Exegesis

 

Exegesis

And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.  Luke 4:1-2

I couldn’t do
forty days without food
or forty nights of cold
stars pouring down
the Milky Way
the piles of stones
the wild dogs
the snakes
and Lucifer
always at hand
when you’re idle
and alone
like the phone
that tracks
each insecurity
with algorithmic
accuracy

click on that
you don’t want to
but you do
what he really thinks of you
what you really think of her
all the things
you need to know
about the things
you never knew
you didn’t know
all those things
and treat yourself
as you’d have others
treat you too
eat for God’s sake
be that person
everybody loves
or fears
you should be famous
don’t you see
who is like unto thee?

as for the unwanted present
this actual living moment
keep the receipt
and take it back
wrong colour/didn’t fit/
#lifehack

I have the time
but I don’t have the guts
to sit it out for forty days
some minutes here or there
will have to do
take a mind shot or two
of today’s best thoughts
to share on Twitter
or on Instagram

meanwhile
the Son of Man
baked in himself
and in the sun
sits undistracted
skin and bone
without friend
or phone
for those desert selfies
the wild-eyed zealot look
is bang on trend
for this year’s fashion
the spring/summer
fundamentalist collection

anorexic bug-eyed big head
the world unfiltered
you’d wish the stones
would turn to bread
everything reminds you of food
give it up how can this be good?
how does that save the world?
get something for yourself
people love the look
the followers on Snapchat
the friends on Facebook

take a selfie right now
you look good
thin
now pinch
and zoom in
the background
where a desert
looms
and there
in a pixelated blur
a gaunt figure
barely human
photobombs
but tagged as you
how can that be true?
and it can’t be surely
unless you really are
something else entirely