Gods

To pray for momentary peace in endless war,
To sacrifice for fame and fool’s good fortune,
To salvage wounds that spell glory and gore,
To free the soulless heart from soulful torture,
In fear for blessed scribble goddamn verses;
And burn condemned in wrath, and thrive in mercy.


So we do. In rhyming, scarcely poetic rigor,
Calling on those who come from hearts and minds,
From temples, tales in metaphoric figures,
A dream, a hope, a woman, human kind.
For what they offer we believe and conjure,
And have illusory for knowledge, and triumph in virtue.


Filled with entitlement of Macbeth’s flame
And poison that exude our own excuses,
And fed with sultry words and falsely claimed,
And taught in vain and pain that each soul bruises,
And all by gods - that we’ll forget in lust and reason,
So long as we desire and sin, they’re breathing.


And their worshippers don’t suffer or decay,
Escaping bitter truths and barbarous razors,
For blood is let to grow belief and nurture faith.
For tears are shed to mourn the found favor,
Without them the godless world is dim with shadow.
With no belief the darkness glows with sorrow.


Gods. Once forgotten, they’re forever someone else’s past,
Their psyche lives on, in universal fate entangled,
Vultures on the ineptitude of thought as outcast,
As mere thrust of wind that blows out candles.


For they are nothing more
But a breath
In the desert of bones.