So damped her with the contents of the ewer.
She grabbed him by his single garment but
He left it with her, naked but still pure,
And ran away, the bloody idiot.
Exodus
Pharaoh, a rogue in charge of other rogues,
First drowned the Jews then turned them into slaves,
Driven to toil by knaves with stones and staves,
Just where the fertile Nilus disembogues.
But Moses (the humane dictator vogue's
Said to start here), after some narrow shaves,
Led the Jews out between two walls of waves:
The buggers didn't even wet their brogues.
When the Red Sea swung open like a door,
The Jews assumed their journey was near done,
Not having met the love of God before.
But round and round beneath the desert sun
They had to frig for forty years and more -
A fucking waste of time for everyone.
As ancient Hebrew story tellers knew
The future better than the past, we lack
Proof that when Balaam rode his donkey's back
And, since it halted, beat it black and blue
The poor beast turned on him and brayed: "Hey, you,
Why did you launch that unprovoked attack?
If you could see that angel there you'd thwack
This ass, or arse, more gently than you do."
If you believe this, welcome an incursion
Of awe to learn that donkeys can be pat in
High class Italian (English in this version).
Accept the premise and it follows that in
Pointing you out the donkeys that know Latin
(Aspeeeerges meeeeee) I cast no foul aspersion.
The Battle of Gideon
300 Jews knitted their warlike brows and,
Armed with trombones and torches hid in skillets.
Marched in good order on their foemen's billets,
Quiet as a moving munching herd of cows. And
As dancers on the stage taking their bows and
Boos in an endless belt endlessly fill it, s-
O this small troop marched in a circle till its
300 men looked damned near like 3000.
Ta-rah, ta-ray – clash pans, flash torches. Flustered,
And deafened as 300 brass are mustered,
The enemy collapses like a custard.
Such thrift! Today we have our martial brawls,
Our soldiers heed the bugle when it calls
And waste 300 fucking cannon-balls.
The Bible is quite verminous with foxes.
Samson caught hundreds and, with foxy cunning,
Tied torches to their tails and set them running
Through his foes' harvest-fields – thus, with hot proxies,
Saving them sweat. Still, they wished ninety poxes
Upon him and increased their vengeful gunning.
Where are the foxes now? It seems they're shunning
Our hounds as we shun syphilitic doxies.
We ought to want them, since they stank of virtue
When Samson used them against naughty men.
But still an eggless henless world would hurt you
More than a foxless. If he came back again
With scores of foxes sniffing round his skirt, you
Would say: "I'd rather have a fucking hen."
Revenge 1
Of all the Bible stories that they tell,
This one to come is quite the most fantastic.
A sonnet being so damned inelastic,
I'll require two to tell it really well.
Well, now – the exodists from Egypt's hell
Met the mad Malechites who, dreadful, drastic.
Ferocious, tastelessly enthusiastic,
Fell on the Hebrews, and the Hebrews fell.
God made a memorandum. After all,
The Jews pursued the then correct religion.
After four hundred years he called on Saul.
"The Malechites," he said, "deserve the axe.
Spit the whole nation; roast it like a pigeon.
Don't leave a feather on their fucking backs."
So in God's name Saul went and waded in,
Trouncing them in one horrible stampede,
Goats, calves and all. Mercy maybe or greed
Or something made him save Prince Agag's skin.
Samuel now prophesied about Saul's sin!
"Idolater, betrayer of our creed,
A holier Israelite will supersede
Your reign and make a holier reign begin.
Bring me the prince you blasphemously spared."
Tremulous as a fatted pig, that prince
Stuttered – agag agag aghast, shit-scared.
The holy Samuel did not blink or wince
But raised the butcher's blade that he had bared
And made a mound of Malechitish mince.
David 1
How powerful is God's arm! He sent a boy
To fight Goliath, who was tough and scary,
Who swallowed foes like oysters of the prairie
And thought he'd stamp on David like a toy.
But God wished Israel to yell with joy
To know that every flabby, weak, unhairy
Weed that loves Jesus and his mother Mary
Finds giants rather easy to destroy.
Seeing the stone and sling and stripling shepherd,
Goliath cried: "You little prick, you've gone a
Mite too far," and tensed up like a leopard.
But David blessed the saints and the Madonna,
Measured his fireline, fired his pebble up it
And saw Goliath crumple like a puppet.
King David's later life? The stories vary.
It seems, though, his prophetic eye was sharp,
He spoke with God, he much preferred the bar-p-
Arlour to the coffee-shop or dairy.
Jesus, of David's seed through holy Mary,
For David was a very pericarp,
Had his gab-gift, but could not play the harp
Nor sing like David, King Saul's prize canary.
The Bible gives a fairish bona fide
Account of him, although it's hard to follow:
The story is elliptical, untidy.
You'll learn, however, that he loved to wallow
In love, and frot until his balls were hollow,
From Saturday till pretty late on Friday.
Wisdom
Solomon's judgment. So. It makes you laugh.
But could a judge upon a modern bench,
Nose lifted high against the rabble's stench,
For all his wigs and tomes and courtroom staff,
Do better? He, drained like his own carafe,
Hearing one wench scream at the other wench
In language that would make a bargee blench,
Could only say: "Let's chop the child in half."
The parish register was plain to see,
You say. He could have checked on her or her name,
The date and place of birth of son or daughter.
Fool. In those days nobody had a surname,
And parish registers came in A.D.,
When Christ had shown a brand-new use for water.
The Holy Bible tells how the seduc-
Tive Judith feasted Holofernes, winner
Of the late bloody war. They finished dinner,
She doused the lights. He, leering at his luck,
Leapt on her unresisting. Then she struck
His head off with a sword and cried: "Foul sinner,"
(His milk still frothing to the boil within her)
"Now you can find some blacker hole to fuck."