9/3/22
Newsletter89
The Crack of Dawn
It’s daytime.
ATT internet has taken a shit here in Detroit for the past five days. I’m now on a hotspot. Clearly, 88 of my newsletters was too much for the internet to handle.
I lived in Jacksonville, Oregon, for one year, 2002. Bruce Campbell and his wife Ida lived a mile up the road, and we often took walks together in the morning. During that time I wrote a poem entitled, The Ballad of Jehosus, which took maybe a month of occasional effort, and I tried out my various silly rhymes on Bruce and Ida each morning. That’s how this poem came to be.
Ten years later, back here in Detroit, someone wrote into my website and asked if I ever wrote poetry. I said yes, and posted The Ballad of Jehosus. They wrote back, seemingly in disgust, and said, “That’s doggerel.” It seemed odd to me that I’d made it into my 50s and didn’t exactly know what the word doggerel meant. So I looked it up and the definition is, “Bad poetry.” I was somewhat taken aback. Is it that bad? You decide.
The Ballad of Jehosus
by
Josh Becker
He has seven arms
And an elephant’s head
He died on the cross
And returned from the dead
Instead of going to the mountain
The mountain came to him instead
He’s Jehosus Krishvishnu Buddallah
Jehosus Krishvishnu Buddallah
Is a really terrific scholah
He wrote the Torah
He wrote the Koran
The Bhagavad-Gita
And the Book of Morman
The Bible of old
The Bible of new
The Septuagint
Vulgate
And 1611 King James, too
The words of Krishna
The Mahabharata
The Hebrew Mishnas
And the Magna Carta
He’s fat and skinny and really wise
He’s a Semitic guy with blond hair and blue eyes
He sat under a tree and gained insight
He started a jihad and a 1500 year fight
Buddallah Krishvishnu Jehosus
Is bigger than anyone supposes
He’s bigger than me
And he’s bigger than you
He’s cohesion and structure
He’s the elemental glue
He’s the animating force
In everything living
Completely benign
And totally forgiving
We six billion are his chosen few
And we’re all free to do whatever we do
To give this power
Silly human labels
Is as meaningful as
Comic books, fairy tales, and fables
Jehosus Buddallah Krishvishnu
Is Catholic and Jewish and Hindu
And Muslim and Buddhist
Both clothed and a nudist
He’s for the frightened to cling to
It’s still daytime. Let’s see if tomorrow either ATT internet has returned or I am still able to get on this hotspot.
Aloha.