And Abraham said: "A victim, yes. Well, I'm
The priest, son, and there's only me and you."
"No, no!" The boy knelt in his innocence
– The right position for that butcher-dad
Who raised his axe above the hapless lad,
Ready to do paternal violence.
"Stop!" cried a voice. "I think we can dispense
With filicide." An angel. "You've just had
A Godsent test, and passed it, I might add.
Baaaah – here's a sheep. Quite a coincidence."
To cut it short (I'm sick of the damned story),
The sheep was slain, and all the four went home,
The ass to pasture, Isaac to his mother.
As for the slab he nearly made all gory.
It's a prized relic, hidden safe in Rome,
At Borgo-novo, or some place or other.
Joseph 1
Some merchants, so it's said, near signed the pledge and
Gave up the drink when they heard something odd:
A yell deep in a well. "A child, by God,"
One said, sticking his chin over the edge and
Peering. They hired a dredger then to dredge and
He dredged up, dripping like a landed cod,
Howling like hell, a stinking clayey clod,
Joseph the Jew, so goes the ancient legend.
They dried him, cleaned him, gave him fodder and
Bought him a shirt against the inclement weather,
But didn't want to bring him up by hand.
Seeking returns on what they'd clubbed together
They sold him off in Egypt, contraband,
For a few rags and half a trank of leather.
Joseph grew up. When he was fully grown,
The lady that he worked for cast him looks
Whose drift he thought he'd read about in books,
Sighing, trying to get him on his own.
She ogled him with many a meaning moan,
Carefully careless with her eyes and hooks.
Her hunger could not be assuaged by cooks,
Only by some raw mutton with no bone.
One morning, bringing the hot water to her,
He found her naked, the sweet buxom slut,
So damped her with the contents of the ewer.
She grabbed him by his single garment but
He left it with her, naked but still pure,
And ran away, the bloody idiot.
Exodus
Pharaoh, a rogue in charge of other rogues,
First drowned the Jews then turned them into slaves,
Driven to toil by knaves with stones and staves,
Just where the fertile Nilus disembogues.
But Moses (the humane dictator vogue's
Said to start here), after some narrow shaves,
Led the Jews out between two walls of waves:
The buggers didn't even wet their brogues.
When the Red Sea swung open like a door,
The Jews assumed their journey was near done,
Not having met the love of God before.
But round and round beneath the desert sun
They had to frig for forty years and more -
A fucking waste of time for everyone.
As ancient Hebrew story tellers knew
The future better than the past, we lack
Proof that when Balaam rode his donkey's back
And, since it halted, beat it black and blue
The poor beast turned on him and brayed: "Hey, you,
Why did you launch that unprovoked attack?
If you could see that angel there you'd thwack
This ass, or arse, more gently than you do."
If you believe this, welcome an incursion
Of awe to learn that donkeys can be pat in
High class Italian (English in this version).
Accept the premise and it follows that in
Pointing you out the donkeys that know Latin
(Aspeeeerges meeeeee) I cast no foul aspersion.
The Battle of Gideon
300 Jews knitted their warlike brows and,
Armed with trombones and torches hid in skillets.
Marched in good order on their foemen's billets,
Quiet as a moving munching herd of cows. And
As dancers on the stage taking their bows and
Boos in an endless belt endlessly fill it, s-
O this small troop marched in a circle till its
300 men looked damned near like 3000.
Ta-rah, ta-ray – clash pans, flash torches. Flustered,
And deafened as 300 brass are mustered,
The enemy collapses like a custard.
Such thrift! Today we have our martial brawls,
Our soldiers heed the bugle when it calls
And waste 300 fucking cannon-balls.
The Bible is quite verminous with foxes.
Samson caught hundreds and, with foxy cunning,
Tied torches to their tails and set them running
Through his foes' harvest-fields – thus, with hot proxies,
Saving them sweat. Still, they wished ninety poxes
Upon him and increased their vengeful gunning.
Where are the foxes now? It seems they're shunning
Our hounds as we shun syphilitic doxies.
We ought to want them, since they stank of virtue
When Samson used them against naughty men.
But still an eggless henless world would hurt you
More than a foxless. If he came back again
With scores of foxes sniffing round his skirt, you
Would say: "I'd rather have a fucking hen."
Revenge 1
Of all the Bible stories that they tell,
This one to come is quite the most fantastic.
A sonnet being so damned inelastic,
I'll require two to tell it really well.
Well, now – the exodists from Egypt's hell
Met the mad Malechites who, dreadful, drastic.
Ferocious, tastelessly enthusiastic,
Fell on the Hebrews, and the Hebrews fell.
God made a memorandum. After all,
The Jews pursued the then correct religion.
After four hundred years he called on Saul.
"The Malechites," he said, "deserve the axe.
Spit the whole nation; roast it like a pigeon.
Don't leave a feather on their fucking backs."
So in God's name Saul went and waded in,
Trouncing them in one horrible stampede,
Goats, calves and all. Mercy maybe or greed
Or something made him save Prince Agag's skin.
Samuel now prophesied about Saul's sin!
"Idolater, betrayer of our creed,
A holier Israelite will supersede
Your reign and make a holier reign begin.
Bring me the prince you blasphemously spared."
Tremulous as a fatted pig, that prince
Stuttered – agag agag aghast, shit-scared.
The holy Samuel did not blink or wince
But raised the butcher's blade that he had bared
And made a mound of Malechitish mince.
David 1
How powerful is God's arm! He sent a boy
To fight Goliath, who was tough and scary,
Who swallowed foes like oysters of the prairie
And thought he'd stamp on David like a toy.
But God wished Israel to yell with joy
To know that every flabby, weak, unhairy
Weed that loves Jesus and his mother Mary
Finds giants rather easy to destroy.
Seeing the stone and sling and stripling shepherd,
Goliath cried: "You little prick, you've gone a
Mite too far," and tensed up like a leopard.
But David blessed the saints and the Madonna,
Measured his fireline, fired his pebble up it
And saw Goliath crumple like a puppet.
King David's later life? The stories vary.
It seems, though, his prophetic eye was sharp,
He spoke with God, he much preferred the bar-p-