poem

W N Herbert A Jesus of the Moon

variation on a theme by Nick Cave

 

Jesus lived with Diana and a rabbit

on the moon. It was like all the deserts

rolled up into a ball so he was fine with that:

‘If I can do forty days and forty nights

then I can do four billion years’, he would say

to the Goddess stroke Princess.

 

Theirs was a chaste relationship: sometimes he

would chase the rabbit, skin and roast it;

sometimes it would chase him, screaming,

‘This is your flesh! This is your blood!’

Then Diana would hunt them down with a bow

and a moon-buggy, which neither thought fair.

 

On the Dark Side they would curl up together

and suckle from her sixty-four nipples;

his beard would retreat into his long soft ears,

and the rabbit would dream in parables.

Theirs was a relationship as complete

as the panels in a long-running cartoon:

 

each panel felt like a carriage on the Trans-

Lunar Express, in which they would cantillate

to the seaside that best suited their mood:

Silence, Tranquillity, Concupiscence.

Once they found a hairless rock star, crying

in a crater, and Jesus repaired his bicycle.

 

Each month the rock star would wait

by the track, and, as their train went by

(the carriages painted with the company logo:

a carrot on a crucifix over crossed arrows,

all inside a demi-lune), he would pedal as

fast as he could alongside, and wave.