New Theognidea

When one drinks

and does too deep,

then one takes on a

role and look of God.

For through his eyes

adrift—lost in alcohol

he starts to make

things come alive,

once his splashing cup,

as it decants and empties,

suddenly chants and talks

in brassy, burbling tongues.

And the objects void before

of sense and breath or mind

take on piglets’ faces, asses’

ears and quite dirty mouths.

And the room, once firm

and stable, is now going

round and round—and

prances on the double

and then wobbles in

as his shapely supplicant

planting down a petition

on his divine, doughty knees.

To finish his new Pantheon

and his reform of the world—

Thus the drunkard got to peep

into the secret of God’s making

when the idols too got smashed.