Idiot Joy Showland

Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do

We did it all Dismas and I we took ‘em all I’m not sorry out in the desert we’d wait for the caravans and ride on over slice ‘em across the throat real quick the poor fuckers they had no idea we were coming before we were there and then we’d ride off with their stuff all the camels everything the camels never once faltered they never looked perturbed they don’t give a shit about people frankly and if you ask me they’ve got the right idea I’m not sorry sometimes we were out in the desert for days on end drinking as little as possible thinking about eating our horses the first time I did it with Dismas I was ashamed it’s an abomination I said we’re bandits he said we’re evil in the sight of God anyway and back in Jerusalem we got some whores and I felt better and eventually I wasn’t ashamed at all it’s not like I wasn’t brought up right or nothing our mum knew right from wrong all right she’d never fail to impress the wickedness of my actions on me she could swing a rod like nobody’s business I guess that’s why I went out into the desert because if I’m so bad I might as well do it properly but also because what the fuck else was there to do I could have joined the legions and died in some fetid bog up along the Rhine by the sword of some half-naked barbarian for an emperor who’d never know my name for the fucking Romans who killed my old man or I could hang around in Jerusalem doing odd jobs and living hand to mouth fuck that I’m not sorry every time we came back we’d get completely pissed on that good wine only the Romans can afford and get some girls and I’d see my mum and she’d cry that always left me feeling weird like someone had scooped out all my guts but it’s the life I chose and this is the death I chose too even if I didn’t realise it at the time I’m not sorry

Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in Paradise

When they first hammer the nails in it’s all you can think about the pain screams at you it blocks out everything you can’t see there’s nothing except you and the pain but it fades it fades everything does until it’s just a dull ache and after a few hours you forget about your wrists and your feet because it’s every part of your body hurting now being stretched out every time you take a breath you can feel it in your stomach your legs your arms they start to ache but it’s a slow ache you’ve got time to reflect all the time in the world you can hardly speak though it hurts too much but Dismas is trying he’s trying to talk to Yeshua kook if you ask me never had any time for God myself all those priests up in the Temple eating the burnt-offerings they’ve got a pretty good racket going on next to them I’m holier than fucking Ezekiel and Yeshua’s lot I liked even less because they all had this terrifying sincerity about them like they actually believed and all that shit about no more rich men and no more poor men well that’d put me right out of business wouldn’t it if there were no more rich men to steal from I can’t see Yeshua’s face from here but I bet he’s got that look of smug serenity and I croak out even though it hurts so much save us I say if you’re the Messiah then save us why don’t you and Dismas turns to me and I see the sweat running down his face and his blood clotting in the pores of the wood and he says we deserve this Gestas we fucking deserve this we killed all those people and Yeshua ain’t done a thing wrong Dismas of all people coming up with this shit it was his idea to start with I liked the money and the leisure but I think he really enjoyed it when we robbed those people he got off on the violence and he turns to Yeshua and says I believe in you don’t forget me and Yeshua says he says he

Woman, behold thy son!

The aching is worse but I can still see not Dismas he can’t his head is bowed down I think he’s unconscious not sure  his ribcage is still rippling under his chest still breathing I feel betrayed almost but I can’t blame the guy if he really thinks Yeshua can get us into Paradise I envy him there’s people around Yeshua’s cross women disciples his little band of weirdos and outcasts wailing and sobbing soldiers too of course holding them back there’s nobody weeping for me most of the mob’s gone now I thought they were there for us but it was for Yeshua although a good heavy rock to the head would send me off nicely right now better than the alternative if you know what I mean and then down the hill from Golgotha there’s the brown smudge of Jerusalem all the smoke coming out from all the chimneys across the city the whole place is choked by its own miasma and the sounds drifting up an amorphous hubbub the squawk of chickens the cries of traders the clacking of carts everything sourceless formless it swirls around me the Temple though you can see the Temple its crenulated walls with their big cyclopean stones it rises right out of the noxious haze it seems to burn in the sunlight yellow and gold the thin black line of smoke from the burnt-offerings while in the cloud below a thousand colours swirl in the gyre you can’t see exactly where it ends but the hills rising up all around soft and green somewhere in them a little stream is winding merrily through the trees hares are dancing the air is full of the joyful buzzing of the insects everything is throbbing with the sheer vitality of it all there are no trees here no shade only dry earth and rocks scattered about and the holes in the ground where they plant the crosses the dirt is stained sienna piebald with dried blood when the wind picks up it blows all about my face I close my eyes but it still gets in my nose my mouth tastes of my own breath so dry my sweat-salt crystallises everywhere I itch all over so dry

Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?

The wave of darkness I saw it cross the hills sweep across the forests wipe clean across the city I’m plunged into it the sun’s changed now it’s a thin ring of light and just black in the middle fuck everything’s dark it’s like an eye the eye of God looking down and I shrivel up before its gaze yes I have done wrong yes I have sinned every evil thing I have done it and I am sorry I really am I know I cannot be forgiven cast me into Sheol let me wail in its darkness for eternity only avert Your eye I can’t face its accusation I can’t bear Your presence everyone’s terrified the soldiers too the disciples are praying because they all know that they’ve done wrong they all feel the interrogation of its eschatological gaze I can see them cower I can still see my body is a pallid purple glistening like a cadaver but from him from him from Yeshua there’s a glow faint but there’s a glow tendrils of light barely visible spiral around his head they reach out to the disciples to the Romans too even them encircling them winding around them all over Dismas caressing his face not to me though not to me I know I don’t deserve it I wonder if they can see it or if it’s only me shapes now bursting out phantasms made of light they’re

I thirst

Everything I can see everything still I don’t understand galaxies collide stars burn and fade nebulae swirl and on our little rock our tiny island in a vast empty sea our pinprick speck hanging in the middle of so much emptiness we pull ourselves up from protozoa to Praetors from eukaryotes to Yehudim apes band together and shed their fur they build cities they crucify people outside the walls Golgotha this planet the rock of the skull I don’t understand

It is finished

Torn concrete and the mangled wrecks of cars rubble in every corner no surface is even fractures everywhere fissures running across the ground the churning swirling blackness of the sky not black not black exactly the dim light of the sun up there somewhere its light diffused in the cloud so all its furrows glow with an unearthly light that cloud looking more solid more real than the ruins the broken glass the chunks of concrete the twisted steel littered about in the jagged husks of the skyscrapers a few fires still burn flashes of orange scattered across the scorched landscape the only colour nothing is alive here no birds no insects there’s only the wreckage the charred skeletal trees the bones and the ash hanging in the air twirling in the wind finally coming to rest like it’s snowing heaping on the branches of the dead trees more now a flurry of ash carpeting the craggy ground make it smooth again blanketing the burnt-out tanks the contorted cars hide their shame make everything white again make it white and blank I can see everything still I don’t understand the mud a sea of mud shells bursting overhead the sky glowing with artillery a group of men running across the mud rifles in hand they are mired in its stench a machine-gun rattles and they fall they sink into the mud and in the distance far off but visible villages and vineyards trucks rattling over the unpaved roads I can see men with arms like sticks in striped shirts clinging to barbed wire eyes blank just looking stripped of all feeling not speaking I can see a wooden ship crammed with people shitting and vomiting in cramped cages gaping sores seeping pus rocked by a tumultuous ocean I can see soldiers in red uniforms before a moaning crowd children clinging to their mothers’ saris they fire gunsmoke billows and there is silence I can see a line of people their hands bound slowly walking up the steps of a pyramid to an altar where a man cuts out their hearts with an obsidian knife I can see the riders of the steppe bursting into the city I can see helicopters clattering over thatched roofs I can see missiles streaking through the sky I can see arrows arcing over the green fields I can see Cain weeping over the body of his brother I can see everything but still I don’t understand

Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit

When I was ten years old I stole a trinket from a market stall a ring I think I didn’t know why I just saw it and took it and afterwards I walked with a strange gait like I wasn’t sure if I should be slouching with shame or striding triumphantly I had this feeling like an insect was gnawing away at me from the inside I showed the ring to Dismas and he said it wasn’t real gold and I said it looked cool anyway and I wore it on my finger just to show him and later that day near dusk when the slow-burning sun drapes a golden veil over the whole city I ran into the market-trader’s son and some of his friends and they recognised me at once and really laid into me they kicked the shit out of me I didn’t cry though even when I was spitting blood I didn’t cry because I remembered my dad didn’t cry when the Romans nailed him up for sedition I limped back home scuffed and bleeding my lip swollen one of my eyes all bloodshot none of the people on the street paid me any attention it wasn’t their business they didn’t want to get involved but when I got home my mum made an awful fuss she was wailing and raging and I told her everything the whole story and she didn’t get out her rod to strike me for stealing she wrapped her arms around me and I cried finally I cried and she said it’s OK now you are safe you are forgiven you are safe and I was I was home and I was safe and I was forgiven.