After the fifth day

After the fifth day of days
God in man's image put on
the kettle and rested a while,

for inspiration;

he must have shut his eyes
and nodded off, for when
he woke his tea had cooled

and his creation,

still unfinished, too
had cooled and set rock hard.
'It's spoiled! It's spoiled!'

the Lord told Satan.

'And what's it meant to be?'
Satan asked, smirking,
‘It looks too unstable to rest

your feet on.’

Then Beelzebub raised the globe
and span it on one finger
wherefore God drew forth

baring his teeth.

‘Please put that down!’ he sighed,
‘Or wash your hands at least.’
The Devil wiped it with his

handkerchief.

‘Oh I give up with you,’
God said. ‘Be you banished
to a fiery realm, and call me

when supper’s done.’

And he tossed the tainted globe
carelessly out in the yard
ninety-three million miles from

the closest sun.

The Devil served liver for tea
as a placating treat for the Lord,
but God just pushed it around

his plate with a fork,

and while God sulked the Devil’s
grimy smudges and spittle spread
over the earth and multiplied;

in short,

the primeval slime evolved.
Then on the seventh day
one grimy assemblage spoke

the first word.

And with that word all began,
history at last let unfold,
and soon stories of monsters
and heroes were told.

(c) 2013 Slush Poet

Egyptian democracy (3 Exodus)

Voting heats up in Cairo

The Jerusalem Post, 24 May 2012

Haven’t lived there for years,

been all this time in Midian where

took me a wife, laid low

from the long reach of Pharaoh.

Now word has come

from none other than the Big I Am,

an election’s underway

and the Israelites will all pray

the self same thing; they aren’t fussed

whether there’s just one box

to put their cross beside,

or as many as the names He goes by.

Lord knows they’re owed a break,

a deal’s a deal, so to speak,

so He scares away my in-law’s goats

by torching a clump of mountain gorse,

and turns my staff into a sand viper,

and poxes my eating hand,

then He empties out his sack

on the cracked and thirsty sand.

I’m standing waist deep in polling chits

rendered to the Lord by Israelites,

each one signed with a cross

but no candidate’s name in any box.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

Beyond Damascus

Court upholds St Paul’s eviction

Financial Times, 22 February 2012

Beyond Damascus

an ideological fissure sprang

from the Vatican to Karachi

over swaying Afghan

opium pastures, whose legacy

became a looking-glass prophecy;

there were two opposing

versions of the same litany:

they might just have been inept

translations of the divine;

and young Americans

arrived at Bagram fresh

meat from Fort Worth, Texas,

their minds on homecoming

queens until time alone

fortified them with wisdom

to distinguish dates from figs;

but there are no trees outside

the gates of Bagram, Saul,

so think again before you turn.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet