Warning: Not to be consumed with alcohol; keep out of reach of children.

...

All these Jesuses fleeting past,

inserted in the landscape like subliminal messages –

single frame snatches –

crucified God nailed to a cowshed, arched

in agonyin corner of banal balcony;

eaved-Jesus beneath slated, miniature roof;

popsicled Christ – lord on a roadside post.

There is victory in this?

Another flickers by – boxed messiah. Jesus!

Hmmm... Whatever the message, I just don't get it.

...

What if the Fates, instead of thread

were offered

infinite footage of the Passion and in their own

inimitable fashion

chose to           snip           away           each           frame,

scatter great clouds of pain

like ticker take to the four winds?

...

That would be just like them.

...

I am not mocking though I have been consistently accused

of that sin

by saintly nuns and their advocates

those same women and men who glory in describing

vicariously titillating excruciation.

...

When I was a child,

I passionately loathed Easter.

Firstly, there were no eggs nor hot cross buns,

no genuine celebration, there being no extended family;

but worse than that,

for those were minor infractions of normalcy,

detraction-distractions, un-protracted phenomenon... Don't

get started with that – get on with it! (taps foot, impatient)

take a deep breath. Think! – What

are you trying to say?

...

They were times of misery.

...

I don't hold Jesus accountable;

bet he, too, would have skipped over those days,

skived off –

who wants to relive intolerable agony, annually?

Hmmmm -

perhaps a masochrist? (Tsk, tsk).

The point is

I found all the wallowing

in crowns of thorns, brutal lashing, hammering into flesh,

the tearing of tendons, bone-splintering,

the hideousness of vinegar, the rending at end,

too cruel to comprehend, let alone embrace.

It made no sense.

...

As another year's

obligatory viewing would roll up,

those merciless grotesqueries my parents favoured,

I would crawl beneath cheap, brown lounge,

aghast

at the intolerable inhumanity of Man,

plug thumbs into ears, press runny nose into carpet:

see no evil, hear no evil, brook no evil - repeat

mantra - hahahahaha (canned,

uproarious laughter) – and what

did I learn?

...

I learned that it made no

difference

if you were spotless, blameless, innocent, that difference

was punishable

and not even a great and glorious God –

though he was indisputably, your Beloved Father –

would interfere to help.

...

I learned mortal dread.

...

I learned not to hope.

...

I learned that some are marked out from birth.