Religion and Beer

Religion and Beer


Name me one prophet you’d invite over
for a beer, even one? Except for Eve,
and of course Adam, the Bible is filled
with sourpusses or worse: tyrants,
paranoiacs, the deranged or terminally stuffy.
If the New Testament were minutes
from a fraternity meeting, Christ wouldn’t
actually paddle the pledges personally,
but he’d sure as hell be ordering
his minions “not to spoil ‘em.”

No, I’m afraid everyone after Abraham
is a mafioso in sheep’s clothing.
Now, one could make a case for the Marys,
a good case, but it’s a little like having
a friend who’s a Scientologist--no way
you can trust them not to tattle to Jesus
or blab to the biggest weirdo in the room.
Joseph you say? Let’s face it, he was
so dumb he wouldn’t know which end
of the beer holds foam.

To placate my Jewish friends, David
in his youth deserves some consideration.
Too bad he turned into Generalisimo
with a hard-on for everyone’s wife.
Let’s skip Mohammed and his crew,
they ran around Saudi Arabia like
an NRA convention on dune buggies;
and though they certainly get points
for poetry and inventing astrolabes,
they kept their girlfriend’s clits
in a special pouch like Vietnam Vets
kept gook ears. Maybe it was the heat.

Buddha was a rich kid, and about the biggest
wet blanket south of Bhutan.
He’d have devotees taste his beer for him,
he’d channel the fucking beer.
Confucius and Mencius didn’t wear
the trappings of sticks-in-the-mud
like the aforementioned, but who can
feel comfortable around eggheads?
Give brainiacs a couple of drinks and
there’s no stopping the precepts—
but ask them the Philly’s line-up,
or to name the cast in Touch of Evil,
I swear their eyes cross, they harrumph!

But I do have one in mind, an old
fugitive named Han Shan with a stone hut
in the South China mountains. Some
called him a Taoist, some said Zen.
He wrote poems on trees and cliffs,
then begged left-overs around Guoqing.
Hermits are great to be around, they know
the best taco stands, the coziest terraces
along the laziest rivers. Of course,
I’m not certain the Council
of World Religions would approve,
but his stories were legendary.
I can see splitting a six pack of Pabst,
just him and me and the moon
laughing so hard it just about feels holy.


(The image above is Tete de Paysan Catalan, painted by Joan Miro in 1925, currently owned by the National Museum of Scotland).
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