bud osborn (beat poet) re-tells the gospel

street sermon

AFTER HEARING ONE TOO MANY PREACHERS HARANGUING ABOUT HELLFIRE ON GRANVILLE STREET

brothers and sisters fellow low-life listen we are in luck one guy at least came just for us a tremendous low-life jesus he didn’t come down here to this blood-stew for no limousine riders no bible thumpers no hotshot angle-shooters no came down here I believe it’s the truth for me and you I mean junkies winos hookers cripples crazies thieves welfare bums and homeless freaks lowest of the low least of all

do your parents hate you? your teachers hate you? po-lice hate you? your friends hate you? you hate you? you’re really in luck everybody hated jesus too you got nowhere to live? nowhere to go? nowhere to hang your hat? Jesus said to a cat ‘even the foxes of the field and the birds of the air got somewhere to lay their weary ass down but not me oh no’

do people scorn you? put you down? tell stories a bout what a problem you are? a judge told me I was of no use to society the present of a university told me I was trash and obscene my own mother god bless her told me I was the world’s biggest asshole but all that just makes me eligible to hook up with jesus who got nailed up bleeding sweating balls-naked to a wooden cross to take all that bad bullshit off my back

jesus tells you not to hate your own self which is easy to do out here running around like a fool but just ask jesus he’ll help you with that ‘love yourself’ he says ‘so you can love somebody as unloved and unlovable as you been’

I mean jesus didn’t come all this way go through all that trouble to send you and me to hell no maybe these other soft successful types I don’t know but not you and me bona fide losers you and I know this world is all the hell we’re going to see jesus came to cool us out from this hell right here right now for real with love not handcuffs editorials or plastic gloves

do you slash up? overdose? drink lysol? stick rigs in your arms? or pull a knife on somebody else? well jesus is just for you he was the world’s all-time biggest loser the straight people the priests and judges hated him because he said low-life scum would get to heaven before they did

and at the end when jesus needed his friends they all took off on him except for a hooker named magdalene but all his close friends split said ‘no way I don’t know him’ except for his friend judas who turned jesus in to crimestoppers his friends made him take the rap all alone you know how that feels and jesus kept his mouth shut when pontius pilate the chief of police wanted jesus to cop-out with a plea

so if you feel misunderstood nobody know how you feel or what you talking about that’s jesus too he know about you he been through it and don’t you allow these puffed-up self-righteous chumps sell you no goody-goody jesus hell no jesus got pissed-off plenty times

and when jesus was wandering around no bus fare all his buddies kept saying ‘what should we do? what should we do? we’re scared’ jesus told them ‘lay down your life for your friends and if your enemy rip off your coat give him your shoes too give up this money-grubbing power-tripping fantasy-acting ego bullshit give it up and you won’t be scared no more’

jesus didn’t tell a stockbroker didn’t tell a rock promoter he told the brokers and promoters ‘you can’t get to paradise the way you going’ a young banker came up to jesus said ‘I dig your rap what I gotta do?’ and jesus told him ‘give it up brother’ said ‘give all your money to the poor the punks the drunks the bums give it up’ and that banker did to jesus what most people do to you when you got your hand out he just walked away ‘anything but my sports car’

even in his own hometown they called jesus a crazy bugger I been called crazy lots of times in my hometown locked up in the nuthouse to prove it and jesus his neighbours told him ‘we know you boy don’t go pullin none of them miracles around here’ and tried to grab him but he ran fast damn but you know what that’s like

and if you think you got trouble just keeping your name straight jesus confused many fools with that ‘are you god or what?’ they were always asking him he said ‘who do you say that I am?’ a smart-ass jesus was always being told ‘you can’t do that it’s against the rules it’s against the law’ but jesus talking about the spirit body and soul the whole deal real real life not just bingo lotteries and videos

and jesus believed in having a good time told those tight-ass bastards his kingdom was like a wedding reception and first thing jesus did was turn water into wine so they wouldn’t run out and the authorities called him a drunkard but jesus kept saying ‘help each other love each other no matter what it’s the only thing you can count on’

so fellow low-life just know jesus loves you if nobody else does I know he loves me especially when I don’t love myself or anybody else it’s hard to believe in love in this cruel city in this nightmare time that everybody else pretends is just fine but remember no mater what kind of nasty shit you pull jesus loves you in fact you can’t make jesus not love you

but when you been kicked around since you were born love is like an insult ‘oh we love you so much we want to hurt you some more’ but not with jesus when you suffering real bad just reach a hand out of your heart and he’ll help you make it jesus has already helped you make it you just didn’t know it

and the gospel tell you the gospel just the highlights of a low-life jesus believed in the devil too the devil that runs around in him and her and me and you and all over everyplace else seems like jesus knew the devil personally but jesus didn’t go on and on about some therapy-self-help-social worker-shrink-headed-victim-disease-shit jesus knew we couldn’t be this crazy this miserable this goddamned mean and vicious without a lot of help from the devil so jesus spooked the devil right out of people jesus knows we’re weak and easily possessed by all the crap in this world jesus knows all this stuff

so the devil came to see jesus one on one when jesus was strung-out from not eating and hanging out in the desert near karnloops and the devil said to jesus ‘if you such a bigshot turn this stone into a whopper with cheese and feed your raggedy self’ and jesus said ‘forget you I’d rather be hungry than do what you tell me to do’ did you ever do that? Refuse and have people say “you don’t know what’s good for you?’

then the devil said to jesus ‘look here I show you all the beer cars clothes dope power sex in the whole world I’ll give you all that just say you’re mine’ but jesus could not be bought and the devil kept working on him the devil said ‘okay you so stupid jump off this building and see if your big daddy save you like you always talking about jesus just laughed he knew better

I haven’t always known better though those deals the devil offered jesus sound pretty good to me but I have been mostly messed up in my life so I ain’t the best expert on my own life I do need help so all you nuts junkies freaks jesus is always by your side like a kind of no bullshit truth-talking guide always with you but not so close by he’ll get on your nerves

I mean a lot of times you think he’s not there at all cause he ain’t doing what you think he ought to be doing for you but he’s there knowing what you need better than you do knowing you better than you do just like the devil do

but that’s good because everything I know how to do and everything you know how to do has got us both right here probably broke maybe on dope no real hope listening to a lunatic like me because neither of us has figured out anything better to do with the mountain-moving love jesus has made us all to be