A STORY TOLD IN THE HAARLEMKIRCH

For a long while now God has been leaning His back

Against a pillar in a painting by Pieter Saanredam

Of the Haarlemkirch. (One of the perks and problems 

Of being God is pictures seeming neither more nor less real

Than things built of stone) He stopped by

Early in 1641 and settled Himself next to a tired girl

Sitting on the base of a fat marble column.

To improve the moment, God began telling her a story

Which, after many unexpected turns and twists,

Has turned into you; God is making you up

As He goes along. After vamping for the last few years

He's really proud of what He's about to do with you.

If you weren't already a story told by God

I'd advise you to practice humility and prayer.

MARQUIS

boss i have visited your death mask

and all i can say is that you looked

pretty calm about being dead 

though your lips 

Were a thin crooked line as if

you could have told one 

last joke but decided not to your hair 

was combed very neatly

bunter wrting in the style of archy the cockroach expains to lord peter why hes taken another job

boss said bunter,
no hard feelings but
after playing a
major role in
your first books and
nursing the bad case
of the wimwams you
brought home from
the trenches i
have dwindled to a
mere bit player and so
have accepted the general's
offer to return to
my original role
as a batman if
any mail comes
for me please forward it
to 1778

CONVERGING PARALLELS

When Euclid died he

Became a line running

To infinity which

Sounds good but is really 

Pretty boring. He began

Making stops and hauling

Passengers and freight.

A line running 

To infinity will never 

Get there so it doesn't matter 

How fast it goes or

In what direction or if

It moves at all. Some lines 

Think it best to stand still

Because -- who knows? -- 

Infinity may be 

Looking for them. 

At some undefined point

Euclid was joined by the other

Euclid, of Megara, who

Believed truth would be found 

By exposing untruths.

Euclid of Megara never 

Walked in a straight line.

The books he wrote are lost

It is remembered that he

Would sneak into Athens 

Dressed as a woman.

GATES

A very small angel with a sword

No longer than a needle

Stands outside the gates of paradise.

As always, the sword turns all ways

Not only up and down and around 

All points of the compass but

In directions which lack names

And may only be because this angel

Assumes they do. She

Is the latest of a long series of angels

Who have died on duty or been promoted 

Or went walkabout one day down one 

Of the unnamed directions. The first

Was enormous but everything 

Was bigger then. As do we, angels 

Grow smaller over time. Some day

The angel at the gate will be visible 

Only to the eye of faith and only 

When it squints or looks through a lens.

POEMISH

The grey cat thinks of God, but its shadow 

Calls to you in a hoarse whisper 

"Go home and pack; be prepared to leave 

At a moment's notice." The old tree 

Your grandfather planted interrupts its dying

To mutter that a committee of low gods

Has assembled to argue over your fate.

Aunt Edith, who died before you were born,

Sends you a dream in which the two of you

Find an echo of the lost chord. Later,

She gives a small silver coin to an angel

With blank, unseeing eyes.

RELATIVE

Due to circumstances not likely to be repeated

My mother had, by a five to four vote,

Become God. Technically, this made me

The Son of God. Unfortunately, no salary

Or other perks came with the title. It took weeks

To even get an appointment with Her

Working my way through a phalanx

Of divine relatives. My sister,

The Daughter of God, was busy destroying

Small, barely inhabited planets. Word was

She was in training to oversee

Galaxy-spanning disasters. My grandfather,

The Father of God, was sympathetic

But said she'd never listened to him

Even before she was God. Saint Florence,

The First Cousin of God and Her Secretary,

Finally penciled me in for a late lunch meeting

My mother seemed distracted. She thanked me

For being less troublesome than my brother,

The Older Son of God -- the Village Atheist

For several small Southern towns  -- but said

There were no immediate plans to allow me

The power to perform miracles. Equally,

The forging of nails to crucify me

Had been postponed to an indefinite date.

As I left, Florence gave me a souvenir pen

And a cellophane-wrapped piece of infinity.