20th december 2006

Look out, look out the gods are coming down; from palaces of glass they step out into air, among the clouds in multicoloured shirts and coats like harlequins; they step out into air, descend in palanquins of glass, look out, the gods are coming down.
The gods are pink, cherubic, young but never panting, they have tidy minds. Sometimes within their midst they bring a damsel (heightened by eternal bloom, of course, the gods are ageless); she speaks of dispositions and arrangements, orders given to a lesser god, she speaks to her attendants on a telephone (“my train”), look out, the gods are come, the gods are here among us on the ground.
They do not see us, for how could they? To them we are invisible, or mist, they brush our shoulders as they pass (to us of course the contact brings quick hurt, the denseness of it! The divinity of dark wool robes) they sweep away to sanctuaries elsewhere, the gods must sleep on earth. Look out, the gods are here.

They leave few traces of their presence. A pool of vomit (are the gods not flawed? They share our appetites); some crumpled papers, orange peel. And now they’re gone.

And us, what do we feel? Abandoned on the rainy streets, ignored; we wish we’d never witnessed deity. Too concentrated, godhead burns: we’re better off if gods are spread more thinly, if they’re everywhere at once and so invisible.

comment