God-Shaped Hole (complete)

Here it is again. All finished now. It sure has taken a while. Reclining A cluster of idle thoughts Shot the breeze til they were sure that it had died Three black birds Maypole-dancing figurines Seemed to whisper that the silent stillness lied The word was passed to Pry the sky apart And with their shovels free the breaths it stole But shrubs of doubt grew Wild upon their heart And covered the knoll Until a tall and dapper man Said smiling, “Why, of course you can!” They marked the spot and there began To dig a God-shaped hole Eclipses Stuttered across pallid skies As blind men searched for a matching pair of socks Rising damp Flooded the inland valleys Where the stranded shepherds clung to floating rocks With scopes of all kinds Strapped to their noses Serious men studied each other’s sole Comparing notes on Remnants of roses They’d trampled to coal With grimy smiles the miners laid A weary arm upon the spade That bit the seething soil where they’d Prepared a God-shaped hole Predators Of hunger depth and coldness Were spied from the mast by children of famine They circled Like leathery satellites Around a happy school of singing salmon A man in velour Watched an eager crowd And smiled while each man worked to earn his toll Picking with needles At the fine white shroud Covering the knoll Fingers were busy words were curt Breezes ruffled a maiden’s skirt As each cast his handful of dirt Into the God-shaped hole Posterity Spat out its teeth in disgust While history just sat like a stunned mullet Buckling skies Shed their stars in silver rain And a pale man let them run down his gullet Ripples of hunger And flickers of love Wracked the thin frame of a lost little foal As silent black birds Now circled above His terrified soul He clutched the tiny bone he’d found And made an awful rattling sound A-scratching at the stony ground To dig a God-shaped hole