The HyperTexts

The Trinity (an Update)

by Michael R. Burch

"And the three men I admire most, the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost, they took the last train for the coast ..."
—Don McLean, "American Pie"

The God of this World,
his-great-and-exalted-Holy-Eminence-etc.-etc.-blah-blah-blah
Pope Ratzinger/Benedict,
whose previous orifice—er, office—
was the only-recently-euphemized Grand Inquisitor’s,
but Who is now safely ensconced (if strangely diminutively, like Oz’s wizardly lepre-Con)
on His bejeweled throne
smiles, heaves chortling sighs, then raises His weasely face . . .
finished, finally!, with His 666^th revision of the (un)Holey doctrine of Limbo,
having done his best to prevent his all-stupendous-etc.-etc.-blah-blah-blah
"god"—yahweh—from broiling more babies in "hell"
—blessed be his phenomenal name!—
for the inconceivable "sin"
of having died sans splashes of water by magic-imbued priests
who, if their intended victims had lived to the ripe ol’ age of accountability
and profitability
would no doubt have rewarded them with rudely reamed wallets, or rumps . . .
great He—the prophetically named rat-fink ruler/traitor of all mankind—
no longer down in the dumps,
smiles—understanding His own subtle artifice?—
the blind bleeding the blind.

Meanwhile, back in Nashville, the "Athens of the South,"
thousands of evangelicals trudge worshipfully from a replica of the Parthenon
with its strange pantheon of "gods," nymphs, satyrs and cupids
to gaze up in rapt, adorational awe
at the nine-foot statue of their one true Idol—Billy Graham:
earnest as a buzzsaw,
armed to the teeth with a Bible, the "Law,"
and the only surefire-get-out-of-jail-free’n-clear raffle ticket to heaven—"grace"
(theoretically, a gift;
theo-"logically", pure grift).
So ante up,
sell your soul to the Devil,
sign here, on the blood-dotted line!

Meanwhile, nearby at Graceland,
Elvis, like Jesus,
remains both omniscient
and conspicuously absent.

Amen

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