Spitfire and Monkey

My cats Spitfire and Monkey.

Children of Bizarre Gods

Figure 1: "Children of Bizarre Gods".

Children of Bizarre Gods

Say: I am only a warner, and there is no god but Allah, the One, the Subduer (of all):
--Suad 38.65, The Koran

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
--Exodus 20:3, The Bible (King James Version)

I. Shelter of the Lilith Kindred

She is easily deceived
by Jehovah's horny angels
who fled fluffy clouds
to crash her Bacchanalian
celebrations.

(Shadows born of
candles dance on
the angled wallpaper
of her studio apartment
as she finds lovers
in the wisps of
smoke curling around
her fingertips.)

The party crashing seraphim
whisper into her guilt filled
ears that satyrs are demons
and she'll go blind
if she keeps playing
with their horns.

But kisses come
more quickly than wisdom
as she pedals her
sagging spirit
through endless cycles
of lust and loneliness.

(Over-chewed fingernails
result in throbbing keystrokes,
crimson splattered mouse pads,
and broadband stigmata
as she immerses herself
in chamomile tea
and Jack Daniels.)

In the right light,
bloody Band-Aids
are makeshift altars
to newborn gods
hiding from
crosses and crescents
as worshippers
are forced
to chase binary
moons across
digitized fields
and the ancient ways
fade from her balcony
in slow motion
as Diana flees
at a rate of
38 millimeters
a year.

(Centuries later,
she fingers bruises
while counting ceiling tiles
barely reaching double
digits before
the other person
in her apartment
grunts, shudders, and slides
from her moist flesh
free-falling
through dirty laundry
into peeling linoleum
and out to younger skirts
with better credit ratings.)

The children of bizarre gods giggle,
take her by the hand,
spin her through the door,
and together
they fall from sanctuary.


II. World of Crosses and Crescents

Surely those who disbelieve from among the followers of the Book and the polytheists shall be in the fire of hell, abiding therein; they are the worst of men.
--The Clear Evidence 98.6, The Koran

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
--Exodus 22:18, The Bible (King James Version)

To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.
--Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)

Outside the Lilith Shelter,
the unblinking eyes
of the Solitary Gods
have risen in solar glory
reddening flesh
and blinding the throngs
of the tattered
as they reach for faith
and the baubles
that accompany it.

She stays to the shadows
for the Kaaba facers
and the Crucifiers both
lay claim to the light.

The voice of God and Allah
are now explosions
and shrapnel are scriptures
penetrating flesh
probing for soul.

Allah speaks,
and she hits the ground
as crosses spit from
biblical revolvers
and crescents slide
from oil soaked scabbards.
Metallic angels with
mechanized wings
lurch heavenward
as calls to prayer
mix with rotor blades
to craft the melodies of bedlam.

The priests and the muttawas
rove the bright streets
with switch-crosses
and steel rods
forcing the female divine
into supplication
or at least to her knees
for sexual gratification
before they stone her
as a slut.

Dodging stones
she passes
through the city gates
far from Gethsemane
far from Mecca
into the twilight passage
that leads
to the Witch Crossing.


III. The Witch Crossing

The gods of the old religion become the devils of the new.
--old saying (usually quoted by adherents to the old religion)

The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.
--Pat Robertson, The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1993

She journeys until
she no longer hears the voices
of the one-Gods.

Until the only voice she hears
is that of her own soul
crying for the losses
of generations of children plowed into the
earth by religious war machines
fueled by the blood of the faithful
and directed by political holy men
that confuse battlefields with gardens
planting dead flesh
to harvest crops of pain, loss, and suffering
in order to feed the hordes of the bereaved.

She journeys until she
collapses in sorrow
and her tears flow
into the cupped hands
of the children of bizarre gods.

She whispers she's sorry
as sympathetic hands,
lead her to the river,
cast her tears to the moon,
and vanish into the night.

Confused, she dips her hands
into the water and drinks.
She sees
her reflection mix
with the moon's
and suddenly
the lunar painted ripples
rouse and tremble.
Ancient eddies swirl with energy,
as watery moonbeams
revel in their awakening.

They evolve into orphan waves
and leave the refuge of river
to slip through air.

They are glistening moon glimmers
circling her head,
kissing her lips,
and quenching her thirst
for spirit.

They diffuse into her flesh
filling her with primeval dreams
and visions of the divine.
They entwine with her soul,
tug at her core,
and pull tissue from spirit.

Panicked,
she tries to hold herself together
until she is caught
in the ecstasy of the moment
and lets go.


IV. The Evolution of a Goddess

Physicists and Mystics have looked at the Universe and observed the same things, but the Mystics spoke in poetry, images and parable, and the Scientists spoke in numbers, equations and formulas.
--Abby Willowroot

You may drive out nature with a pitchfork,
Yet she will ever hurry back
over your foolish contempt.
--Epistles 1:10:24, Horace (65-8 BCE)

Cause you're the only song I want to hear,
a melody softly soaring through my atmosphere.
--Soul Meets Body by Death Cab for Cutie

She falls with the rain
on to the backs of lovers,
drifts through trees
with summer winds
as the leaves tickle her soul,
and becomes the sand that sifts
through the fingers
of children of bizarre gods
as they play on the beaches of eternity.

Her naked soul
lay spent before the Cosmos
as she spreads
across the earth.

She forgets herself
and becomes a lullaby
on the breath of the Goddess
singing angry Gods to sleep
so that Her children
may once again walk in the sun.