I raise a glass
to you, Lord: there is no fountain,
no breath-taking conceit
of ornamental marble
spouting perfectly
orchestrated jets and arcs of water
that does not
find its source without rolling up its sleeves
and reaching down
through the sewers, stretching, fumbling
and squeezing dry
the booze-swollen bladders of drunks at bar urinals
through which the
water has passed on its way from Adam's lips to mine
since you first
sent your spirit forth upon the undefiled firmament,
and yet the
liquid in my glass is clear, its bite precise,
its burning taste
a purification, and I celebrate
the parting of
these waters.
But this is a grace: a
prayer, not a toast;
I offer you my humble prayer,
rolling pious words out over my tongue
and catching them in my clasped hands,
I offer you my humble prayer,
rolling pious words out over my tongue
and catching them in my clasped hands,
but I fold each
dismal word over and over in my hands,
pressing them
together in front of me as I kneel. I press tight
to squeeze out
any pretence of meaning from these rude words,
trying to silence
the centuries of blasphemy
that culminate in
the insincere applause
all hands ever
joined in prayer have become in my hands now,
each word just like a bag
of piss
carried from Adam's lips to mine by religion,
carried from Adam's lips to mine by religion,
history's tedious
relay of the righteous,
and I can't do it anymore.
I prove and disprove your existence as a sport, Lord,
as a performance of my cleverness to amuse myself and others.
My head is a
desperate warren of white corridors
that I pace alone, through echoes of mockery.
that I pace alone, through echoes of mockery.
I have tutored my tongue only in rebuke,
pious falsehood,
casual delusion, and habitual disparagement.
So it is up to
you, Lord: grant me grace.
Distil the
substance I aspire to be from me,
as clearly as this spirit has escaped
the world that recycles it through sewers,
as clearly as this spirit has escaped
the world that recycles it through sewers,
and leave
whatever must remain to fall,
or stand as soiled testament that this spirit
or stand as soiled testament that this spirit
does not distil
itself.
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