Deus Ex Machina
by and published in Edition Four of Pomegranate
for A.B & T.D.
They like to make-believe they’re gods; to think
they can sculpt universes out of sound
and stillnesses, form worlds from body-parts
and breaths. For other eyes they create time,
life, death, morality and hope, weave dreams –
but you have watched these lines and lies before.
They talk, but you can call down storms, produce
eclipses on demand and conjure up
a thousand twangling instruments at will.
Out front they peacock-strut in borrowed robes,
all noise and fury and another’s airs and graces.
You are silent, sitting at the back –
true gods of the machines, a pantheon in black.
Anthony Adler
Anthony Adler was born, once.