Apostate

I’m giving up on the road to Heaven because
it feels like the sky god who they say lives there
is just someone we’ve been stuck with
because the arguments for other ways don’t get heard.

I say: why settle for that distant promise
of an eventual view from those heights
when there’s all this power right here,
ripe and cool with promise?

Maybe I am meant to be
the ocean god’s project. I will learn humility there
in the storms. If I want for Heaven
I could let a wave carry me there.

Maybe there’s an earth god who’ll brew me beer and teach me
more ways to screw than there are beads on a rosary.
I’ll live a life here, dirty and rutty and rich;
and if I want for Heaven, I’ll grub it up myself and grow my own Eden.

If there is a fire worthy of worship,
it’ll come down to me from storm clouds.
If I hear a prophecy on the wind, it’ll be clearer
after blowing through the trees.

As for the Heaven-God — how he fulminates —
ah, well, I think
that is just what comes of sitting
so high above things.

Unless — and this is possible —
the stories we hear about the sky god
were just something dreamed up
by someone with an axe to grind.

In fact, I’d bet on it —
there may be a sky god, but I know my gods,
and what they keep describing
isn’t one.

About Tony Brown

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A poet with a history in slam, lots of publications; my personal poetry and a little bit of daily life and opinions. Read the page called "About..." for the details. View all posts by Tony Brown

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