A whisky grace

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,

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,

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.

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,

and leave whatever must remain to fall,
or stand as soiled testament that this spirit

does not distil itself.