Verse IX
Have you ever seen him?
Have you ever seen god in a book
or god in a river
or god in a tree
or god in a god
in a god in a man
in a piece of cloth
in a pencil
in a word,
a single word
and that word is the word of god
and that word is AUM
from which all sounds come,
it is the big bang
and it is the little bang
and it is all the little bangs in between,
it is the seven days and
the silence past the M in AUM is the seventh day
on which God rested and
that seventh day is today
or tomorrow, for creation is not yet done,
nor am I, for I am alive and
when I am dead, I will be alive,
for these words are alive in you and
in you I will live
for my words are a virus,
long and old and deadly
my words are a virus and
by reading them you contract it,
my word virus is as old as thought and
it is passed on through those that are infected,
I picked mine up from being a slut with books of ill repute,
my words are soiled by Joyce and Whitman,
and Burroughs, sweet Burroughs,
and Thompson, and Homer, and Krishna,
our words mingle together and present themselves,
we are the Archilochus brigade,
and we stumble into battle drunkenly
holding our spears and we run from the battlefield,
flinging off our armor and leaving behind
our shields are for Thracians to take
for there is wine to be drunken and
women to defile and
spirits to defile and
religions to defile and
words to defile and
souls to defile