Thursday, September 17, 2015

THE MODERN FUNDAMENTALIST'S SONG

by Marcus Bales





Fundamentalist:
I am the very model of a Christian fundamentalist 
And by a strange coincidence a solid occidentalist. 
I cherry-pick the Bible for the verses close or distantly 
Amenable to straight white males, however inconsistently, 
Unless those verses might apply a little inconveniently 
In which case I interpret them a good deal more than leniently. 
We want to do just what we please however strange or horrible 
And still regard ourselves as wholly moral and adorable.

Congregation:
We want to do just what we please however strange or horrible 
And still regard ourselves as wholly moral and adorable.
And still regard ourselves as wholly moral and adorable.

Fundamentalist:
I call myself a Christian but it's really Paulist cultery 
Since Christ himself has said that my divorces were adultery.
But I from man to man enjoy convexness and concavity 
And call whatever others do immoral and depravity.

Congregation:
But we from man to man enjoy convexness and concavity 
And call whatever others do immoral and depravity.

Fundamentalist:
I do not want to hear about the quantum or molecular 
Or how the Founding Fathers made our institutions secular 
I say the nation's Christian under Biblical authorities 
Rejecting what the Constitution says about majorities. 
The workings of the government may worry and perplex you all 
I say we're equal under God -- unless you're homosexual -- 
Or black or brown or female or some kind of evolutionist 
For all attempts at reasoning are really persecutionist.

Congregation:
Or black or brown or female or some kind of evolutionist 
For all attempts at reasoning are really persecutionist.

Fundamentalist:
My freedom of religion trumps your Constitutionality 
Because the Constitution says it does with firm legality.
I claim my rights from God or man, whichever's more commodious 
For what I want to do however evil, vile, or odious.

Congregation:
I claim my rights from God or man, whichever's more commodious 
For what I want to do however evil, vile, or odious.

Fundamentalist:
When I can issue licenses or not because I feel like it 
The public's just my piggy and the public can just squeal like it.
I'll happily apply whichever law is most agreeable 
To what I want to do since what I want is unforseeable: 
The conscience of the person must control the way they view their job 
And not demands that public servants ought to serve and do their job. 
The Constitution's man-made law and God is not endorsing it; 
The SCOTUS made their law, and now good luck to them enforcing it.

Congregation:
The Constitution's man-made law and God is not endorsing it; 
The SCOTUS made their law, and now good luck to them enforcing it.

Fundamentalist:
There's nothing in my creed that advocates for love officially 
Except some quotes that God and Jesus handed down judicially -- 
I don't see why I must obey the acts of which God sent a list 
And yet I am the model of a Christian fundamentalist. 

Congregation:
We don't see why we must obey the acts of which God sent a list 
And yet we are the models of a Christian fundamentalist. 

Not much is known about Marcus Bales, except that he lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and his poems have not been published in The New Yorker or Poetry.