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To a Contemporary Bunkshooter

You come along. . . tearing your shirt. . . yelling about
    Jesus.
    Where do you get that stuff?
    What do you know about Jesus?
Jesus had a way of talking soft and outside of a few
    bankers and higher-ups among the con men of Jerusalem
    everybody liked to have this Jesus around because
    he never made any fake passes and everything
    he said went and he helped the sick and gave the
    people hope.
 
 
You come along squirting words at us, shaking your fist
    and calling us all damn fools so fierce the froth slobbers
    over your lips. . . always blabbing we’re all
    going to hell straight off and you know all about it.
 
 
I’ve read Jesus’ words. I know what he said. You don’t
    throw any scare into me. I’ve got your number. I
    know how much you know about Jesus.
He never came near clean people or dirty people but
    they felt cleaner because he came along. It was your
    crowd of bankers and business men and lawyers
    hired the sluggers and murderers who put Jesus out
    of the running.
 
 
I say the same bunch backing you nailed the nails into
    the hands of this Jesus of Nazareth. He had lined
    up against him the same crooks and strong-arm men
    now lined up with you paying your way.
 
This Jesus was good to look at, smelled good, listened
    good. He threw out something fresh and beautiful
    from the skin of his body and the touch of his hands
    wherever he passed along.
You slimy bunkshooter, you put a smut on every human
    blossom in reach of your rotten breath belching
    about hell-fire and hiccupping about this Man who
    lived a clean life in Galilee.
 
When are you going to quit making the carpenters build
    emergency hospitals for women and girls driven
    crazy with wrecked nerves from your gibberish about
    Jesus—I put it to you again: Where do you get that
    stuff; what do you know about Jesus?
 
 
Go ahead and bust all the chairs you want to. Smash
    a whole wagon load of furniture at every performance.
    Turn sixty somersaults and stand on your
    nutty head. If it wasn’t for the way you scare the
    women and kids I’d feel sorry for you and pass the hat.
I like to watch a good four-flusher work, but not when
    he starts people puking and calling for the doctors.
I like a man that’s got nerve and can pull off a great
    original performance, but you—you’re only a bug–
    house peddler of second-hand gospel—you’re only
    shoving out a phoney imitation of the goods this
    Jesus wanted free as air and sunlight.
 
You tell people living in shanties Jesus is going to fix it
    up all right with them by giving them mansions in
    the skies after they’re dead and the worms have
    eaten 'em.
You tell $6 a week department store girls all they need
    is Jesus; you take a steel trust wop, dead without
    having lived, gray and shrunken at forty years of
    age, and you tell him to look at Jesus on the cross
    and he’ll be all right.
You tell poor people they don’t need any more money
    on pay day and even if it’s fierce to be out of a job,
    Jesus’ll fix that up all right, all right—all they gotta
    do is take Jesus the way you say.
I’m telling you Jesus wouldn’t stand for the stuff you’re
    handing out. Jesus played it different. The bankers
    and lawyers of Jerusalem got their sluggers and
    murderers to go after Jesus just because Jesus
    wouldn’t play their game. He didn’t sit in with
    the big thieves.
 
I don’t want a lot of gab from a bunkshooter in my religion.
I won’t take my religion from any man who never works
    except with his mouth and never cherishes any memory
    except the face of the woman on the American
    silver dollar.
 
I ask you to come through and show me where you’re
    pouring out the blood of your life.
 
I’ve been to this suburb of Jerusalem they call Golgotha,
    where they nailed Him, and I know if the story is
    straight it was real blood ran from His hands and
    the nail-holes, and it was real blood spurted in red
    drops where the spear of the Roman soldier rammed
    in between the ribs of this Jesus of Nazareth.
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