Tag Archives: Religion

SOAPBOX TNT // Tooty Frooty

TATI: Tony, I have found your dream job!

TONY: Is there even such a thing? Work is work after all.

TATI: It’s something you already do for free every day. But now you can get money and respect for it!

TONY: What? Sleeping?

TATI: Nope. Any other ideas?

TONY: Chewing? I chew a lot when I eat food.

TATI: Getting hotter…

TONY: Why, thank you! I always try to look my best…

TATI: Don’t flatter yourself, beta male.

TONY: Well, twist my titties. That was rude!

TATI: Tony, are you going to keep guessing or pout like a little sissy?

TONY: Masturbate?

TATI: Let me just show you the link, because I’m almost scared to hear your next suggestion.

TONY: Wise!

Priest farts on church members as a display of “God’s power”

TATI: So, what do you think? Would you like to schedule a job interview? Or maybe ‘audition’ in this case?

TONY: I don’t think so. I mean, farts do not have magical healing properties.

TATI: Some consider smelling farts as healthy by the way. But I’d rather continue to take care of my health with more traditional means.

Lovely Smells

Is Smelling Farts Healthy? Research Says Maybe

TONY: Yes, me too. I don’t think I want some ‘holy man’ getting all flatulent with my face in the name of some all-powerful ‘god’. I mean, what a crock of shit!

TATI: Well… let’s back to the farting priest. I find it’s rather funny but I feel you may have another point of view as a former believer. May I ask what you think regarding this?

TONY: Believe me, I do see the humour in this as the whole scenario is rather absurd. Someone pretending to have a direct line to a god then demonstrating said god’s power by farting on people? Those are the ingredients for absurdist comedy right there. But I do kinda find it sad too.

TATI: I see. Do you feel cheated, ridiculed?

TONY: While I was certainly never taken in by a scam like this, I was still a member of a christian church for about twenty years. That turned out to be a huge mistake, and I’ve spent the last decade trying to shed the mindset that such a religious culture programs into you.

TATI: So, they didn’t fart on your face, but in your brains.

TONY: Exactly. I was so desperate to fit in with my chosen ‘family’ that I was more than willing to try and believe whatever nonsensical bible story or precept they presented. Talking snakes and donkeys. A boat full of the entire world’s animals. A loving god that sanctioned incest, genocides and slavery. The cognitive dissonance was strong with me.

TATI: I heard an interesting thought recently, that certain linguistic anthropologists think religion is a language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain, dulling critical thinking. So, in regards to what you’re saying… it really makes sense.

TONY: I don’t know if that’s necessarily true of religious people across the board, but it certainly was with me. So, in that sense there is a ring of truth to it.

TATI: I’m glad you have since ventilated your brain. But it looks like now we need to ventilate our room. Tony?

TONY: That wasn’t me! It must have been you!

TATI: Me?! No!

TONY: Well, then it must have been the dog. Or Gerald the Fart Fairy.

TATI: Let’s say it was the priest from Limpopo!

TONY: Yes, let’s say it was that charlatan, for that is indeed what he is. And I despise such people. He’s really no better than the Benny Hinns, Paula Whites and Kenneth Copelands of the evangelical world. He just exists on a smaller scale is all.

TATI: Benny Hill was a priest?

TONY: If only! I think Hinn’s healing services could’ve been more entertaining if they’d utilised under-cranked footage of parishioners being slain in the spirit to Boots Randolph’s ‘Yakety Sax‘.

TATI: I smell your outrage, Tony. Well… our time would be better spent taking the dog for a walk.

TONY: We have a dog?

TATI: Gotcha!

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

relentless

a darkness was waiting in the wings
for the final curtain call on my veins
and even though i’d stepped away
gaslight still thrubbed a spell in my brain
i was skipping across the icy stones
upending my way toward a new home
determined to outrun the snowstorm
the hollow blast of their winter gloam

maybe i’m broken
but now i know i’m free
just a short run and i’ll be there
white lies the wolf at my throat

i was stepping outside the story cage
the one they’d fashioned, devoid of heat
that was meant to contain and subdue me
an austere tale more terror than sweet
the world broken down on every side
i upended way beyond their reach
never again would the cage define me
my soul to keep from dogma’s teach

maybe i’m foreswooned
but for now i know i am free
just a short run and i’ll be there
their lies the wolf at my throat

when they gorged on the fumes of their dead sun
i knew i could never be one of their pack
when they piously bayed against the moon
as it dared to haunt them from out of the black
so now i’m appending beyond their beseech
loping for ice that burns a ruby glow
stepping and running before i expire
to the inevitable ebb of fate’s flow

maybe i’m foredoomed
for now i know for sure i am free
just a short run and i’ll be somewhere
your lies the wolf at my throat

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020

Thy Rod & Staff (He Watches Me)

And the lord said,
“I Am Calamity’s Form.
I Am The Blinding Light.
I Am The Finger Of Doom
Come To Finger you.”

And we said,
“You hide behind natural disasters,
make mountains from molehills,
and allow your filthy acolytes
to prey and finger the weak.”

Bibles in one hand,
held aloft, spilling holy milt
as the other palms denial.
Acolytes all must agree to be right
but we’re still free to know that you know (that we know).

So, here we stand in the gap,
and finally declare war on you.
The days are numbered, tyrant god,
and yours are running out.
We’re wise to you and yours.

Nothing can save you now,
not even rite nor greased wrung.
No longer lost in corridor minds,
we don’t have to see by your gaslight.
We’re free to unknow all we were told to know.

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2019

give & take

you’re god of the gaps
those damned aureate spaces
filled to loathly flush
with tithes from the one true fleeced
who’ve nothing more to offer

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2018

(and god did nothing)

in darkness he went down
in a braille of feet and saltwater sand
to the sea awayed he
from the so-called promised land

who would be torn if not he for he
for the span of what was and never would be
his tears only added to the plan
a gram worth nothing, impotent man

in silence he laid down
under veil of nori and saltwater cran
to the sea awayed he
from a post-coital life spent in remand

who would mourn if not he for he
for the span of what was and never would be
his fears only added to the plan
a gram worth nothing, impotent man

child of god
he prayed for something good and true
slave of god
swallowed instead by the reckoning blue

in parentheses he drowned
into vale of drib and saltwater dram
to the sea awayed he
from the parochial feckoning hand

who would have borne if not he for he
for the span of what was and never would be
his tears and fears added to the plan
a gram worth nothing, impotent man

child of god
he begged for something good and true
slave of god
swallowed instead by the beckoning blue

child of god
into a sea of no avail
slave of god
to the reckoning sea travailed he

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2019