Sacrilege, Savage

----------/Three Wise Men (pt 3): Sacrilege, Savage: The Thoughts Of Herod at The Heralding Of A New Jewish King

Sitting on your throne clasping your scepter tightly
jaw clinched
teeth grinding heart
palpitating, from your pores sweat pouring and this -
the recurring dream that wont abate
candle flickering...(unwieldy undulating unsettling unbearable uncanny
flame)
on the wick, writhing. wax beading then streaming
stridently, with celerity
beside your bed on the floor, your wife sleep softly snoring
suspicious but not quite aware of your all encompassing angst
You rest your hand on your forehead closing your eyes
shadows of your hunched somber silhouette
loom large lurching, on your wall every time you breath and exhale
deeply
against the conflagration that cajoles and coaxes you to
obey your anxiety and act hastily
and irrevocably
but deep down denials wont change the inexorable and you know this
a child - son of the moon for you
born at night a metaphor for the temporality, the mortality of your reign
will soon wrest the power that allows pleasing patronage of you
and that insignificance and abject poverty, perhaps pangs
of execution await you for all your cruel deeds:
adultery, theft, oppression, neglect and rulings decided largely
by bribes and not justice jettisoning jurist and jurisprudence
as a practice
sneering at the cries of the widow, and the orphan
trembling
with both indignation and fear
hating that your harem that made you happy might leave
paeans to prostitutes prohibited
that your wife (aware of your trysts but enduring) might leave
...a child - but son of the sun for the Jewish people
dawning a new era of the peace and liberation that even
my tyranny
and wanton callous wickedness and suppression
cannot squelch the hope of...
will be born
that must necessarily ruin my life and herald the day the memory
of Herod ceases
and the three wise men tell me that this prophecy logically implies
the virgin giving birth logically implies the improbable;
one cannot escape the inevitable
one cannot escape one's destiny
the old order of things is passing away and a new world approaches
that demands my eviction
well (maybe so...but)
I will not acquiesce without the shrill histrionic howlings of hell
without the sword slaughtering and spilling the blood
that sufficiently slakes my malcontent
even if only for a time....
every male child two years old and younger must and will certainly
die

(and I will chuckle churlishly as they cry)



------Matthew 2:1-4/13
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him." When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born./Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him."