By Ali
Date: 2007 Apr 08
Comment on this Work
[[2007.04.08.21.42.6020]]

All Words are Worlds

There is no religion in me,
no God, Krishna, or Buddha;
I am no miracle, nor mercy,
no respite from a darkened depth--
I am merely myself.

There is no faith in your pretense,
no prayer in your resolve,
no destiny in your desire:
all words are worlds, wielded
in a hurling rush, clutching
some truth, a tale,
a brief destination.

There is no solid circumstance,
no offered revelation, no begged remorse--
only false idols, handcrafted
out of desperation
and despair: recognition
is a mirror and a mime, but
mimicking the emotions
will not manifest the sacrifice.

There is no religion in me,
and I am not worthy
or damned.  I only offered a glimpse,
a swirl of unearthly visitation,
a glance of night
between Day's many veils.

You preach, a heathen
at a foreign temple, reigning
as a morning star--but your ways fall,
a crash of ruins, a testament  
to some failed seduction
that I dare not understand,
and I pretend, only, to care.

But your hymns descend,
cleverly, carefully, casually--
some gnarled olive branch
or noose: ambrosia
or absinthe?  No--
there is no religion in me,
no condemnation
or supple prayer.

You
pantomime love,
and I hereby abandon this game,
I return your relics,
your tattered offerings
and fragmented explanations:
they are nothing, and you
are less.