07-08-2011, 10:50 AM
Of course there are those who complain about God.
Sitting on his throne of faith,
his castles built with devotion,
Stockholm syndrome's spirit strain,
he watches like a movie-goer
each atrocity. This poem was cliché
from its conception. I've seen it told so many ways,
Anne Sexton bemoaning the Jew's holocaust,
Graham Greene turning a young socialite
into a martyr in The End of the Affair.
What more can I say? I give you images instead,
brutality for arguments. Strike God down,
rip out his spleen, paint HATE on the cosmos
with his intestines. Slice his genitals in twain
and see the seed which bore his son
rot among the dying stars. Feast on his organs,
spread over our plains, his heart attracting flies
in an African town where bony orphans dine for days.
This is my vision, a God torn apart,
not discussed but ripped open.
Sitting on his throne of faith,
his castles built with devotion,
Stockholm syndrome's spirit strain,
he watches like a movie-goer
each atrocity. This poem was cliché
from its conception. I've seen it told so many ways,
Anne Sexton bemoaning the Jew's holocaust,
Graham Greene turning a young socialite
into a martyr in The End of the Affair.
What more can I say? I give you images instead,
brutality for arguments. Strike God down,
rip out his spleen, paint HATE on the cosmos
with his intestines. Slice his genitals in twain
and see the seed which bore his son
rot among the dying stars. Feast on his organs,
spread over our plains, his heart attracting flies
in an African town where bony orphans dine for days.
This is my vision, a God torn apart,
not discussed but ripped open.
"We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges." - Gene Wolfe