But tell us how you really feel

If there is a savage impulse,
say your orders came from God.
You shall surely be forgiven
for beating children with steel rods

or for lauding superstition
and ruining a baby’s mind.
If you pray enough it’s hard
to find you guilty of a crime.

It makes one wish for a hell
with its torture and its fire
where evil men are banished
to atone for their desires.

They all had a love of power
and of money and of fame
and they tend to murder women
if they see them using brains

for anything but regulation
of a body’s ticking clock
or to loyally add children
to the good Lord’s fenced-in flock.

All their slogans have been stolen
by men terrible and vile.
You can find that cross on war flags
and on money at turnstiles.

We crush paper in a ball
and worship books we have not read.
We can trust our paraphrasing
to judge the living and the dead.

So we find Abraham at Nuremberg
on a mountain tall and young.
He is making invitations
for the funeral of his son.