Saturday, March 30, 2013

Judas Saves



Image borrowed from bing


Judas Saves

“You shall be cursed for generations, but you will exceed all of them--
for you will sacrifice the man who clothes me.” --Jesus to Judas--
the “Gospel of Judas”. 

I met the guy in a smoky bar in Marrakech last week, while
traveling in Morocco looking for Burroughs’ Tangierian exiles,
you dig--searching for the ultimate high, the black meat, that
mugwump mind-fuck dust that would certainly realign my world;

for I was actively fleeing homosexuals, the John Birchers, dykes
on bikes, Islamic Jihadists, high gas prices, America’s broken
partisan promises, a failed marriage, a daughter I hooked on
heroin who now turned tricks in alleys behind redneck bars, 
a fag for a son who had a sex-change and demands to be
called Dolores--and the mystery dude called himself Jude.

He had a flaming red beard, piercing blue eyes, wore Arabic duds
and sat deep in the shadows at the back sipping absinthe and
smoking hasheech.

“Do you know me, man?” he asked.

“You sound pretty Jewish to me, are you an Israeli comedian
who can’t find his way back to the Catskills?”

No, man, I am a Hebrew prophet, and I am not obscure, but
then no one really knows me, or ever really did--so they just
made up bullshit stories & myths about me.”

“I’m from Seattle--how about you?”

“Actually I was born in a Judean village called Kerioth. I ran with
a fast bunch called the Zealots, revolutionaries.”

“That’s heavy, man--so what’s your handle?”

“My proud family name is Iscairot, and it has been twisted raw
as a goat’s tit for centuries by self-righteous Christians, leading
to rampant anti-Semitism--Judah meaning the praised one, and
Sicarious meaning assassin--just a walking set of conflicted
contradictions, brother.”

“Wait a minute,” I stammered, my nostrils clogged with hashish smoke,
“Does that mean you knew Jesus?

“Knew him, loved him, and did his bidding.”

“What do you mean?”

I mean he called me brother, the “best of the apostles”, and one
day he informed me that we two had to save the world.”

“Save it from what, man?”

From itself, obviously--he ordered me to betray him to Caiaphas,
in` order to fulfill prophesy, to trigger humanity’s salvation.”

“Wasn’t it hard to do that?”

“I asked him if the situation had been reversed, could he have betrayed me--
and he told me that he did not have the strength to do it, and that’s why he
had chosen the easier task of being crucified.”

“Wow, man, and yet here you are, talking to me just like any other dude?
So....tell me what you think about Francis, the new pope?”

“Christ, you will soon find out that the new pope is just like the old pope,
that the Vatican conservatives will still be rattling the martyr’s bones, and
parish priests will continue to bugger every choir boy they can corner; 
but don’t get me started on the fucking Catholic Church?”

I raised my fists and stared for a moment at the ceiling fan,
“What about the Mongol hordes & the Islamic terrorists? Do you think
we will have more American boots on the ground soon in the
Korean Peninsula and in Tehran?”

Stark silence was his reply. I looked across the small
leather-covered reed table and the half-glass of absinthe was 
all that remained of our discourse. So I drained the dram
and roughly pushed my way out of the exotic bar.

I stood out in the street in the rain for a long time,
not sure if now I was enlightened,
or damned, or both. 


Glenn Buttkus

March 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets-Poetics

Would you like to hear the author read this poem to you?






8 comments:

Claudia said...

ha..what a twist in the story here..and how vividly you paint him.....cool set up of the scene as well...ha.. and i wonder how many times his own version of the story has changed over the years...i'm so glad jesus knew exactly what he was doing and why he chose the cross..happy easter to you..smiles

Anonymous said...

That's some conversation. If it were me I would wake the next day unsure whether it was real or dream.

brudberg said...

I really really like how you present this, his ranting on the Catholic Church is spot on. And the narrator is hilarious. I might have met that guy a few times ;-)

Brian Miller said...

ha. what an interesting conversation...again with judas...you know you could probably whip a nice short story out of this, the adventures of judas...nice detail to give it a reality, and i cracked a smile a few times along the way....happy easter sir

Anonymous said...

Certainly a twist in the tale there. My memory is ahzy about last week, so I'm not sure how accurate his re-telling of the story would be today, but who knows...?

Tigerbrite said...

Yes :)
http://planetcyberluz.com/2010/08/17/the-severed-head/

George Polley said...

There's a movie in this poem, Glenn, and it's a powerful one. Thanks for sharing it with me.

Blessings to you, brother,

George

Anonymous said...

The Master And Margarita......