qarrtsiluni

by Dick Jones

If God did not already exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
—Voltaire
“He’s God, cried all the creatures…”
—James Thurber, “The Owl Who Was God”

If there has to be a God —
no option on the broken
road, the bridge of sighs —
then let it be a dancing god,

like Shiva but a voiceless one,
indifferent, treading out
the double loop, the bee’s infinity
of weaving round and round until

the measure’s known by all.
Or if not the dancer,
how about a singer?
One who cants in tongues,

a lingua franca from the
furnace heat (ex corde vita),
singing the blues, sean nos,
la duende, passionate, engaged,

yet powerless to lift the curse
of Sisyphus, or block the juggernaut,
or move the stone. These gods omnipotent,
who claim our praise and swallow

our prayers like hungry birds,
are dreams that draw
on the oxygen of our need.
We might as well worship

water falling, shape-shifting
clouds, the janus faces watching
from the cliffs that tell us
what we want to know.

Download the podcast

Dick Jones writes, “Initially wooed by the First World War poets and then seduced by the Beats, I have been exploring the vast territories in between since the age of 15. Fitfully published in a variety of magazines throughout the years of rambling: Orbis, The Interpreter’s House, Poetry Ireland Review, Qarrtsiluni, Westwords, Mipoesias, Three Candles, Other Poetry and others. Grand plans for the meisterwerk have been undermined constantly either by a Much Better Idea or a sort of Chekhovian inertia.”