God

The last time I did
acid
I saw
god
said the
woman in the
first act
while a tumbler
rolled offstage into
shadow and the lights
dimmed
as a bright spot
descended on a disfigured
man
standing alone at
center
stage who told us all that
god does not
exist
in a tab of acid but
is found
deep
in the hole where the
World Trade Center once
stood, and
close to the explosive
device placed on the roadside in
Kirkuk,
in the centrifuges of Iran’s
nuclear
laboratories, and in the
madrassas
of Pakistan where
he
feeds on the
blood of girls
going to school and
other not so
innocents, and alongside the
bomb-laden vegetable
cart where he silently
waits
for evening prayers to
end
and for crowds of shoppers and the
crush of families to
appear
in the market
square where he will
reveal
himself anew and so make
martyrs
of us
all.

(this poem appeared in the Wilderness House Literary Review volume 4/4, December 2009)