These Fictions Called Gods
In horror those close stood numb.
Alone at rest among the diggings
Dug men chest to chest to exhaustion
Lifting hands as angels gravely
Venerate sculpted native stone.
Angry, I, now desperately past cure,
Past care, did expect
Vainly truthful frantic mad unrest
As madmen are bright random reason sworn.
These fictions called gods, temples
Of demons the body politic, licentious
Casts donned of republic tongues
Invoking a spirit, a divine mount
A commemorative cant for the dead.
Dead, their conquerors under crosses of rough basalt.
When I lie down, like a rock, weathered
Immutable, dreamless, unshackled
From this earthen bed spread indiscriminate,
I have no force or power.
Jackals trot before my palace, howl
Thorn-crowned echoes to pain weary heads
Bent in pious slumber. Each sleep
A rock with a great fear of falling.
When I lie down, like a rock,
Weathered, unshackled,
Each sleep a falling,
I have no force or power.
My angels sit eager to dine
Ravenously, devouring all that I would have to be
Leaving only gristle, marrow,
Bone in my wake. No one
Who’s watched this battle be fought
Can walk across its battlefield. A war
Like me remains unappeased
Boasting that I for nothing died.
