Retreat Poem by Jan Sand

They spoke once of
The broken edge
Where world and sky
Made meeting
In catastrophe.
Where seas fell down
In steady roar
Into the sky,
Or pits of Hell.
What happened there
No one could tell.
No one had seen
Or cared to see
This horrific mystery.
When Magellan
Sought to find
This birthplace of infinity,
The Earth had sealed
Unto itself.
Grand horror fell
Back into the mind.

Once there were
Great man-shaped things
That lit the stars
And ate the moon
And rolled the Sun
Across the sky.
They shook the earth
And pissed the rain
And laughed with thunder
And disdain
At mankind’s loss
And silly gain.
They told when
To plant and sing
And fear and die
And everything.
But, somehow,
Upon looking close
They proved far
Too bellicose.
The rules are calmer now,
It seems.
They’ve tumbled back
Into our dreams.

One God, at times,
Is still up there
Behind the stars
Somehow, somewhere.
He fusses on morality
And fiddles with
Our destiny,
But seems, most times,
If will is free,
Existing inconsistently.
His eyes are red,
His thoughts are tired.
His beard as white as snow.
The ovens in his antique Hell
Are burning very low.
The World, I fear,
Will soon dismiss
This Father of
Immortal bliss.

There is no longer
Any spoor
Of Moon creatures
Of Cavour,
And Mars has turned
To rocky dust.
Barsoom, it seems,
Is a bust.
And so the monsters
File away.
Locally
They’ve had their day.

But out beyond
Centaurus arise
The monsters
With their death-ray eyes.
There, around alien fires,
The spooks and gods
And monsters stalk.
The gods strum softly
On their lyres
While things
With twisty pseudopods
Drip acid slime and talk
In garbled yowls,
Soprano howls,
Of starships come
All filled with men,
That monsters reign
Supreme again.