By Nick Sammartino
cry thanks to the snail-god,
a spiral shell a
maze in a mirror,
contemplate the snail-god,
contemplate the orange burden……
heavy round star
resting on the head
of a being
made mortal
through self-spun enfeeblement….
it
must be a matter of stupidity
for the snail-god
to hear our
songs and sad
litanies to the
man-god -
asks
the snail-god:
“what can a missing man-god
do for a man
that a man cannot do
for
himself?”...
watch them
befoul thumbprints with disinfectant,
holy sigil of the hominids -
a shell in
a mirror veiled
downward
spiral by a maze,
contemplate the snail-god,
contemplate man’s burden……….
“look
on your finger and find the maze,
show the maze to a mirror
and in the reverse of the maze
you can see the
spiral of the shell
of the snail-god”...
cry thanks to the snail-god
who carved into
our fingers and toes
a liquid map to mark the way -
and we call these
jagged gifts:
the twins
credit and blame,
the
man-god
did not even stick around
long
enough
to ponder any purpose
for
us
beyond “ye be mine own manikins”…..
we
love
to leave oil paintings behind -
and there will always be this
trail
to
trace back
through the maze,
a
haemal gallery hall
of limitless length
of ceaseless splendor
cradling ten thousand trillion
canvases
upon which we
spread our
moments and memories
in vivid grease….
indeed
the snail-god
proclaims:
“after
all the stars
have ridden the rainbow
of nuclear effulgence,
the stillborn darkness
will still be able to feel
your ancient knotted scars”...
the snail-god became small
yes
but stayed with us,
we who were
demented by
freedom,
and became
legion,
spreading
out across the world
to watch
mildly
our towering
arrogance
from below -
while
the man-god
walked away
on legs
like those forced on humanity…
I
will never forgive the man-god’s vanity -
I
will never forgive the absence of my shell.
No comments:
Post a Comment