Socialist Jesus Poem by Kevin Patrick

Revolution is dead,
buried next door to God
I Got his son's autograph,
at the souvenir shop
You can buy him on T-shirts,
and black duffle bags
Pin his sepulchral image,
on white dormitory walls
While rehearsing old prayers
Of old liberalisms brand
From a barging philosophy
In a consecrated ideology

Socialist Jesus
the second coming of '53
He road on a motorcycle
to the front page of history
Helping Amazonian Leopards
and Miners strike in Chile
His Pilate were black suits
from Roman Pax America



Now the noughties have drifted
And our Idealisms floundered
As the corpse of Technicolor
Where the lessons of Viet Nam
Got trimmed in life's exams
There's only the ghost flower
Which our children find value
Barring radicals as a parodies
In Nietzsche, Klien, and Noam Chomsky
Take their words for blind idolatry
Then depose them when mortgages
Don't return student ventures


Socialist Jesus
Destinies catalyst Son
Sheppard bought for the meager
As the mighty ones instrument
He searched across the Atlantic
For the meaning to be free
A renaissance vagabond
Who was a soldier of empathy



Pompous college kids eat him
As the existential messiah
Trending outsider privilege
From pocketbook Marxist cliques
And they'll cut out his picture
and press gang it on a shirt
Sell beer mugs with slogans
Sprouting "Viva La Resistance"
Taking twin shots of tequila
to liquidate soured penitence
While walking aimlessly inept
down the grave of La Habana Vieja

Socialist Jesus
His holy father's mankind
Baptized by an atheist
Smoking cigars in fatigues
He deposed acrid patricians
Fought the underdog hemisphere
from Paraguay to Beijing
Fighting for the everyday underdog

Fanatics deride dead faith
In the Martyrs industry
Watered-down polemics
In attention deficit democracy
They can build their alters
of caricatured superheroes
Practicing their weekend trinity
In Molson, drugs and Doritos
Polishing their Iconoclast figures
Through proselytized mores
Forgetting the millions for one
Who looks cute as a pin up



Socialist Jesus
Your crucified everyday
Where your words have been maimed
For the picture of your fame
You taught us to rise
But all we did was sigh
Now your a mythical hero
To a generation of souls zero