A Prayer to Shiva

For Gavin


Thunder, thunder, thunder.
Bitch, bitch, bitch.
What kind of performance is this?
Here I am prostrate before you—
All humility—on
All fours, ass in the air,
A perfectly submissive creature.
What do you do? You bitch.
You topple empires, skip galaxies
Across the emptiness
Like rocks across a pond.
Lord, it must be boring
Out there in the universe.
Next thing you know you’ll start
Pulling wings off flies. What

A strange god you are.
Look, Shiva, before
You draw a black line through
Creation, or, on second thought,
Crumple the whole thing
Up, toss it over your
Great shoulders, like so
Much waste paper, why don’t
You take a lesson from
Zeus? Just drop by in a shower
Of gold—for a good time?
Just you and me. Why not
Make it tonight? The stars do not
Need you as much I do.
Loved or unloved, up there,
They will continue to shine.

The Dance of Shiva

Before this world was formed, I played a role
Hitherto reserved only for darkness:
I was the void in which you poured your soul.

I am the first, the last, the beautiful
Truth—Keats’s amphora—I shall outlast
All other vessels. Nothing, that’s my role

In the great cosmic drama. I’m the whole
Of time itself set spinning by your presence.
I was the void in which you poured your soul

So long ago—before a god could hold
A paltry thing like man and love him as
His equal. Let’s give warmth a larger role

In this new universe. Space was so cold,
So lifeless, dark and empty in the past.
I was the void in which you poured your soul—

The mouth, the Milky Way, the gloryhole—
Ten thousand other gods have used. But that’s
The past. I am nothing again: my role
Tonight is infinite. Come fill my soul.