Pas le Dieu des philosophes

Sure I had met God before:
Unseen presence in dark theatre alleyways,
Leprous, begging nickels in the street;
Doing hard time for meditation;
In a fashion, climbing Anselm’s ladder
To the spiraling galaxies;
In the dawn;
Or fishing with a moonlit thread
In the secret valleys of the night.

But it was the thunderbolt this time.
This time it was the catalytic flame.
God blew off the top of my cranium,
And left me all naked to the sky.

And I a stammering idiot with my trembling hand
Knew in awe I never could be alone again.

Ever since that night
At intervals a great eagle comes;
Pecks at my synapses like worms
Scattering vital fluids;
And craps poetry into my hollow skull.

-- Stephen K. Roney