Creeping Jesus

Matthew found a whore to bleed
To satisfy a basic need;
To rid his mind of abattoirs,
To break a girl it blinds the scars
Left by the stench of rendered flesh
And garbled squeals. How Matthew wretched.

The day he cracked he knelt in tears;
Learnt to eroticise his fears.
He lives alone, he dies alone.
His veganism won’t atone.
He finds retreat
In binding meat.

Mark was a deluded kid.
The fantasies in which he hid
Were paranoid and sparely lit.
His parents did unfairly hit
Their boy who wet his bed til when
He turned fourteen, discovered men.

He sold his soul to make amends.
Scrubbing bars he made some friends.
They said his soul was precious; worth
Preserving: souls are scarce on earth,
But bodies decay,
And we’re happy to pay.

Luke was unemployable.
He found life too enjoyable.
He fell in with some motley punks
Who filled his head and veins with junk.
They partied for five years straight.
Right royal reprobates.

On benefits he lives alone,
His dead veins belching methadone.
His child, estranged, is far away,
And far away is where he’ll stay.
He can’t resist
The urge to exist.

John was raised upon a farm;
An idyll so inanely calm
That all the families bought guns
One Christmas for their first-born sons.
John raped Jane
And had Bill slain.

John was still a juvenile.
A spell inside helped reconcile
His urges to his upbringing.
And this he channelled when he’d sing.
He’d start a band
And rescue the land.

Matthew, Mark and Luke and John:
Disciples of the power of song
To change the past and right the wrongs
That blighted their lives all along.
God concedes their fates to me.