TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS

          Is man merely a mistake of God's?

          Or God merely a mistake of man's?

               -Neitzsche

Some causal chains 

are so long, thought 

cannot wind them;

others, as inexorable 

as the final chord in songs.

Quirky and immortal

and mercurial 

as quarks—

as wiseacre cartoon 

rabbits, pigs, and ducks—

the first gods must have sprung 

from the volcanic 

islands of our minds

as general outlines,

suggested by the anxious 

agitation of our motions—

then grew tall

and strong on all

the sugar, fat, and salt 

of our desperate hopes 

and fevered questions, 

til at last they turned 

misshapen 

and strange,

which gradually changed 

to strange-

ly quiet—

then just dead-

silent—

then just 

dead-wrong.