The Modern Era ...

[mnaz]

Everything changed after Jesus.
It happened overnight in the cosmos,
only two thousand years in billions.
Rockets soon shot into space.

But Jesus got out of line.
He overturned the money table
where money-changers still reign
in the temple, the sacred temple!

And religion took a strange road trip,
its transcendence subverted, inverted.
It became top-heavy, self-absorbed.
The kids danced and spun records.

Dollars roll in and roll out,
like amber tides on the desert.
Reincarnated martyrs still echo,
and the emperor once had clothes.

Everything changed after Jesus,
in bombed-out ghettoes and the
big nuclear winter coming, where the
tenorman first wailed his off notes.

[Unk]

Jesus died for nothing I suppose...
but Jimi died for our sins . . .

I love rock and roll
singing
Oh say can you see
by the bomb's eerie light

nice work mnaz pardon my ramble please

[mnaz]

Yes, I've thought it over, and I believe, the "modern era" started with Rome. Forget the 1920s, or '50s, or anything in the pre-apocalyptic stew of last century-- it started with the roads and aqueducts, the empire-lust of Rome. Jesus never stood a chance. Faith devolved into large armies, and the message was intercepted ...

I don't care if that's an oversimplification! Don't! Care! Because that's what happened ...
Or something like that ...

This is not real poetry, by the way ...

[the mingo]

... and this is not a real reply - you're cracking me up here mnaz -

[mnaz]

I crack myself up. I'm cracking up! ...

[revolutionR]

you nailed it, sorry for the pun, well....not really sorry for it
but you get my drift.

Jesus is still a thing, i guess
and Rome never died.

[mnaz]

Oh Jesus, I wrote another Jesus poem... Why do I keep doing that?

Yes, Rome never died. I think we're living in Rome . . . Odd, how the faith that "spun off from Jesus" was persecuted by the empire, until it became the empire . . .

or something like that. Well ... okay, it's a bit ridiculous to claim that "modernity" extends back to the chariot days, just because Rome pushed the concept of "empire" to staggering new dimensions ... No, the "modern world" is stuff like Space Age architecture and Dadaism. And machines-- modernity is machine-happy. What was I thinking? ...

[Steve Plonk]

"Jesus is just alright by me..." The Byrds
Mnaz, Keep them cards & poetry notes coming...

[revolutionR]

No, i think your one pointed attempts to decipher the enigma "Jesus" are good
poetic strategy. I have had a love/hate relationship to the whole religious
question myself. The paradox you illustrate, the way Rome circumvented
the whole question, by just owning it, and using it as a weapon against
itself. How can we ever calculate the effects that were created by some
decision made by Constantine? On the face of it, he just did what he had
to do to save Rome. Religions had already become obsolete, in so far as
Jesus was either a Jewish revolutionary, or he was some kind of holy man
that disappeared into Egypt and maybe India or Japan. I have always thought
the "historical Jesus" just is not found anywhere in history. When I say obsolete
I mean, it was always changing and morphing, I mean the timeless sense of
people killing in the name of whatever God. Whatever came before, it devolved
into the classic Roman version, once was the mystery school, and before that
it was word of mouth. So, what would Jesus say? Well, even with the new Pope
and all, trying to modernize the Catholic Church, but even though he is doing
some better stuff, it is still a snail pace, telling Catholics to get right with
the environment is a beginning, but if Catholics are still arguing about Gay rights
and female reproductive issues, ect. how far are they going to get with protecting
the ocean? Just some random thoughts, have a nicer one....

[Steve Plonk]

Puzzled by the historic Jesus? Check out this article: SEE LINK;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

[mnaz]

Thanks revolutionR. At times I think I'm off the rails with these thoughts, but at times it seems clear. I was ordered to read the Old Testament when I was young, and it just seemed one disaster after another (like the News), inter-spliced with occasional wisdom and poetry, and at an early age I found myself asking: "Really? Is this really the best we can do?" And when they ordered me to read the "New Testament," Jesus seemed to break with the past, but now that is so far in the past that no one can make sense of it, if they even try to think about it .. And you're right. How do we move on, saddled with the archaic?