This poem was chosen by our judges as the 3rd Place winner in our 6th Annual Poetry Contest.
Beneath Heaven’s Deicide
a silent sky left all abandoned while women without a taint
were hammering at smoldering theodicies on anvils,
and men who once mistook themselves (a crime, perhaps) as saints
would find themselves with weeping souls now rendered with clipped wings.
the streets flooded with fatherless children in uprising;
they who knew ornate temples biding in reverent silence,
non-empty tombs of albatross’ went unatoned by tithing;
salvation found to be a gift repentance could never bring.
they scour the earth with ill attempts to salvage selfish meaning,
a tale of man pursuing some elusive panacea.
to not accept concomitant were damned and sinn’r scheming,
conspiring, yet careful not to wake the beast in slumber;
“well hurry sir, your family may yet escape this blight;
let us make in our own image fulfilling desperate need,
lest empires lay underneath the darkened skies by night,
to weep and pray; a satisfy for every man’s great hunger.”
they’ll meet somewhere on hallowed ground while smelting sacred gold,
tread carefully so ancient day their workings may not tarnish,
men slaving day and night to craft the face of great divine,
pretending not to notice their reflection in the varnish.