if god is dead

If God is dead
Then bury me beneath a million afflictions of pleasure.

Bathe me entire in my appetites and drape me in the grave clothes of my wanting;

I shall no more be filled,
I shall not be filled.

If God is dead
Then pass me around like cigarettes and smoke me deep to the ashen ends,

Feel me burn in your fingertips, icy rushing like a fleeting hymn.

Subsume me whole into an earthly ecstasy,
And then, Oh gods, let me touch the stars -
At least give me something to reach for.

Be my serenely smiling stone idol,
Benign comfort, heartache daydream
Surfeiting solace, Midnight nearness,
Some point of light in
Thrashing darkness,
Where did my footing go?

No whispered spell will work again,
No divinity inhabits my small utterance,
So let me sink in silence
Let me sink;

I shall no more know rest,
I shall not know rest.

If God is dead
Then I will haunt this doomed earth like
a boozy, brazen spectacle, a spectre once holy.

So fill, fill! mine own heart uttermost full with all golden strivings

Bedeck me in gay tinsel and tissue

and then collapse me into a sea of inevitable and unfathomable solitude.

And I shall not be again,
I shall not be.