Translated by A. Z. Foreman - Christ on the Cross lyrics

Christ on the cross. The feet touch solid earth. The three beams made of wood are the same height. Christ is not in the middle. He's the third. The black beard hangs down heavy over his chest. His face is not the face from the engravings. It's harsh and Jewish. I do not see him And will keep questing for him till the final Day of my steps falling upon this earth. The broken man is suffering and silent. The cutting crown of thorns is hurting him. He's unreached by the jeering of the mob Which has so often seen his agonies. His or another's. It is the same thing. Christ on the cross. Confusedly he thinks About the kingdom that perhaps awaits him, About the woman that was never his. It's not for him to see Theology, The indecipherable Trinity, The Gnostics, the cathedrals, Occam's razor, The purple, the mitre, the liturgy, Guthrum's conversion by the sword of Alfred, The Inquisition hallowed, blood of martyrs, Crusade atrocities, young Joan of Arc Afire, the Vatican that blesses armies. He knows he is no god and is a man That dies with day. To him it is no matter. What matters is the nails' hard piercing iron. He's not a Roman. Not a Greek. He moans. He has left us some splendid metaphors And a doctrine of pardon with the power To cancel out the past. (This is a dictum Written down by an Irishman in gaol.) The soul seeks for the end, frenetically. It has grown dark a bit. Now he is dead. A fly walks up across the flesh in quiet. What good does it all do me that that man Has suffered so, when I am suffering now?