Pantheon I
Art, the guttural human yelp, an attempt
To warble the lyrical language of the gods
But ignorant of words, without access
To any syntax of the celestial tongue
Without knowing if they differentiate
Between nouns, adjectives or verbs
If they recognize any grammatical constraints
If, as gods, they even know themselves as “gods”
Nevertheless!
We have at it with our
Novels and poems, paintings and sculptures
Gnawing at deeper divine scriptures
Adorable little toddlers babbling nonsense
About our very special drawings
Our rictal scribblings, our measly tracings
Crying when mommy doesn't pay
it any attention, that fake smile pouty-
lipped wide eyed look we know so well
Compels us to reach for the pen,
the paintbrush, the lump of clay
with a renewed sense of thwarted rage
Shame is how we get better,
some of us so mortified they veer
closer to the sublime than others
That’s the problem with monotheism—
It demands a self-loathing Shakespearean toiling
in every corner coffee shop
or Rodin with a slab of bronze
chiseling away in
an overpriced co-op loft
How could any of us mere mortals
hope to glean the secret metered verse
of the One True God?
Polytheism is better for depressed
anxious mediocrities like us
who sense inscrutable whisperings
of ancient agitations deep within
and do our best to translate
what we think we hear
The lesser gods suit me just fine.
It isn’t settling it’s
becoming a little less blind
I don't need Athena, Poseidon, or Apollo
Take Christ, YHWH and Allah off my plate
I’ll even grant you the Nereids, the Fates and the Furies
I myself worship the god of thwarted passion
The god of thankless tasks
The god of a late afternoon Martini at the end of summer
just before the sky catches fire
The angel of a parsed elation.
The nymph of pointless routines
Once a year I prepare a feast for the seraph of lassitudinous
meadow grasses mesmerized by spring breezes
Don the ritualistic robes for the god of the frozen dawn
Light votive candles for the god of holding hands
under a blanket of fire
on a throne of thorns
The god of getting so engrossed in an old Catholic
exorcism manual, you’re the one who gets tossed
From what you thought was your own body
The god of a child’s laugh
The god of making someone you love laugh
The god of smiling at a stranger’s child
The god of strangers, together as children, all laughing
The god of being touched just before
you thought there wasn’t anything left to feel
The god of trying to remember the one good thing
And the god of never forgetting even the slightest pain
I kneel before an altar in the temple of the god
of empty cafes playing lo-fi John Coltrane
on autoloop, interrupted hourly by the shatter
In the back of a dropped saucer
Break bread with me for the god of shy glances exchanged
across a room that never lead to what they ought
The god of regret, the
god of feeling blessed
The god of running away, the
god of getting caught
The god of shooting stars glimpsed
and of all the meteors I’ve missed
We haven't enough words
for so many odes
Most of them will suck
maybe one will stick
But these are the only grammars
most of us can realistically speak
or at least make do
Like a proud American dad having lunch
with his family in a street bistro in Paris,
English-to-French dictionary in hand,
fumbling his way through
an order of cassoulet and Côtes du Roussillon
Give the man a break
He’s known this moment will arrive
And that he only gets one chance to speak
The sacred words that bring it to life
Not trying to be Zeus here
but we all can eat.
A little for you
A little for me
Plenty to go around
in the forgotten pantheon
of everyday nameless gods
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