Beatitude with Attitude

I was sitting at my Father's right hand,
Thinking about a second coming
When I heard about this rich man
Coming to one of my churches.
A tough guy, swaggers, lurches,
Seeing the crowds, has his legions disperse them,
makes them disband
Urges his cronies to curse them.
Enhancing his brand,
He sprays them with pepper and rubber slugs,
Holds my book in his hand, which I doubt he's read.
Blessed are the thugs? That's not what I said.
What I said, for what it's worth,
Is don't store treasures on earth.
He said, we will make America wealthy again.
I said blessed are the poor in spirit. Do I hear an Amen?
He says the beauty of me is that I'm very rich
Anyone gets in my way, he says, I'll fire the son of a bitch.
I said You can't serve both God and Mammon,
That's something you seriously have to re-examine.
You have to hunger, in your spiritual famine,
Hunger for righteousness.
Love your enemies. Turn your other cheek.
To inherit the earth, you have to be meek.
He said Just knock the hell out of them. Seriously, OK?
I'd like to punch him in the face. Legal fees? I'll pay!
He said I'm really good at war,
I love war in a certain way – if you win them. Let the losers be sore.
Blessed are the peacemakers, is what I still say.
I say love your enemies and pray for those who curse you.
He says: only I can handle a crisis.
I know more than the generals know about ISIS,
Believe me, I would bomb the shit out of them.

And I say: everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent
Has already committed adultery, but there's still time to repent.
He says - Women: You have to treat them like shit.
You can grab them by the pussy (never mind the tit)
If Ivanka wasn't my daughter, perhaps we'd be dating.
You can say anything when you get good ratings. Just ask NBC.
Believe me, nobody respects women more than me.
And I said – somewhere near Bethlehem -
Whatever you wish others would do to you, do also to them,
For this is the law and the Prophets,
And he said, Profits? That I understand without a doubt.
But with these terrorists, you have to take their families out.
Oh, and Rosie O Donnell's disgusting…she's a slob,
Talks like a truckdriver, and Comey? A real nut job.

You see the speck in your sibling's eye?
You hypocrite, Mr. tough guy,
first take the log out of your own eye.
You cannot cover rot with a dark suit.
A diseased tree cannot bear good fruit.

And everyone who hears these words
And does not do them,
does not pursue them,
Will be like a foolish man
Who built his house on sand
And a hard rain fell,
And the floods came,
And the winds blew,
And the terror,
The reckoning,
All of it.
And the house fell,
And great was the fall of it.

New Poems

• "Battle Hymn of the Republic, Indeed"
• "Ode to a Banana"
• "Moving on After 1/6"
• "Hug"
• "Map-less Monarchs"
• "I am Such a Rich Man"
• "Beatitude with Attitude"
• "The Cross and the Lynching Tree Rap"
• "The Nudist Nun"
• "Sonnet 19"
• "Reparations Now"
• "Hoping I'm Wrong"
• "Bird Feeder"
• "Pete and Henry"
• "Nero: A Rap for Republicans"
• "Croissant"
• "Mandela"
• "The New Jim Crow"
• "The Wire"
• "Why Socialism?"

From By Heart

• "Ahiti"
• "As Some Fertile Seed"
• "Greed Screed"
• "I Sing the Ass"
• "Lying Lost Among Your Arms"
• "Now Thou Art Two and Twenty"
• "Sweet Smellin Woman"
• "This World"
• "Train Wreck"
• "Truth and Parable"
• "Why This Itch This Yen"
• "You"

Some Earlier Poems

• "Al and Bob"
• "The Lonely Puddle"
• "Ode to a Bagel"
• "The Rose"
• "Sardinia"
• "When Love's Liqueur"

Audio Recordings

• "Abu Ghraib"
• "Things About Kings"