by J. Clifford Milligan
I submit to this old Earth
and the sovereign silence
in the shapes of clouds
like hieroglyphs
of shifting mist
that I can never read
In my gardenheart
the temptations of fruit
still hang heavy and sweet
and I hide absurdly from
the God I imagine
who planted the seeds
and let them grow
I fear and doubt the harvest
offering half-prayers
and tepid confessions
to the blank face
of the sky
* * * * *
I am always driving in the foggy dawn waiting for the sun to appear
for the day to break open
and hope
despite the weight
of my misgivings
that meaning will be made manifest
that the heavy corpse
will be cut free
It is rare indeed to be lost
in the momentary peace
of a quiet gaze,
to see the dawn unconquered
by some veiled symbol
of poetic optimism
or some object to classify
or product to sell
* * * * *
God is a shadowed sun
who shines on the shoulders
of your chanting ancestors
who conjure up the past
through you
In a black and white photo
in the bottom drawer
I gaze at the hands of my father
and then at my own hands
and I know this:
only one can get things done
The past is real
but has no grip
This is all that holds
* * * * *
The empty belly
has a grip on everything
and its tendrils
rooted in the first field
run deep and wide
and spawn infinite varieties
and technologies to tame them
Drones crop dust
with auto-pilot pesticides
wilting and shriveling
while hunger clings
to the barren confusion
of new dust
Even the metaphors are starving
and human joy is a foolish cliche
and love at last deleted
as unnecessary
Soon my mind
will be scanned
and read
and printed for all to see
as the new Dominion dawns
where nothing grows
What gifts can I offer the new king?
What words will they find
when my mind
is scrubbed
and indexed
with an ax?
They will stamp your soul with a QR code
and shrink wrap you tight in plastic
drop you in a bin
and put you on sale
as a buy one
get one free
Our sacred minds are commodified
and like charlatans in a bazaar
the new gods shout
and crowd around
with the greatest deals
we’ve ever seen
And with refusal
we must submit
and absolve ourselves
© 2026 J. Clifford Milligan All rights reserved.
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