Slave Wage Jesus

[RaoulDuke]

The world on his shoulders, the dirt at his feet,
The pain in his fingers, the cuts on his cheek,
The wrath in his holler, the ruth in his eyes,
The blood in the mud, the corpses and flies.

He'll die for our sins, he'll pay for our greed,
He'll sweat for our gain, he'll bleed for our need,
He'll make all our toys, he'll soothe all our fears,
He'll drown in the flood of Bhopal's tears.

Poisoned by food our dogs wouldn't eat,
Killed by a bullet in the Gazan streets,
Buried by rubble in the diamond mines,
Burned in the fires of deforested pines,
Choked to death in the Valdez slick,
Bruised and bloodied by the overseer's stick,
Tortured in China, he can't take any more,
Coughs out his last on the factory floor,
Crushed under foot as consumerism marches...

Just another slave wage Jesus
Crucified on the golden arches.

[dafydd manton]

I thought this was going to be another of those overly-sweet religious poems where some are tempted to try and improve on the Scriptures, by clumsy paraphrase, then got the shock of my life by the hard-hitting nature of the second stanza and onward. So very true, and eloquently put.

[hillwalker]

You seem to have hit every target there dead centre - great poem.

[Haunted]

Very sharp.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Brilliant and very hard-hitting.

[RaoulDuke]

Thanks all for taking the time to read and comment. The thrust of your respective responses seems to be in a similar vein which should tell me something, but whether it's a case of 'great minds think alike' or 'fools seldom differ', well I'll leave that up to you to decide ;)

As for the subject matter, I've been reading a fair bit of anarchist and anti-capitalist fiction and non-fiction recently - I think it's rubbing off on me.