Reading The Bible Upside Down Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

They read the bible daily,
and also read it inside out,
and even read it in the moonlight,
having borrowed the eyes of the owl,
when they realized that the bat had none.
This first reading turned their lives
into the 'no saints' they would be.

They called their neighbors to
come and read the big book
that had fallen from the sky.
Together they consumed
the rare dinner, calling it the
last supper.

Strangers came and asked
for a share as small as a morsel,
from this book turned food.
They joined for the book was
open, to a psalm 21 where
together they found a shepherd
all their own, leading them to pastures
green, Together they sang of an almighty, inside
a synagogue, called a guegonasy,
for every syllable was read backwards.

Together they built a national synagogue,
now reading guegonasy, only to find they
were getting more inside their head, for the
building was now upside down. The roof
was at the bottom and the foundation
was looking at the sun, wondering,
if the joke would end, for it was not
liking this. Cracking, and needing help
it could not take anymore.

Sandy and foolish up there, the foundation,
started blowing sand into the eyes of onlookers.
The neighbors were looking
at the upside down church, now a problem
in the whole neighborhood.

When the bats returned, at night, they got
a shock of their lives in their small bodies.
'Is this what they did in our absence? Let us
ask the church mouse, for he always stays
here. 'Church mouse, how could you allow
these holy rollers to do so foolish a thing
as to render us homeless for the church
now stands upside down? ''

The church mouse, in all his poverty
for words, wondered how the bats
could ask him. Surely they could
see he had no skills to do such,
much as he would have loved to
see the upside down purses and
wallets flying as things got to this
extent. Emptying the purses of these
want wits would have changed his
name, the only person with a name
and surname in this building.

'See, how mean you are? You separated
yourselves from the rest of these, built
a community of one color, pooped on the
benches in the 'guegonasy, ' and I had to
make my way around all this mess made
by you. What did you think the Lord would
do? Capsize the whole thing! He does not
joke with the likes of you. Now you ask me
what happened? As if I was there. Go and ask
the termites. When you exclude the few from
the meal, thy use their power and together
they call on the heavenliness and. Voila!
A guegonasy ready to turn into rubble.

This is not Noah's ark you fools.
It is not floating in no unnamed sea.
This game of exclusion that left me
the poorest in the building of the Lord,
always ends like this.

One more hint on your dilemma,
when church was going on, you were making
squeaky noises up there, trying to squeeze
under the rafters of the rooftops so you
could see into the book, so you all read
the bible upside down.

What, may I ask, did you get in the end?
An upside down church, now eat of this
pineapple upside down cake like church.
Don't try to pick out the cherries, for you
will not see them. Go you foolish ones of
the earth, who live up there. Remember
the termites are coming. They do not need
a ladder. They will finish off this dinner.

Together we will have second helpings and I
will enjoy the left overs, for I will empty the
purses, get richer than the billionaires, for I
will always survive the verbal earthquake,
even if limping and lopsided, for the tremors
that will happen cannot hurt me and my friend
the cockroach.

In reading the bible upside down, people
of my congregation, ours is a story that will
end when finally we reach heaven'












having borrowed