"Jesus at the Globe Tavern" - Eugene C. Bianchi

"Jesus at the Globe Tavern" - Eugene C. Bianchi

 Could it be him playing with gusto

 in a circle of Irish musicians

 doing their gig by the corner window?

 

 I watch fascinated until he

 tucks the fiddle under an arm,

 rises and walks toward me.

 

 “Jesus Christ! Can that be you?”

 He hesitates. “Yes, we met near the Vatican

 a few years ago at the Bar Blu.”

 

 He joins me for brown ale to say

 how close Holy Week is

 this year to St. Patrick’s Day.

 

 “Ah, Friend, with all the child abuse,

 a dark time for Ireland’s church—

 plus Mid-East violence on the loose.”

 

 “Yes, Master, I see the tragic connection,

 yet what about Easter,

 any hope in the Resurrection?

 

 “Well, religions reveled in mythic theology

 when folk were ignorant of evolution

 and turned imagination into history.”

 

 “Yet, Master Jesus, so much sin and separation,

 how do we reconnect with salvation?”

 He leans back, sips his beer,

 

 and points toward the street. “See that homeless person

 with her worldly possessions in a shopping cart?

 Let’s bring her warm nachos and a fiddled chanson.”

 

 

Gene Bianchi is tonight's featured reader at Word of Mouth open mic. Sign up is at 7 pm at the bar and reading begins at 8 pm upstairs at the Globe. [Photo of Gene and cat Max by David Noah]