THE CRUCIFIXION / by Joe Castorino

In a shadow of deep darkness, the Light

of the world hangs crooked on the cross,

A jagged crown of razor-thin thorns is

thrust maliciously into His throbbing head;

Bright-red blood and the fickle crowd’s

sour spittle trickle into His stinging eyes,

He licks His cracked lips, and He tastes

the bold bitter flavor of blood.

The Roman soldiers’ wild whips tore

and radically ripped Jesus’ holy flesh,

And now the sticky crusted wounds cling

to the weatherbeaten wood and ooze;

Knife-like nails puncture His hands and feet,

and make them look like cored apples,

His shoulders slump down, crushed under

the weight of every sin in human history.

The soldiers hellishly hammered the nails

into Jesus’ flesh, as if He were an animal,

Indescribable pain blasted through the

bones of His body like dynamite;

He now surrenders His body, mind, soul,

and spirit to the will of His Father,

He lovingly practices what He preached,

and He prays for His persecutors.

Jesus is high up, as if atop an isolated

island, surrounded by a sea of hate,

A cacophonous chorus of insults assails

His ears, and the smell of sin is in the air;

His mother, living in the dark night of

unknowing, silently waits and watches,

She kneels in total surrender, while a

sword of sorrow slashes her heavy heart.

In the afternoon, Golgotha is enveloped

in a mysterious murky darkness,

Then, when Jesus dies, the earth quakes

in violent anger at the murder of its Creator;

Rumbling and roaring, buildings catastrophically

crash and crumble to the ground,

The terrifying temblor forces the sanctuary’s

curtain to explosively burst apart.

That mysterious murky darkness remains

in the hearts of Jesus’ faithful followers,

Their entire worlds are seriously shaken,

and they are stunned and stupefied;

But on the third day, the nebulous fog

of uncertainty will finally dissolve,

On the third day, a heavenly ray of Light

will come, far brighter than the sun.