiritual for soul-hunger.
Poetry sounds crassly out of place-
One would wish the black sewer
Is not talked about in prose as well.

Adrift on her very first voyage
With the sea coursing in through her bow
Lay the cruise ship, the S.S. Lumbago
There was scarcely a chance for her now
But Ahoy! On the western horizon
In a flurry of yellow and green
That ender of blight and a damsel’s delight
And he’s always on cue for his scene

It’s Sir Patrick Stewart!
And his Luxury Budgerigar!
It’s got seating for seventy people
And the service is well above par
There’s an adequate medical unit
And a modest but elegant bar
What more could a man ever dream of
In a Luxury Budgerigar?
Well…

The forests of England were burning
So the foxes escaped to the city
The badgers had taken to looting
And the squirrels had formed a committee
But who should arise from a manhole
With a confident gleam in his eye?
That destroyer of woes with a spring in his toes
And he’s quick with a witty reply…

Sir Patrick Stewart!
And his Luxury Budgerigar!
With adjustable hose pipe attachment
It’s got wheels like a feathery car
The forests were dowsed and the fauna re-housed
With a three day retreat at a spa
It’s a thing to admire and surely acquire
The Luxury Budgerigar!
But…

Susan was stricken with sorrow
Twas her darkest, most fearful hour
A spider had wrestled her out of her bath
And set up his home in the shower
But who should jump out of the wardrobe
With an innocent look on his face?
That singer of shanties, remover of *******
And first in an obstacle race

Sir Patrick Stewart!
And his Luxury Budgerigar
With a sucker for spiders and beetles
That deposits them into a jar
There’s a tiny wee restaurant to feed them
It was given a Michelin star
A remarkable thing with retractable wings
Is a Luxury Budgerigar

So if you should be in a pet shop
And you see just the critter for you
Please heed this advice: make a note of the price
Then proceed to the back of the queue
When you ask for your preference of creature
Should it whistle, slither or waddle
Do as Sir Patrick Stewart did
And opt for the Luxury model

Copious amounts of lava
seeping over the table
steaming mugs of java
cutting off the cable.

Rara Avis is a Latin term
no sneakers for me today
eaten by the Conqueror Worm
during the month of May.

******* drugs
and Sugar Twin
white punk thugs
chasing Rin-Tin-Tin.

Rainbows of black
babies howling out loud
guerilla attacks
a huge raver crowd.

Windshield wipers
with ribbons attached
little sticky diapers
and gates made of thatch.

Alphagetti monsters
smoking a jay
card-carrying punsters
greasy burgers on a tray.

Cute cotton *******
on lithe little nymphs
disappearing shanties
owned by drugged-up pimps.

Rhymes gone bad
a little cash in my pocket
hanging at the pad
and watching Davy Crockett.

People eating doughnuts
***** up on the beaches
hips that do the low strut
and blood ******* leeches.

It all comes down
to a single final thought:
was the Queen's big crown
really traded for a ***?

RED barns and red heifers spot the green
grass circles around Omaha-the farmers
haul tanks of cream and wagon loads of cheese.
  
Shale hogbacks across the river at Council
Bluffs-and shanties hang by an eyelash to
the hill slants back around Omaha.
  
A span of steel ties up the kin of Iowa and
Nebraska across the yellow, big-hoofed Missouri River.
Omaha, the roughneck, feeds armies,
Eats and swears from a ***** face.
Omaha works to get the world a breakfast.

You come along... tearing your shirt... yelling about Jesus.
     Where do you get that stuff?
     What do you know about Jesus?
Jesus had a way of talking soft and outside of a few
     bankers and higher-ups among the con men of Jerusalem
     everybody liked to have this Jesus around because
     he never made any fake passes and everything
     he said went and he helped the sick and gave the
     people hope.

You come along squirting words at us, shaking your fist
     and calling us all **** fools so fierce the froth slobbers
     over your lips... always blabbing we're all
     going to hell straight off and you know all about it.

I've read Jesus' words. I know what he said. You don't
     throw any scare into me. I've got your number. I
     know how much you know about Jesus.
He never came near clean people or ***** people but
     they felt cleaner because he came along. It was your
     crowd of bankers and business men and lawyers
     hired the sluggers and murderers who put Jesus out
     of the running.

I say the same bunch backing you nailed the nails into
     the hands of this Jesus of Nazareth. He had lined
     up against him the same crooks and strong-arm men
     now lined up with you paying your way.

This Jesus was good to look at, smelled good, listened
     good. He threw out something fresh and beautiful
     from the skin of his body and the touch of his hands
     wherever he passed along.
You slimy bunkshooter, you put a **** on every human
     blossom in reach of your rotten breath belching
     about hell-fire and hiccupping about this Man who
     lived a clean life in Galilee.

When are you going to quit making the carpenters build
     emergency hospitals for women and girls driven
     crazy with wrecked nerves from your gibberish about
     Jesus--I put it to you again: Where do you get that
     stuff; what do you know about Jesus?

Go ahead and bust all the chairs you want to. Smash
     a whole wagon load of furniture at every performance.
     Turn sixty somersaults and stand on your
     nutty head. If it wasn't for the way you scare the
     women and kids I'd feel sorry for you and pass the hat.
I like to watch a good four-flusher work, but not when
     he starts people puking and calling for the doctors.
I like a man that's got nerve and can pull off a great
     original performance, but you--you're only a bug-
     house peddler of second-hand gospel--you're only
     shoving out a phoney imitation of the goods this
     Jesus wanted free as air and sunlight.

You tell people living in shanties Jesus is going to fix it
     up all right with them by giving them mansions in
     the skies after they're dead and the worms have
     eaten 'em.
You tell $6 a week department store girls all they need
     is Jesus; you take a steel trust ***, dead without
     having lived, gray and shrunken at forty years of
     age, and you tell him to look at Jesus on the cross
     and he'll be all right.
You tell poor people they don't need any more money
     on pay day and even if it's fierce to be out of a job,
     Jesus'll fix that up all right, all right--all they gotta
     do is take Jesus the way you say.
I'm telling you Jesus wouldn't stand for the stuff you're
     handing out. Jesus played it different. The bankers
     and lawyers of Jerusalem got their sluggers and
     murderers to go after Jesus just because Jesus
     wouldn't play their game. He didn't sit in with
     the big thieves.

I don't want a lot of gab from a bunkshooter in my religion.
I won't take my religion from any man who never works
     except with his mouth and never cherishes any memory
     except the face of the woman on the American
     silver dollar.

I ask you to come through and show me where you're
     pouring out the blood of your life.

I've been to this suburb of Jerusalem they call Golgotha,
     where they nailed Him, and I know if the story is
     straight it was real blood ran from His hands and
     the nail-holes, and it was real blood spurted in red
     drops where the spear of the Roman soldier rammed
     in between the ribs of this Jesus of Nazareth.