Sabbatai Zevi
The night owl is reading in the all-night café.
The place is empty but for him and the employees.
He’s reading about the gods who have left the Earth:
gods of the marketplace, gods of childbirth and marriage.
There is no god of the Chevy Impala.
There is no god of my washer and dryer.
In the all-night café, there is understated chatter –
it’s in English, but it might as well be in Greek.
The untreated schizophrenic slowly drinks his cup of coffee.
He is busy returning to the scene of the crime.
Outside the coffee house, the god Apollo is standing,
come from Olympus on a matter of importance.
It’s been a long year for the coffee gods –
a thousand cups of coffee, a thousand dances.
The man sips his latte and gazes into the void:
there is room there to swallow an entire theology.
Sabbatai, Sabbatai, plaything of God,
was the voice that you heard the one Moses could hear?
I’ve heard it myself calling year after year.
I’ve walked like a fool in the path that you trod.
Sabbatai Zevi
Thanks, Phil - disconnect for sure! This poem ends part one of the MS, on a sour note. There's no real hope of recovery here. Part two will be different, it's called Rebirth.
Well done on giving up coffee! I am far from that point at the moment, though I try to steer clear after 3 p.m. You gave me those coffee gods in this poem's first iteration, about a year ago.
I'm glad you like the opening lines. That was me. I've removed the initial cap on God, with thanks, though the Bible quote is "The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God." Of course, there is also Nietzsche's "God is dead." Though the actual line in Also sprach Zarathustra, as I recall, is roughly, "Once a poor man lived so isolated in a forest that he hadn't hear that God is dead."
Sabbatai Zevi was a false Messiah in about 1670 who married, settled down, and converted to Islam. Another sour note.
Cheers,
John
Well done on giving up coffee! I am far from that point at the moment, though I try to steer clear after 3 p.m. You gave me those coffee gods in this poem's first iteration, about a year ago.
I'm glad you like the opening lines. That was me. I've removed the initial cap on God, with thanks, though the Bible quote is "The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God." Of course, there is also Nietzsche's "God is dead." Though the actual line in Also sprach Zarathustra, as I recall, is roughly, "Once a poor man lived so isolated in a forest that he hadn't hear that God is dead."
Sabbatai Zevi was a false Messiah in about 1670 who married, settled down, and converted to Islam. Another sour note.
Cheers,
John