Last of the gods

Looking Back

You Must Remember This

The last god

doesn't give two damns

about souls or destinies.

He is a she and she is an us

and our sins are too many,

the last god yawning

up a stringent wind,

stretching his glass bones,

brewing a fever from which

the ill shall never revive.

He stirs his tea

with an immaculate finger

and wears the skin of every animal

that's ever been inside a slaughterhouse.

He sees the wicked

men in their wretched cities

and is bored with it —

the dinner bells, the shoelaces,

the spells on vellum —

and longs to go it alone now,

the last god drawing up blueprints,

swaddled in half-hearted intention,

cleaning his million green teeth,

though nothing good will ever come from this.

Basking in ancient darkness,

reduced by age and circumstance,

he's playing solitaire

with the names of motherless children,

nodding off in a red chair,

staring out his infinite window

and watching the past relieve itself,

repeating the same horrors

and wonders of invention,

each hour to him an aeon long,

each shaky breath another planet

to be swallowed by the gut-red sun.

Wearied by adulation 

and no longer baffled with prayer,

the last god lays down his pen.

If he sleeps he dreams of a stone,

a cosmos-coloured stone

that's now a pebble in a sandal

of one of the little people, (…)

of the ones once loved, regardless

of their constant making of nuisances,

the ceaseless beseechings,

the acute and countless sorrows

in our brief flash of having become aware.

Objects in the mirror

are closer than they appear.

Objects may appear to be subjective.

Objects in the mirror

travel at the speed of light.

Objects in the mirror

may appear or not appear.

Prone to mood swings,

they appear to be dispassionate

but only want what's best for you.

They've suffered greatly in your stead.

Objects in the mirror

may appear to be drunk

or on heavy medication.

They make foulmouthed and fiery execrations.

Objects in the mirror

reject their status and protest

the viewers's overarching reflections.

Objects in the mirror

stand for the human drive towards acquisition.

The mirror represents introspection.

The mirror manufactures distances.

That which is conceived creates conception.

Objects in the mirror

appear more handsome than they are.

They may appear sullen and jaded as well,

depending on your latitude and inclination.

Objects in the mirror don't exist.

There is no mirror.

Abandon your ego.

Keep looking ahead.

Drive faster.

Not just a kiss,

a candy-coated curse,

a wasp in a bottle,

the X of a signed confession.

The singer sang it wrong.

A kiss is a rift in the ionosphere.

A bullet you bite down hard upon.

An angelic covenant.

When the stars blow kisses

they're waving at ghosts

which only they can see.

A letter sealed with a kiss

is a warrant for arrest.

Some kisses are broken glass

and some are rainwater

in a desert of drought.

You are graced by a kiss's presence

or damned into exile

for the sin of daring to be sentient,

for having loved the wrong person,

for having a loose mouth

in a time of war.

For claiming godhead.

One kiss I kissed

was a cut to the lips.

I bled for the better part of a year,

and for the worst part.

Now I see kisses everywhere:

a flock squawking over wetlands;

in swarms of locusts;

in the eye of the beholder.

I'm so starved I could eat

a case of kisses in one sitting.

In my mind is a rose blooming

and a mouthful of sunsets

I need to tell you about.

Kissed, I can only wear velveteen.

I can only eat tangerines out of the crisper.

None of my jokes are funny.

The kiss that rang around the world.

The kiss that will live in infamy. (…)

The kiss that launched a thousand ships.

As if a deathbed secret.

As a burden made heavy with time.

As when protons collide,

creating a third and stranger element.

Not just a kiss, our hearts were married.