Paul Georgiou
Disjunction
Me
Bones, beneath the skin of metaphor,
all pleasure now unmemoried,
long past the dark declivities of shame
when flesh has turned to dust,
I have to pick with you.
What, on earth or elsewhere, when,
in impish indolence or mean intent,
with, we surmise, complacent gesture,
you composed your grand design,
were you, divine one, thinking of?
It’s not our praise which by tradition is,
of all that we might give,
the thing you prize most high
but, given our intolerable predicament,
forgiveness you should yearn.
You must have known, when you made ‘when’,
and ‘now’ and ‘then’, that time condemned
each living thing to an inexorable,
indifferent, hopeless war
with age, decline, decay.
Was ‘if’ the product of malign intent
or idle curiosity, to see, while you
relieved the boredom that from
omniscience I assume ensues,
what hope might make us think and do?
It’s just not, given what
omnipotence makes possible,
creation of a universe of infinite proportions,
which you with boundless profligacy it seems
left almost empty, worthy of a God.
Nor is it worthy to conceal your purpose
and the meaning of it all
in an elaborate disjunction
at arbitrary intervals delivered randomly
of half sent messages and deeply obscure truths.
Of evil in the world less said the better:
we might accept man’s wickedness slipped through
the gate beneath the skirts of choice
but surely you alone must take, for sickness
and all nature’s fits of rage, the blame.
Of course there’s much that’s good -
but not enough. So pick, that we,
deeply unhappy with your management,
may understand, out of the gripes of everyone,
before all turns to dust, the bones.
God
“While you fret
don’t forget,
I alone
thought to put
mind in matter,
love in life,
flesh on bone.
“I’m the power
and the glory:
that’s it,
end of story.”