"... Two, Three, Many Vietnams..."

Author: Anna Russell / Labels: , , ,


If God is the God of the Bible,

I declare war.

Assemble the masses, let us rise

to heaven under cover of darkness,

rifles strapped to haggard backs,

grenades slung low round waists

He made.

There, comrade! Fire!

Do angels bleed when their father

lets them die?


If God is the God of the Bible,

I demand an audience.

Our army will burn through heaven,

making a deceiver of the God who promised

no suffering there.

Yes, we can create too.

And when the screaming angels

who have drawn their swords to us

so many times for infractions

their father created us to commit

ask why,

I will reply:


“This is in the name of


The smashed tomb of my Christian

aunt, and the cancer that ate her womb,

the ripped hymen of the four year old, the gold

children dig for at gunpoint aching for water

that isn't there, the hair on my arms that stood

up when I heard the screams from my screen

of the newly homeless because wind and wave,

not sin, but wind and wave had slaughtered

their parents and this is also in the name of

the flesh eating parasite and of the blind

and the paralysed and the free will that

is not possible if God is the God of the Bible.

This is in the name of

the neutron, the atom, the proton,

the hydrogen and carbon that cobble

intricate being never seeing that they

leave no clue as to consciousness,

as to soul, that makes the whole of who we

are; of who the rapist is when he rapes, who

the thief is when he takes; the majesty

of the ocean and the horrors that feast on

tiny shoals who know no other purpose

to this life than to swim away, swim away!

Then die, chewed in the maw of that which

terrified them since birth. This is for mirth

that can only be known through the comparison

of sorrow and comfort that only shows its

sweet relief after fear. You hear me God?

You hear? Face your creation

and tell us it was no mistake. For this is in the name

of all that makes us ache and sob whether we

keep the faith or not.

Take your best shot, Father, take it now”.


And God shows Himself.


And there before him,

I kneel

in spite of myself.


And I weep.

I weep the tears of a million lost souls,

knowing that all are mine.

I see what I can never comprehend

and I know why.


He reaches down to

clasp my face in His hands

and I gaze up at Him,

the tears and the snot and the salt

upon my lips


and I say


“But you knew, you bastard.

All along, you knew”.

2 comments:

Mark William Jackson said...

I like this, and I understand, I wrote http://markwilliamjackson.blogspot.com/2009/07/when-great-man-passes.html
questioning the existence of God after watching cancer eat away at a loved one.

jerry said...

If there is a God, does this God care?

http://shortshortstoryproject.blogspot.com