For ages, we\u2019ve tamed the Christmas story and made it nice for the kids–time to face reality. Recite this out loud:<\/p>\n
She said God<\/em> made her pregnant! You might think, hang on!\u2014Honour killing, \u201cThe Hotel staff were wonderful\u201d\u2014not. They said \u201cShove off.\u201d The One, The Always, Lord of Time,<\/em> He! Who did The Universe\u2019s Lord, Rescuer of our World Born to be\u2026born to show our sickness, to be killed, the cost of cure. But we trivialize and gluttonize and sentimentalize it,
\nWhat was in her head?
\nWas that what, what she said meant?
\nThere were less idiotic ways to explain her
\nBeing in the family way\u2014it\u2019s a no-brainer.
\nWell, was that like, BONKERS or what?
\nOr so disgusting in her day as to get her shot.
\nExcept that guns, they\u2019d not then got;
\nNo, then she could\u2019ve got stoned to death
\n(And I don\u2019t mean overdosed on crystal meth)
\nFor this crazy combination
\nOf blasphemy and fornication.
\nNobody sane would fake it, make that up,
\nBut, if she was<\/em> mad, no-one\u2019s ever raked that up.<\/p>\n
\n\u2018Cept it was the law
\nSo fall-guy Joe was willing
\nTo sweep it under the\u2014mud floor,
\nLet her drift off-stage after the divorce
\n(On the quiet, hush hush, of course,)
\nUntil he\u2019s put on-message, it would seem
\nBy\u2014what else?\u2014an angel, in a dream!
\nHadn\u2019t been any a\u2019 them for about five hundred years,
\nUp until this story, where they\u2019re stackin\u2019 \u2018em in tiers.
\nThen Joe and near-term teen have to struggle eighty miles.
\nForced head-count. (To bleed them, they need them on their files).
\nWe\u2019ve given her the donkey-riding, blue dress, haloed look.
\nForget it; none of them are in the book.<\/p>\n
\nSo, in some cattle shed, the smell, the crap, a cattle cough:<\/p>\n
\n Beginning\u2019s Owner, Name unsayable<\/em>
\n Beyond, \u201cHe is\u201d,<\/em>
\n His, creation\u2019s game, unplayable<\/em>
\n By any other,<\/em>
\n Sprayer of a million, billion, billion stars<\/em>
\n Across forever,<\/em>
\n Never losing count of countless worlds,<\/em>
\n Exhaling star-birthing clouds,<\/em>
\n A sigh<\/em>
\n A trillion Everests high<\/em>;<\/p>\n
\nGets squeezed down through the tunnel of his mother\u2019s agony
\nAnd gets expelled, a wrinkled scrap of human progeny.
\nThen, tightly bound in strips of cloth,
\nGets bunged into a feeding trough.
\nHow silently, how silently the wondrous gift\u2026COME ON!
\nShow me any<\/em> labour ward that is cathedral-calm.<\/p>\n
\nChoose to hear the news? \u201cHe\u2019s here,\u201d made meat, The Word.
\nCelebs? Upright? In-crowd? At least some<\/em> solid folk?
\nHis pick was just annoying, a slap-in-the-face. A joke?
\nShepherds\u2014scum! One-up from lepers, living dead.
\n(A loaf, refused by shepherds was officially not bread).
\nThen some guys\u2014rich but travellers, untouchables, unsound,
\nDabblers in the horoscope, dodgy ways, foreign land.
\nOh, and the two wrinklies, today could be in-care\u2014
\nEnd of life, past it, bless! (Lot of time, \u201cin prayer\u201d).
\nSo what\u2019s the take? I ask myself, what\u2019s that all about?
\nLast first? First last? Everything<\/em> inside out?<\/p>\n
\nHe was the pill, so bitter-sweet, so pure
\nAs we could only vomit out, so he
\nStraightway\u2019s a member of a refugee family,
\nAngel-led, on the run from a puppet king from hell
\nWho slaughtered toddlers for power\u2014we know such things so well.
\n\u2018Cause, hey what\u2019s new, it\u2019s just a few and rather little boys that died.
\nNowadays, to us, a mere mini genocide.
\nBorn to be king, he got his crown–made out of thorns.
\nEventually we brought him down in blood and phlegm and scorn.
\nRegarding mission Earth, he nailed it, but got nailed
\nTo a piece of wood, that is, but when all thought he\u2019d failed
\nThere\u2019s this stubborn, awkward evidence, wormed into my head
\nThat this story ends, I\u2019m serious, with him, back from the dead<\/p>\n
\nAvoid, deny, commercialize and trite-nativitize it.
\nIf the baby is The King, we insult him with this goo.
\nThey couldn\u2019t make this story up. I should face it\u2014could be true.
\nSo, despite my fears, the danger, yes perhaps,
\nDo I give him, my life\u2019s crown?
\nOr do I keep him in the manger, under wraps,
\nTinsel him out of town?<\/p>\n