Jot, dots, iotas: a farce in four parts

i.
when I stopped covering the pages
with word after word of god talk
and my own mumbling allegiance
to someone or something that did not fit
on the space of a page or two or 10.

Or rather, in the space of a page or two or 10
the stink of a corpse was so great
as could not be contained in black marks
on the plain page.

I stopped, and I am not sure why.
I am not sure where all the words came from
that spoke of the gods, of him or her
or some genderless divine.

But I did stop,
and left the page blank
and the world has not changed
even though the little black dots

Are still in the pen.
Is this where God abides,
in unspent ink
a whole will now know


ii.
a book, its spine broken
its page spread
like the legs of a blessed virgin
waiting for the impregnating pen
and hence the birth
of another bawling god

theologicians find
in every tome
some assay of the divine
for the metaphysicians
to stretch and mold
And a wellcure of every infirmity

healing the letters
on an endless page
fraught with broken letters
and broken code
Code dissolving
into the acid of history

code emerging as Mecca
and Babylon and Bethlehem
and the Indus spit out poems
and thoughtless declarations
leaving the floors awash
in the broken waters
of pregnant misthoughts
and gravid conceits

Waiting for the impregnating pen
and hence the birth
of another bawling god
a book, a broken spine
pages spread
if we do not need gods or god
why did we invent them?



iii.
Mecca and Babylon and Bethlehem
ancient cities of haraging Gods
must stand askance of Jerusalem
where gods die but then live
undisturbed by the blood
shed in their honor
by wild eyed believers
and scheming kings

How was it that Constantinople burned
because their God was insufficient
even though their temple was great
unrivaled in the West
it had too many pictures
and shone with too much gold
why did Constantinople burn?
why did it burn twice?

But does the God of Constantinople
owe allegiance to Jerusalem
or is it Mecca
that breathes this God to life
does it matter
does it matter at all
from what allegiance or denial
does come a God
or whence from some God does flee
burning heels that betray

When we do not believe
do the gods puff up and war
upon us in our apostasy
or is there only silence
that may be the hush of the betrayed
or not, or not.


iv.
Mecca, Babylon and Bethlehem
and even now Jerusalem
are awash in new blood
but, no God bleeds
that is something of our imaginary
but the blood is real
and most often it belongs to innocents
to have met bombs and missiles
guns and gas
that have taken the place
of divine brutalities

If the gods do not speak
except in the minds of stupid children
and willful freaks
to give life to a new divine comedy
an economy of death
or new life that looks to death