Sweet Judas by G. Emil Reutter

In your darkness you brought light and I know that is not the way
the story is told. For if it was not for the kiss from your dark haloed
mouth, Caiaphas would not have found your rabbi, the prophesy
would not be fulfilled. And yet you sweet Judas, who loved your
God, lost free will to the one who created you. The Kiss, thirty pieces
of silver orchestrated by the one you loved and for you there would
be no forgiveness for believing.

Sweet Judas where did you go? Did Zechariah haunt you as you threw
the silver at the Pharisees? Did you hang in the Tree of Judea ablaze
with bright pink flowers? Sweet Judas did you fall, your head burst
asunder, your bowels gushing from your being? Or did the other
eleven stone you when seen and did you flee? And if you died in
that potters field, did Demiurge smile upon you when your spirit
descended to Cocytus?

And in the eternal evil that consumes you in the jaws of Satan, do
you hear those words, those words of hope, that whoever believes
in him shall not perish but have eternal life as the fallen angel’s claws
rake your back? Sweet Judas, true believer, used by your God to
deliver his son, a God who is guiltless and you who pay for his crime,
in the mouth of his fallen angel, do you Sweet Judas live in eternity
in the ninth circle of hell where no one hears your cries of betrayal?

g emil reutter is a writer of poems and stories. Nine collections of his fiction and poetry have been published. He can be found at: https://gereutter.wordpress.com/about/