New Poetry by Jim Walton

Iscariot’s Leap of Faith

My name is Judas, I took the money.
Not that it was much; I’d have preferred American dollars,
like any decent terrorist.
It was just that I’d had enough.
Lazarus, did he really want to go on,
the loaves and fishes, what about the next meal?
Bad enough that he had his own doubts,
crying in the garden, drawing a crowd, then releasing them.
A multitude wants action, the next step revealed:
faith needs the temper of a furnace, the honed edge
swinging cleanly through to the next cleave,
not some blinding revelation without strings.
Jesus, you stuffed up big time!
When you tossed the money lenders out, the wasted stash
would have been worth the keeping,
we could have done some real charity with that.
When the sky went black, I saw the Romans falter –
the masses ready for action, but it passed.
As for the pomposity of Ascension,
we needed and prayed for Deliverance.
Where was the Father, Gabriel’s trumpet, the wrath of Angels?
I hang here, low fruit,
this wasted olive, the last pear gone soggy and black,
the stone moved to release me  -
with a final glimpse of the power lines of crucifixes.


- Jim Walton 2015


Jim Walton's collection, "The Leviathan's Apprentice" has just been released through Strzelecki's Lover Press.