Once approaching Christmas, weary, wandering past the shop-fronts cheery,
Finding cherub choirs dreary, clichéd, trite, an awful bore,
I recalled a long forgotten legend of the sole begotten
Son of God rebelling, yelling at his Sire till he was sore.
Once he'd read the (now best-selling) compilation, he was sore;
Once he'd studied sacred lore.
Gentle Jesus mildly, meekly celebrated sabbath weekly,
Reading from the books that bleakly told his culture's callous core,
Knowing that overt omission of this odious tradition
Could be seen as sick sedition by the priests who kept the score.
So he studied, answering questions to the priests who kept the score;
Not one verse did he ignore.
Junior J, a child precocious, read the tales of his ferocious
Father's monstrous and atrocious acts of genocidal war,
Things His "light unto the nations" did in barbarous altercations
With their neighbors (and relations): "Kill them all. Don't spare the gore.
Kill the women and their children. Kill the people I deplore.
Keep some virgins, nothing more."
Then he read the Egypt story, how the mighty God of glory
Slew the firstborn heirs, ignoring anyone who daubed their door.
Why were innocents included? Was his Dad unjust, deluded?
Couldn't this creator carve up just the Egyptian chariot corps?
Why was death so misdirected? Many there had earned it more,
As described in ancient lore.
All inside J's brain was burning, all the tales he trusted turning
Into hateful, stomach churning travesties that made him roar,
Till old Joseph stopped him crying, said, "I knew your mum was lying
'Bout her virgin pregnancy, supposedly a holy spore.
'S'what I'd call a mythconception, like most tales from days of yore.
Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more."
J sat down, relieved but shattered. Nothing in those scriptures mattered.
Gold, myrrh, frankincense, they flattered; Joseph, though, had given more.
J could see a great ambition, fighting priestly opposition,
Preaching love despite tradition, for the outcast and the poor.
Wipe out organized religion. Value people, prince or whore.
All are human, nothing more.
Since that time interpretation, decoration and conflation
Made a human rebel's message into magic he'd abhor.
While you're busy present buying, hark those herald angels vying
For your faith in Jesus' dying, drumming up a Christmas War,
Where one faith alone is free to rule the yule and write the law.
Call that Christmas? What a bore!