“Thus unjust war will kill us all
The blood, the rape, the looting,
But to prevent it, God decrees
We must lay hands on gluten.”
The Patriarch’s adjunct was a neophyte
And poor at taking diction;
With mistranslation this accounts 
For the thousand years of friction

For the unfaithful, bread was banned 
And agnostics found at fault
Brewers, bakers, pasta makers  
Lined up to join the cult
And with their skills, the war fermented
And quite inevitably
The violence rose and bombs fell
And boiled away the sea.

We few survivors look back in time 
Now done with executing
To when a novice scribbled anathema
Instead of ‘lay hands on Putin’