All the gods
are in ruins now.
Vespas
sputter by, tearing through the streets.
Locals smoke
under a gently hissing fountain.
Tourists
gawk through cameras, pointing-
See, look
how the gods have crumbled now.
Yet their throne remains in perfect sphere.
Enter into its mouth.
Descend down its marble throat
into the cool belly.
The street noise fades
as your own greatness unhinges,
and above you it rises:
the blue orb,
the perfect holy water,
a vessel to the eternal.
Stare as it closes in on you, ever closing and ever growing.
How did one speak to the gods here thousands of years ago?
Did the gods demand joy or mournful penitence?
Did music charm their ears?
Did bowed heads inspire revelation and healing?
Or was it the silence that they desired most?
Yet the gods are in ruins, replaced by solemn marble saints
aglow and gazing,
calm, yet strangely full of vigor
as if having once lived.
How they speak of holy things among such earthly people.
But the small man on the cross, hidden near the golden sarcophagus
does not stare.
Is heaven achieved by the grandest schemes
or extended through the arms of suffering?
Enter into its mouth.
Descend down its marble throat
into the cool belly.
The street noise fades
as your own greatness unhinges,
and above you it rises:
the blue orb,
the perfect holy water,
a vessel to the eternal.
Stare as it closes in on you, ever closing and ever growing.
How did one speak to the gods here thousands of years ago?
Did the gods demand joy or mournful penitence?
Did music charm their ears?
Did bowed heads inspire revelation and healing?
Or was it the silence that they desired most?
Yet the gods are in ruins, replaced by solemn marble saints
aglow and gazing,
calm, yet strangely full of vigor
as if having once lived.
How they speak of holy things among such earthly people.
But the small man on the cross, hidden near the golden sarcophagus
does not stare.
Is heaven achieved by the grandest schemes
or extended through the arms of suffering?
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