Author Information
"Book II"
by Jeph Johnson
after years of fruitless searching
I finally found GOD
...lying
by the side of the road
DEAD
with his outstretched arms still open
as if calling out to me.
I still could not see his face,
for the formerly beautiful visage
was now carrion
bloodied flat
by swarms of uncaring
motor cars
on an autobahn holiday.
sadly, I rolled his
stiff communion wafer
corpse into a shroud
and then
slid it into a
body bag
and zipped it up.
I lugged it into
a sky-blue hearse,
slammed the back door
and gave the
"thumbs-up" signal to the driver
(who looked more like my
Sunday School teacher
than any "grim reaper").
I watched him speed away
with his "holier-than-thou" cargo,
feeling the wind circle and swirl,
while the angels flew alongside
like dolphins following a luxury liner.
they followed neon nirvana road signs,
down golden-paved
roads of infinity;
far beyond heaven,
past inner peace
and finally arrived
on the corner of
Assuredness and Grace
one angel cried
(and it is not a sound worth describing)
my mystic friend babbled something
that all the orphaned
children of GOD
(of which I am foremost)
tried, to no avail, to interpret.
we all shook our heads
and our jaws dropped.
we grabbed hold of the earth
hoping it would continue spinning...
but dust was still dust in our palms,
ashes still ashes,
sifting through the holes in our hands.
the few of us who could still speak
chanted
"one more sunrise
please, just
one more sunrise"
the weather
and elements,
atoms
and neutrons,
everything else
that wasn't GOD
that holds everything together
still fluttered
with the same chaotic buzz
but it now seemed welcoming
flanked by this new spirit
of empty depression
we were suffering through.
the newly-appointed
keepers of the law
(for which I was now foremost)
searched in vain
for justice
and fairness
and equality.
we had one answer:
"no one said life was fair"
and it became our new golden rule
after all, it wasn't fair
GOD had to die
all we had to live on
was ignorance
and arrogance
I have decided
I will follow
His one set of footprints
because
I want to go
to the same place
GOD goes
when He dies.
