IF LOOKS COULD KILL

by Rod Benson

Buried in ancient annals, drowned in brackish

Seas, consumed by superheated justice,

Muted witness now am I to foolish

Pride and hollow pleasure. One whose practised

Eye for profit glimpsed my verdant flood plain

Bought it, and in buying sold his soul and

Guaranteed his family’s fate. For insane

Corruption, compromise and evil fanned

The wrath of God, observing from his halls.

A pall of death hung heavily; then from

The sky fell fire and stone consuming life.

And only four – no, three – survived my walls.

“If looks could kill” – they do! I am Sodom:

Look if you will, but remember Lot’s wife.

 © 2002 Rod Benson

THERE THEY CRUCIFIED HIM

by Rod Benson

I endure the pain

And I suffer the shame

While my back with deep furrows is ploughed.

Then my garments are torn,

And my brow crowned with thorn,

And I’m led to my death through the crowd.

To Moriah I tread,

Though it fills me with dread,

And my cross weighs me down to the ground;

So alone in my plight,

Not a thicket in sight,

Nor a ram for a substitute found.

Now my hands and my feet

Caesar’s iron spikes meet

As they tear through my flesh to the tree.

Lifted up from the earth,

Passers-by shout in mirth

At their object of ridicule: me.

Soldiers, hardened and cruel,

Pass me off as a fool

As they gamble my clothes – what a nerve!

“Save yourself!” is their cry,

But a ransom am I

Who came not to be served but to serve.

And my Father’s wrath stirred

For his creatures have erred,

Bringing torture and death to his Son.

But I want them to live –

I pray, “Father, forgive,

For they comprehend not what they’ve done.”

Then a priest and a scribe

With loud laughter deride:

“Come down now from the cross – we’ll believe!”

Unrepentance avowed,

Self-deluded and proud –

They will never perfection achieve.

But a thief at my side

Whose derision has died

To his fellow says, “Watch what you say:

This man’s done nothing wrong!”

Then to me, like a song:

“Lord, remember me, save me, I pray!”

He has many regrets,

And his cheek a tear wets

As his past flashes by in his mind;

But his faith rests in me,

So I say, “You are free,

And today you shall Paradise find.”

John stands by on the hill

With my mother, stock still,

Who has nurtured me, loyal and true.

“Here’s your mother, your son” –

Now my duties are done,

And “my time” rises fully to view.

So let darkness descend,

And the blackness portend

That the curse will be finally borne

In my body: the sin

Of the world drawn within –

God-forsaken, defiled, spent and torn.

Holy victim, I am

The ordained precious Lamb

On whose shoulders the world’s sins now rest;

But these shoulders are strong,

Since divine, and ere long

My parched lips, sounding vict’ry, attest:

“It is finished!” The call

That reverses the Fall –

Eden’s serpent decisively crushed!

Now a soldier draws near,

Cleaves my side with a spear,

And my blood, speaking life, melts the dust.

 © 2000 Rod Benson