Jose Varghese writes

METAMORPHOSIS[1]

One morning,

I, Jesus, was waking up

from a dreamless slumber

and found that on my cross

I had been changed into

a younger man

with a naïve smile

and the eyes of Krishna[2],

my brother.

Those blue eyes

began to suck in

all the love of this world.

I found myself

lying on his bed half sleep,

my barren dreamscapes

filled with visions

of fun and frolic

in the eternal garden

of desires when

I heard glass shattered,

doors broken,

and furious screams

that could dry up

all humanity.

They hit me hard,

and I, in that young body,

felt afresh the pain

that was long forgotten;

the price I had paid for all

my meek love

that violated

some of their worlds.

I opened my mouth

in silent pain

and a whole world

was transformed,

reduced, to a few pairs

of blood-thirsty eyes

before me.

They took me to their car

and while splayed

on its back seat,

staring at those

who spat venom on me

and hit and kicked me

to break all my bones,

I knew my new cross.

I foresaw then

a girl moving her hands

and lips over

my thick glass casket,

inches away from my face,

her tears hard enough

to break

all the glass cases

of this world,

and lips in all readiness

to kiss, never losing

the fullness of love.

“Bold Lover, never,

never canst thou kiss.”[3]

I knew her loveless kin

was to finish me off

to undo the dishonor

of their girl daring

to walk away as a bride

to a humble abode like mine.

I saw my folks in her

hands, and she

in theirs,

finding solace

in the kind of love

that flows endlessly

from my eyes,

their tears solidified

to form a monument

of shame, that mocks

those who fail

to find love, ever,

despite all the people/things

they hunt down to own.

I couldn't see though

how I was going to drown.

Did I run away, dragging

my broken bones,

and jump to the river,

or did they

throw me in it dead,

or push me down it

all alive?

Were my eyes disgorged

and thrown to the bushes,

or were they eaten by fish?

It didn’t matter.

In time, you should say,

“Those are pearls

that were his eyes”[4].

I am back on my cross,

Struggling hard

to see through eyelids

matted in blood,

the faces of those

who raise their faces

to me, in faint hope.

I see some so well,

though in a flash,

with my Krishna eye,

when a new avatar

is me on the cross.

Those who lose them

on a cross see me too,

though in a flash.

---

[1] After The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka.

[2] A major Hindu deity, the god of compassion, tenderness and love.

[3]  Ode on a Grecian Urn, John Keats

[4] Ariel’s Song, Scene ii, Act 1, The Tempest, William Shakespeare

 

Jesus Krishna --  Sozey

 

Jesus, Shiva, and the Kabbalah -- Robert Ryan