US Immigration – bendingtheneedle

What Would Jesus Do?

“What Would Jesus Do?” by Sapient Rain is available on music streaming services.

Sapient Rain is a human / machine collaboration between lyricist Geoffrey Reilly and the AI Music Engine, Suno.

On a week when we watched a “pastor” grotesquely compare a convicted felon and suspected pedophile to Jesus Christ, I think this song rings particularly true, especially heading into Easter weekend.

What Would Jesus Do? Lyrics

What would Jesus do
to a brownish me and you
would he throw us in a cage
and attack us with his rage

what would Jesus say
when we choose to look away
not turn the other cheek
and make mincemeat of the weak

In the cold and brackish waters
of America’s not great
we’re drowning in hypocrisy
and the riptide of our hate
We’re bastardizing Jesus
ignoring what he said
not welcoming the stranger
terrorizing them instead

If Jesus Christ came back today
what would MAGA do?
they’d label him a liberal
and re-crucify the jew

MAGA’s blue-eyed Jesus
is muscle-bound and blonde
armed and deadly dangerous
from heaven and beyond

What would Jesus say
about how we treat the poor
of how open we’ve become
to the slamming of the door

I think Jesus would be sick
at what America’s become
fanatically intolerant
and lovers of the gun

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my book, My Paper, My Words: Rantings from a Progressive Boomer and Peeved Parent, from Amazon. And if you feel moved to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.

My Paper, My Words is a collection of essays, stories, and poems that reflect the challenges of a middle-class husband and father trying to navigate a rapidly changing political, religious, and technological landscape of post-911 America.

Paint It, Black

Read to the cadence of “Paint it, Black” by the Rolling Stones.

I see a brown wall
and I want it painted black
if you have brownish skin
I want to send you back

I see brown men walk by
dressed in their working clothes
I tell my ICE agents
It’s time to make them go

I see the Ukraine fry
in Russian drone attacks
the bombing raids and tanks
that turn their cities black

I see our democracy
begin to fade away
a thousand starving kids
in Palestine today

When I look inside myself
I see my heart is black
the orange spray-on tan
can’t cover up the fact

’till that day I fade away
you’re tied onto the track
I’ll make you suffer days
while turning this world black

I watch the climate change
from here to Timbuktu
I smile at the heat that’s
burning into you

If you look hard enough
into my soulless eyes
there’s only room enough
for all that I despise

I see a brown wall
and I want it painted black
just like my darkened heart
too hard to even frac

I see brown men walk by
dressed in their working clothes
I tell my ICE agents
It’s time to make them go

My feeble mind is tainted
tainted black
Black as night
Black as coal
I wanna see the hope
Blotted out from your eyes
I wanna see them painted, painted, painted
painted black, yeah

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my first book, My Paper, My Words: Rantings from a Progressive Boomer and Peeved Parent, from Amazon. And if you feel moved to write a review of the book on Amazon or elsewhere, I’d be honored.