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---- word biscuit ----

                  -> easter 96 edition <-

                                     04-04-96 - ray heinrich
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it's easter again and that means it's time for a special
edition filled with nothing but easter poems:




       < making bread >
        
        in bethlehem
        the house of bread 
        the wheat-christ sprouts 
        and as he grows
        we nourish him
        then with the harvest
        comes his sacrifice 
        and as we mourn
        his passing into bread
        he rises
        sprouts again
        on easter day
        
             - - 




	< sub commander bunny >

	The easter bunny is coming
	at full flank speed 
	to deliver 
	torpedoes of eggs
	to our baskets of love

	       ---



        
           < the easter >
        
        the easter
        is a place in hearts
        used to sell chocolate eggs
        and the hopes 
        of a good TV show 
        
        the easter 
        where somebody dies
        and somebody else 
        tells you it's jesus
      

        one easter 
        i was visiting
        a friend's church
        and as i was trying 
        to find a numbered hymn
        i looked up 
        and saw the shadow of a face
        moving
        across the stained glass windows
        me
        the atheist
        visiting a church
        sees christ
        rising
        smiling at me
        

        he must've been joking

              - - -
          




        
         < home-made just tastes better >
        
        who would you have more respect for?
        
        someone 
        manufactured by an all-powerful god
        
        or
        
        someone 
        industrious and creative enough
        to make their own?
        
        i mean 
        if you're an all-powerful god
        it's easy to make anything
        even a ten-foot-long 
        talking hot-dog
        
        besides
        people need their own gods
        would you really want the same god 
        as jesse helms?
        
                   - - -
        



      < christ / bunny >

	would it be
	a different world
	if christ 
	were busy laying eggs

	while the bunny 
	was bound, crucified
	dying for our sins?

	        ---




        
        < baby blue baby easter chickens >
        
        it's easter 
        and i'm in a motel making a list
        looking through the bible
        in my room
        picking pages
        keeping count
        trying to decide 
        how this god 
        could trust me
         
        or those yellow flowers
        
        the yellow flowers that grow everywhere 
        that fall sometimes 
        fall in the wind 
        and cover us
        
        it's 3am 
        and i am close to revelation
        close 
        to finishing your blood
        finishing 
        the cheapest wine that i could find
        
        and i remember 
        baby chickens
        blue and green and pink
        cheeping and running
        in a store in baytown, texas
        and wondering 
        how the sleeping ones could stay asleep
        while the others 
        ran over them
        from side to side
        again and again
        
        those baby blue 
        
        baby easter chickens
        
              - - -
        



	< new cross >

	you showed me
	your new cross
	i didn't believe
	that you saw jesus on it
	fixed to the smooth gold
	in obligation and in pain

	he was naked
	there was no cloth
	his penis white with the cold
	his vagina bleeding tears

	where is my faith
	that i cannot believe
	that on a cross
	pressed against your skin
	jesus could suffer
	and be denied?

	    ---




	< easter again >

	you are cleaning
	the office
	and your spanish
	is slow enough
	tonight

	i overhear you say
	"they never found
	the body"

	as you empty
	the wastebasket
	your crucifix
	hangs away from your neck

	it's easter again
	in el salvador

	     ---



< sometimes on easter, i turn catholic >

	the light that shines
	through a cloud
	when in a cloud
	is even

	near the top
	close to the sun
	as bright
	as it is even

	the cloud here
	is without sin
	and sings to me
	in latin

	 	---



THE END


(unless you missed this easter poem 
 which was in the last word biscuit):


      < another god-damned easter poem >
        
        most of you was naked
        i 
        on the other hand 
        was getting close 
        to the end of the conveyer belt 
        dumping us off into the abyss 
        or 
        into all the chocolate we'd ever want 
        but
        there was no way to find out 
        which 
        
        it was
        
        it seems that way with us 
        all of us who vowed 
        to always sleep naked under the same sheet
        
        now you can walk up on the proverbial street 
        and ask either of us this question 
        and get a reply like you'd expect 
        from nazis at nuremburg 
        or commies before HUAC 
        or some poor queer bastard 
        needing a break from a judge of 85 who knows 
        this pervert should be damned
        
        i can't help any of this 
        i tell myself i got to take a shower 
        and wash all this off for an hour or two
        
        wash the sins like the girl called christ 
        (she was in drag)
        that died 
        or didn't 
        a few days from now
         
        i have no idea what to make of all that 
        these people come to my door 
        and tell me one thing 
        and after 3am on TV 
        some other people tell me ten other things 
        but all of them 
        want me to send my money
         
        where can i find christ 
        so i can give it directly to him?
        
        will it burn my hands when i do this?
          
        will i perish in fire for some vile perversion 
        that i forgot about?
         
        or will i be forgiven?
        
        i really need to be forgiven
        like everyone i know needs to be forgiven 
        for watching the starving people on TV 
        for truely feeling compassion 
        for about 15 seconds 
        till the next commercial tells me 
        to buy corn chips 
        and I WILL
        
        oh god i promise I WILL 
        buy them 
        and eat each one savoring it 
        as it changes to YOU my CHRIST 
        changes on this EASTER of remembrance 
        changes to the flesh of the flesh i am eating 
        and grows large in me
         
        i sometimes think of the child i am to bear 
        of my mother telling me 
        i could never do this because i was a boy 
        
        but i never could believe her 
        and i refuse to this day
         
        i will become large with my savior
         
        i will give birth to some salvation
         
        and the truth that has always escaped me 
        shall be evident to this child 
        which i will press from me 
        in pain and victory 
        like the rock 
        upon which all that follows will be built 
        
                      - - -



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(oh, and all this stuff is (C) 1996 ray heinrich)

THE END

       
  

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