Collected Poems

But of late

A wandering god pursued,

It seems, by hideous things

He did at home has come to us

And pitched his tent here

Beneath the people's holy tree

And hoisted from its pinnacle

A charlatan bell that calls

Unknown monotones of revolts,

Scandals, and false immunities.

And I that none before could meet except

In fear though I brought no terrors

From creation's day of gifts I must now

Turn on my track

In dishonorable flight

Where children stop their play

To shriek in my ringing ears:

Look out, python! Look out, python!

Christians relish python flesh!

And mighty god Idemili

That once upheld from earth foundations

Cloud banks of sky's endless waters

Is betrayed in his shrine by empty men

Suborned with the stranger's tawdry gifts

And taken trussed up to the altar-shrine turned

Slaughterhouse for the gory advent

Feast of an errant cannibal god

Tooth-filed to eat his fellows.

And the sky recedes in

Disgust; the orphan snake