Hung Out To Dry

It was a Christian minister who drew my attention to the idea of the crucifixion as child abuse. He suggested there might be an alternative moral to the narrative. I thought trying to draw a consistent or clear moral conclusions from the New Testament was as feasible as pinning water to the wall. This poem has endured a lot of changes in form, content and even title. I'll keep working on it.

Hung Out To Dry

If God the father sent Christ to die

For the sins of you and I,

Wear a crown of thorns, bleed and cry

Oh dad you've hung me out to dry,

Forsaken me, nailed me high (heave and sigh) -

Then I don't understand the truth,

Of this cosmic act of child abuse.

Where one cannot do otherwise, blame

Cannot be assigned. Judas & the Jews

Constrained, fitted up, put in the frame,

A suicide null and void. A ghastly charade,

Of holy smoke and mirrors.

What conclusions should we draw from this?

What moral has been overlooked?

What meaning was missed?

That conscience makes penitents of us

In the end? Your old man doesn't

Always attend to your best interests? 
Your friends will sell you to the enemy? 
That the game plan depends upon a whim?

That a god who made all laws is bound by them?

Pause. For thought. When it comes

To religion I'm wise enough to know

That once the cat's out of the bag

It's best to let it go.

If God is good, and omnipotent

Yet evil exists,

Then either he's not good, nor all powerful

Or he had a hand in it.


You can download & listen to Hung Out To Dry here 

Hung Out To Dry mp3

© 2013 Wreck Of My Old Self Productions