WE’VE prettied it up-
Cleaned up the stable–
glossed over the petty
injustice of the census
that sent half the world
travelling in winter – not in
BMWs but afoot and
on the backs of mules and
donkeys

WE’VE prettied it up–
Making respectable those
despised reprobates, the Shepards
Making kings out the mages–
Astrologers of low degree whose
practices were outlawed in
Israel. Country bumpkins
Whose questions troubled tyrant
Herod.

We’ve prettied it up —
Slaughter of the innocents.
We call it when we speak of
Herod’s response. It was
Pre-emptive and premeditated
Assassination, Genocide –
For the greater security of
The Homeland. But we don’t
Talk about that...

We’ve prettied it up —
The Flight into Egypt makes
it sound romantic, and not
the desperate, furtive run for
refuge into a foreign land, with a
price on their heads, that it was.
We despise, fear, refugees –
But the Holy Family became just that–
Refugees—

We’ve prettied it up —
The world is untidy, unseemly and violent.
A world full of tyrants and refugees,
Bureaucratic indignities and murder
In the name of the Homeland—
A place of sorrow fear and hate
By pretending other wise
We’ve made it unreal
A lie–

But to this world,
Where Loves don’t last and
Good people die untimely where
Evil prowls wearing white hats that the
Son was content to come. Prepared
To risk the changes and chances
Of an untidy, violent place–
To risk even the Cross and death
To call the us back to Love

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the preacher part me of will use this this evening at the service at the psyciatic hospital in place of the sermon.

do you know the difference between a poet anf a preacher ?

a preacher is expected to avoid all occassions of evil; a poet isn't---